“That he had another girlfriend?”
“Who told you that?”
Natalie shrugged. “You can’t trust any of them. Not even after twenty years of marriage. Just ask my mother.”
Miri lay on her back, trying to dismiss the pain spreading through her body.
“I’m never going to let a boy break my heart,” Natalie said. “Not that friends can’t break your heart, too. And family. You think you can trust them, then you find out you were wrong. That’s all I’m going to say.”
She turned away then, leaving Miri awake, tears rolling down her cheeks.
—
FERN DIDN’T WANT to leave. She wanted to be flower girl at the wedding.
“We’re not having that kind of wedding,” Rusty told her.
“What kind are you having?” Fern asked.
“It will be a very quiet wedding in the rabbi’s study. You won’t be missing anything.”
Still, Fern cried. “I want to be your sister,” she told Miri. “I like you better than Natalie.”
“Don’t tell that to anyone else, okay?” Miri said.
“You mean it’s a secret?”
“Not so much a secret as something only the two of us know.”
“I wish I could stay here and ride Trigger to school. I don’t want to go back to Mommy. She’s mean. She only cares about good manners.”
“Good manners are important.”
“Natalie doesn’t have good manners.”
“She used to.”
“But she doesn’t anymore.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
Miri went to the airport with them, to say goodbye. Fern wore her appliquéd jacket with the silver wings, a second set of wings still pinned to Roy Rabbit’s vest. Natalie wore dungarees, her new western boots and a fringed jacket she’d seen in a shopwindow on Fremont Street. All that was missing was a ten-gallon hat. “Mommy’s going to be surprised to see you wearing that,” Fern said.
“That’s the idea,” Natalie told her.
“She’s going to be mad.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Are you going to be mean forever?” Fern asked.
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Natalie said, laughing.
Miri would have hugged her for old times’ sake, but Natalie kept her distance, turning once, halfway out the tarmac to the plane, to wave to her. “So long, cowgirl,” she called. “I’ll see you in my dreams.”
“Not if I see you first,” Miri called back.
Dr. O was accompanying the girls to Birmingham. They’d have to change planes and he didn’t think they were experienced enough travelers to do it on their own. Natalie disagreed.
Rusty was teary-eyed saying goodbye to him.
“I’ll be back in five days,” he promised.
“That’s five days too many,” Rusty said.
When Dr. O kissed Rusty goodbye, Miri looked away. Getting used to her mother in love was going to take time. Getting used to her mother pregnant—that was a whole different story.
The plane’s engines revved up. It taxied to the runway, then picked up speed until it rose into the air. Into the air, Junior Birdman, she imagined Fern singing, her hands making upside-down goggles over her eyes.
Miri waved at the plane even though the passengers couldn’t see her. Inside her head she said a little prayer to keep them safe, to return Dr. O to Rusty, and the girls to Corinne.
Rusty took a cracker from her pocket, put it in her mouth and chewed. “I think I’m starting to feel better,” she said to Miri.
“I’m glad.”
They stood together, mother and daughter, their hair blowing back in the wind.
“I think I’ll learn to ride a horse,” Miri said.
Rusty didn’t miss a beat. “I think I’ll learn to drive a car.”
“We can learn together because you can get a license here at fifteen.”
“Fifteen? Who told you that?”
“This girl I met at the Flamingo.”
“You made a friend?”
“It’s too soon to call her a friend.”
Rusty drew her close. “We’re going to be okay. This is all going to work out. I can feel it in my bones.”
Miri wished she could feel it, too. Until she could, she hoped Rusty was right.
The flight attendant gently nudges Miri. They’re coming into Newark and her seat back has to be returned to its upright position. She’s still a nervous flier, still digs her fingernails into the fabric of her seat cushion for landings. She could have waited until tonight and come with Christina and Jack on the company plane but she wanted to do this on her own.