“Sorry,” I said. “Maybe a soda would be more appropriate.”
He groaned, but I don’t think the hurt lasted long with the way he watched the flight attendant walk away.
I turned to Penelope and gestured for her to take a seat across the aisle from her brother. She looked from him to me, reluctance in every line on her face. But then she went, settling into a captain’s chair directly across from JT. I took the seat beside her, glancing out the window in time to see the pilot and co-pilot doing the last of their preflight tests while the airport crew stashed our luggage into the compartment in the bottom of the plane.
It was all routine to me, things I rarely noticed anymore. But I found myself seeing things through new eyes as I prepared to take my son home for the first time. I hadn’t thought I’d be nervous. Excited, yes, but not nervous. As I packed up my little rental house and put my affairs in order here in Texas, all I could think about was how great it would be to be back in my own surroundings. But now I found myself wondering how my world would look to JT and Penelope. Especially Penelope.
Penelope had her cellphone out, her thumbs moving quickly as she wrote a text.
“Everything okay?”
She looked up, her big eyes round with something like fear. “I was just reminding Nick about the Jaminsky wedding next Friday.”
“I’m sure he’s on top of it.”
“I know, I just…” She sighed. “I always did all the scheduling. Nick overbooks things because he sometimes forget to check the calendar.”
“He’ll be fine, Penelope.”
“Stop worrying about the bakery,” JT said, tossing the wrapper from the straw the flight attendant had brought with his soda. “Nick’s worked there since he was my age. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Listen to your brother,” I said, reaching over to touch the back of my hand to hers. “He’s a smart kid.”
“Hey, I’m not a kid. I’m an adolescent.”
That made Penelope laugh, which made me smile.
It felt like we hadn’t been alone together since that day in the hotel room. We were always with JT in his hospital room, or we were taking turns going back to town to pack up and prepare for this trip. I’d kind of hoped that we could sneak out a night or two together, but she didn’t want to leave JT at the hospital alone during the night. The days she spent at the bakery, trying to put the finances and other paperwork into some sort of order.
I was kind of hoping we’d find some time together once we arrived in Oregon.
The plane took off a few minutes later. JT held on to the armrests of his seat like he was on a roller coaster or something, but he calmed down once we reached cruising altitude. And then he was full of conversation, going on and on about this and that, keeping us distracted until the plane began its descent into the private airport outside of Medford.
“Where is your house, exactly?” JT asked as the plane negotiated a small strip of land that was cleared between massive copses of trees.
“About ten minutes from here. I live in Ashland, right over the hill there,” I said, gesturing toward the window beside my seat.
“Ashland. Isn’t that part of your company’s name?”
“My father named the original company, Ashland Furniture, after the town where he was born and raised. And I decided to keep it when I expanded the company.”
“Cool,” JT said.
Penelope was staring out the window, her eyes moving from the trees to the mountains back to the trees. I couldn’t decide if she was nervous about the impending landing, or if she was thinking about something else. At least it seemed her head was no longer back in that bakery.
JT grabbed the armrests again as the tires bounced off the tarmac and the engines began to scream as the pilots threw them into reverse. The plane came to a stop without much of a bump, the pilot making his customary speech, informing us of the time and how long, exactly, the flight had taken.
“Why do we want to know that?” JT asked.
“There’s a time difference between here and Texas. It helps you reorient yourself.”
He lifted his chin slightly in a sort of nod as he turned and stared out the window. “Sure are a lot of trees around here.”
Once again, I carried him off the plane as Penelope followed, advising me when he was about to hit his head or his leg on something. My car, a Mercedes-Benz Maybach S600 Base, was sitting on the tarmac waiting for us.
“Cool!” JT cried when he saw it, almost jumping out of my arms when we got to the bottom of the steps and his wheelchair. The moment he was in the chair, he pushed the wheels over to the car, moving around it somewhat awkwardly as he tried to maneuver his casted leg around to get close enough to touch the cool metal of the car.
“Is this your car?” he asked.
“It is.”
“Wow. Do you think I can drive it next year when I get my license?”
“You kind of need to get out of that wheelchair first,” Penelope reminded him.