“I do. It’s nice for Dr. O.”
“You still call him that, after all these years?”
“I tried Arthur but it never felt right.”
They get their coffees, carry them to a quiet corner, where Miri says, “He’s sick.”
“I heard.”
“We’re hoping you’ll come to see him.”
“I was waiting for his eightieth birthday.”
“You probably shouldn’t wait that long.”
“August? Are you saying August is too long to wait?”
Miri nods.
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
—
ON THE PLANE Miri is seated next to a young girl. “I’m Lily,” she says. “I’m nine. My dad is a pilot.”
“Is he flying this plane?” Miri asks, sure that if he is he’ll be extra careful with his daughter on board.
“No. He flies to Europe,” she says, kicking the seat in front of her. “I just came back from Portugal. Have you been there?” She doesn’t wait for Miri to tell her she hasn’t been to Portugal. “You should go. They have a lot of tiles there. Do you like tiles?”
“Yes.”
“Everything is tiled except your toothbrush.”
Miri laughs.
“You think I’m joking but I’m not,” Lily says. “Are you going to Vegas to gamble?”
“No,” Miri tells her. “I live there.”
“Me, too. With my mother. My dad lives all over the place. Do you think it’s weird?”
Does she mean weird that her parents live in different places? “Vegas,” she says. “Do you think it’s a weird place to live?”
“I’ve lived there since I was fifteen. My children grew up there.”
“And they turned out okay? Because my dad thinks it’s not a good place to grow up.”
“They’re fine.” Well, she thinks, two of them are anyway, but she’s not getting into that.
“What were you doing in New Jersey?” Lily asks.
“Visiting old friends.”
“Was it fun?”
Miri thinks before answering. “In a way it was. Yes.”
The flight attendant stands at the front of the cabin. “May I have your attention?” She demonstrates the proper way to fasten your seat belt. Then she says, “In the unlikely event…”
Lily leans close and says, “This is the part I don’t like. Why do they have to say that?”
“It’s just a safety rule,” Miri tells her, trying to sound as if she means it.
“Are you scared?” Lily asks.
“No. Why would I be scared?”
“You’re digging your fingernails into your armrests.”
Miri tries to laugh. “Just an old habit,” she tells Lily.
But Lily can see right through her. She reaches for Miri’s hand. “Will you hold my hand until we’re up?”
“Sure,” she says. Lily reminds her of Fern on their first flight to Las Vegas. But she doesn’t tell her that. Instead, she says, “I have a daughter. She’s fifteen. Her name is Eliza.”
“Do I remind you of her?”
“A little.”
“Is she dead?”
“What? No! Why would you say that?”
“Because you seemed sad when you said her name.”
“I’m not sad. I just miss her. She’s at school. I’ll see her next weekend.” Miri closes her eyes. Who is Lily, really? What are the odds that the two of them would be seated together on this flight? In the unlikely event…she hears the flight attendant saying in her head. Life is a series of unlikely events, isn’t it? Hers certainly is. One unlikely event after another, adding up to a rich, complicated whole. And who knows what’s still to come?
Lily looks out the window, then back at her. “My dad says unlikely events aren’t all bad. There are good ones, too.”
“Like meeting you on the plane,” Miri says, making Lily smile.
—
DAISY SPENDS TIME with Dr. O every day. An hour here, an hour there. Sometimes they tell each other jokes. Sometimes they reminisce. Other times they’re quiet. He sleeps, she reads. Rusty says it’s such a help to be able to call on her, to count on her. She still goes to the office three days a week. She still looks good, maybe because she gave up smoking when she moved to Las Vegas, maybe thanks to her condition. Who knows? That was so long ago.
She can’t imagine life without Dr. O, her oldest, dearest friend, more than fifty years of working together, fifty years of friendship, of knowing everything about the other, except for one—she never knew, she never guessed about Dr. O and Rusty. How he managed to hide that from her she doesn’t know. Proves that everyone, even the person closest to you, can have secrets.
—