Still Loop 398
I'm standing under the luggage compartment that Heather just closed. I take a deep breath, willing myself to open it and deal with whatever consequences come when passengers catch me rifling through a bag that doesn't belong to me. One worse, a bag that belongs to one of them.
My nerves are in a jumble after my conversation with Rion about my backpack. I know I should just tell him. About my father's ashes in the sealed bag. About all the issues I've been speaking with Dr. Sheryl about surrounding my dad's death. But I can't bring myself to do it.
I'm still so angry. And I don't want to bring Rion into that.
Or maybe, I think, I first need to process it myself.
It was five months ago when my father announced that he was leaving. He hadn't been happy, he told me. He'd been talking it over with my mom, and he decided that he needed a new start somewhere else. He was leaving for a new life, without us, on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Just like that.
In a matter of seconds, my life became the plotline of a bad TV drama. The depressed dad with the midlife crisis, going on some sort of personal journey to find himself.
"Is it someone else? Are you having an affair?" It was the only two questions I had. The only ones that came to mind.
He didn't answer immediately, which told me everything I needed to know. He wanted out. A new life with a new woman, and maybe a new family. A break – possibly permanently – from everything.
And everything included me.
And then two weeks ago – over four months after he left for Hawaii to start this new chapter of his life – I unleashed on him. "You're a selfish man!" I yelled into the phone.
There was silence on the other end, and then a crackle from somewhere above the expansive ocean, in the over two thousand miles of distance between us.
My dad's voice was raw. "You don't know how life changes you, what it starts to feel like when you get older cause you're still so young. You just don't know." I stifled an angry laugh as he continued, "You might not realize it now, but you have something so many people would give anything for. You have the best thing in the world."
His voice was hoarse, clouded with emotion as he whispered in my ear. "You have your whole life in front of you. Innumerable possibilities. Countless outcomes. You have options, and dreams, and an unwritten future. There's no greater gift on this planet than that."
A shiver ran through me and I shifted my weight, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Like I wasn't talking to my dad anymore. It felt like I was talking to someone I never met. A complete stranger.
"But as I got older I got to a point in my life where there was no future to look forward to," he continued. "My life already unfolded. There were no what ifs left to explore, no maybes, no fantastical dreams or all-night adventures. And then, one day I woke up, and realize this is it. This is it."
My dad inhaled shakily, and cleared his throat. But the words sounded thick, like they had grown too big for his windpipe. "I knew that, and I was okay with it. Until suddenly I wasn't anymore."
There was a long pause. So long that it swallowed up my entire bedroom.
I slid down the wall, until I hit the carpeted ground. My knees tucked up towards my chin. My voice, silent and small, found its way out.
"You cheated on mom," I heard myself say. "You cheated on us."
"I never cheated on you."
Heavy tears appeared from nowhere. They fought through the anger, shifting my emotions towards sadness. "It doesn't feel that way."
My father started crying too, and something about his tears tilted my emotions again, away from sadness and back to anger. The rage bubbled over, consuming me. "You lost us, and for what? So you don't feel old? You're a selfish man!" I yelled, as the anger clawed its way out of me. "I don't want you in my life anymore."
I couldn't stop, the fury turning into a palpable thing. The tears poured out and my hands shook. The sadness and anger were connected now, linked in a way that felt permanent. Like one could no longer exist without the other.
"This is going to blow up in your face. Spectacularly," I warned. "And when it does, I won't be there to pick up the pieces when everything falls apart."
Those were the very last words I ever said to him. He went out for an ocean swim on the North Coast of the island the next morning, and got caught in a strong riptide. He never returned. A day later, his body was found, pulled out of the water.
And now I'm standing in row 22, reliving that phone call in my head, like it's in a loop of its own. There's nowhere I can go on this plane to escape it. It runs around in my head like a record with a scratch, repeating the same lines over and over again.
You're a selfish man!
I don't want you in my life anymore.
I won't be there to pick up the pieces when everything falls apart.
But he's no longer here. Just his remains in a bag that I can't bear being around, on a miserable flight time loop that won't end – except for the fact that it is ending.
And now I have to do everything in my power to make sure it doesn't end badly.
My attention shifts back to the compartment above me. I reach overhead, my fingertips pressing into the silver latch. It pops open, and I can see the black duffel bag that Heather moved. But I'm too short. I lift myself onto the balls of my feet, then to my toes. My calf muscles strain as I stretch higher, but I still can't reach it.
Damn. Bad planning. Rion should be doing this. I should be tackling the mystery bathroom.
I consider the armrest. No one is sitting in the aisle seat in 22D, so I can step on it and use it as leverage to get my hands on that bag.
It's the only plan I have.
I press my canvas shoe against the armrest, pushing myself up into an uncomfortable squat, like I'm an owl perched on a branch. A very awkward owl.
"What are you doing?" Jack Greene, who's been passed out in the window seat, suddenly accuses. His voice is gruff. "You never put a bag in there," he snaps. He's clearly still drunk, and even from here I swear I can smell the liquor on his breath.
"I sure did," I reply as casually as I can muster, acting like it's perfectly normal for a person to be balancing in a crouched position on top of a narrow airplane armrest.
"Get down from there!" Jack is yelling now. He digs his finger into the silver call button and cranes his neck, looking behind him for a flight attendant.
I reach up, hooking my arm under the handle of the black duffel bag that Heather moved. I grab it and give it a yank, pulling it.
It's halfway down now, draped over the edge of the overhead bin as Jack shouts, "Get down! You better not touch my bag!"
But I know this black bag isn't his. I distinctly remembering him stumbling on the plane with just a grey backpack. I don't know who the bag belongs to, though.
Jack is so mad he's nearly foaming at the mouth.
"I wonder why on earth Rhonda left your honeymoon early?" I say sweetly, although my voice drips in sarcasm. "You're clearly a joy to be around."
Confusion spreads across his face. He's clearly befuddled that I'd know anything about his disastrous honeymoon. But soon anger replaces the confusion and his face darkens. "What was that?" Jack yells, practically shaking in anger.
I swallow. Well, that was the wrong thing to say.
Next thing I know, he's grabbed my leg, his long fingers tightening around my ankle. He's pulling me, as I try to slide back the zipper of the black bag. There's a small gap, but I can't see anything from this angle.
"Get off of me!" I yell as nearby passengers stir, some standing to get a better look at what's going on. I know I don't have long before someone attempts to break this up, and I need to get into the black bag before that happens. But I can't do anything while Jack is pulling me down.
From my height, I have a good shot at his groin. So, I use one of the martial arts moves that Mason Kahn taught me. Not a nut grab, but definitely a nut kick.
I flick my foot forward, not hard but precise, and my canvas shoe lands right in between his legs. Jack wails from the impact.
Mason would be proud.
As Jack folds forward, I finally pull the black bag open.
Lydia, the flight attendant, is behind me now, yelling at me to get down as I peer inside the bag. In shock, I watch a number of small pouches filled with an off-white substance slide out of the duffel, one after the other.
I stare in shock. This powdery substance isn't anything like the ash at my feet.
And then I realize, with a start, what it must be.
Drugs.