“George is wonderful,” Marla said. “He’s so good with them. They love him. Kids can tell the difference between someone really having fun playing with them, like George, and pretending to have fun, like my parents.”
“I know,” Lizzie said. “I know that.” She sighed and spoke again. “Do you think there’s a statute of limitations on being punished for all the awful things we did when we were kids?”
“I hope so,” Marla said. “But when James got sick I started thinking that maybe it was some sort of retribution for giving up the baby.”
“Oh, no, Marla, don’t think that. It’s absolutely not true. You should talk to George. He could help you see how wrong thinking that is.”
“Lizzie, do you hear what you’re saying? As if you listened to anything George says.”
“Oh, me. Don’t go by me. I’m George’s only failure. The black cloud in his sky of cerulean blue. You should read his fan mail. Evidently immediately after people listen to George, they suddenly become happy. They’re cured, if that’s the right word.”
The Parcheesi game was over. Lulu had won, George finishing a very distant last.
A few days later Marla told Lizzie that it was time she and George went home. “I’ve got to see if I can do this on my own. There’s a lot I have to figure out, and you guys have stuff to figure out too.”
“You know that if you need me for anything, anything at all, I’ll be back.”
“I know that,” Marla said.
Everyone piled into the car to take George and Lizzie to the Albuquerque airport. They all cried as they hugged and kissed good-bye. Lordy, we’ve sure done a lot of crying on this trip, Lizzie thought as they started walking into the terminal. “Wait,” India yelled, bolting after them, leaving Marla, Beezie, and Lulu standing by the car. “I want to hear the story of the paste fight again.” Which was probably the best thing that could have happened, because the three adults started laughing. Marla gave Lizzie a final hug and whispered, “Go home and make a life with George.”
“Next time,” George promised, hugging each of the girls again. “I’ll tell it as often as you want.”
The flight to Dallas was uneventful and on time, but now Lizzie and George were stuck there. The terminal was shut down until a torrential rainstorm, with its accompanying lightning, passed through. It would be at least, the gate agent’s voice underlined and then repeated his last two words, at least ninety minutes before they’d begin boarding the plane. And maybe longer. They should all just relax. Easier said than done, Lizzie thought. She’d finished reading Ian McEwan’s newest novel, Atonement, just the night before and couldn’t imagine starting another novel until Briony didn’t feel quite so real to her. She thought she shouldn’t have left Marla alone. Hadn’t Lizzie promised James as much? That she’d always be there? What did that mean exactly, “always be there”? This was the sort of question that George most loved, and in the past he and Lizzie had many excellent Non-Difficult Conversations about issues that didn’t revolve around Lizzie’s unhappiness.
“I’m going for a walk,” she told George. “I’ll be back.”
She was just getting a drink of water when she heard the static-y stutter that preceded a loudspeaker announcement in every airport that Lizzie had ever been in. She waited, thinking it might be about their flight. It was not.
“Will Dr. Jack McConaghey please check with the gate agent at gate seventeen.” And once again: “Will Dr. Jack McConaghey please check with the gate agent at gate seventeen.”
Whomp. Lizzie felt the same way as when she’d been slammed in the stomach trying to dodge that malevolent ball during recess in elementary school. She leaned over and put her hands on her knees and tried to breathe normally. Could it really be Jack, after all this time? Was it really possible she could walk—she double-checked the number of her own gate—twelve gates away and find him?
Yes. It was obviously possible, because she was now on her way there.
But wait. She paused and asked herself why she wanted to do this.
Because it might be Jack.
But what if it was? What would that accomplish, finally seeing Jack? Really, Lizzie, what would it accomplish to see him?
You know that I always look for him in the cities I go to. So if it isn’t Jack I can just forget it and go back to my gate and wait for the plane.
Ah, but what if it is Jack? How would she feel if he didn’t even recognize her? After all the years of his living so large in Lizzie’s memories, what if she couldn’t pick him out from all the other men at gate seventeen? And what would she possibly say to him after more than a decade? Was she going to accuse him of abandoning her? We were in college, Lizzie told herself. In college, girls break up with the boys they’re dating all the time, and vice versa. It’s normal behavior that often leaves people unhappy. Look how it’s made me desperately unhappy for such a long time.
But then you went and built up this elaborate fantasy that if only you were with Jack everything about your life would be different and better, she thought. And I see that that’s ridiculous. First of all, James would still be dead. Second, and this is the important part, it’s your own unhappiness, Lizzie. It’s always been yours. Maybe, just maybe, George has been right all along, that you’ll never be happy until you can believe in the possibility of happiness. Maybe you’ve been using Jack all these years to avoid confronting that.
Lizzie slipped the bracelet off her wrist and ran her finger over the engraved words. They had been worn down a bit, but she could still make them out. “Shall love you always.” Perhaps that sentence was no longer true, although she had certainly believed it to be true, once. She started to put it back on and stopped. Quickly, so she wouldn’t get cold feet, she went into the nearest bathroom and, making sure that no one was looking at her, left the bracelet on the side of a sink and walked purposefully back to gate five.
She could see George, now sitting on the floor, laughing while he did coin tricks for a little boy. George, who loved her despite everything she was or had said or done. There’d been no more loudspeaker announcements since the first two, so presumably Dr. Jack McConaghey, whether he was her Jack or not, had made his way to gate seventeen. He was there. No planes had left. She was here, moving steadily toward George, and, finally, home.
There is a kind of love called maintenance Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it; Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs; Which answers letters; which knows the way The money goes; which deals with dentists And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.
And maintenance is the sensible side of love, Which knows what time and weather are doing To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring; Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.
—U. A. Fanthorpe, “Atlas,” from ?Safe As Houses (Peterloo Poets, 1995)