As we pass carousel four, I scan the crowd for Livy, who is usually standing by a bank of gray plastic seats. I don’t see her anywhere. I can tell by the way Mrs. Eisenberg is fiddling with her blouse collar that she’s growing nervous not having laid eyes on Livy either. Her fidgeting reminds me of how out of sorts she was the first time she traveled without Eddie, her arm instinctively reaching for his hand that wasn’t there, her eyes wildly searching for him. It was heartbreaking.
“Let’s take a spin around to the other side, closer to the restrooms. I bet Livy’s over there. And if not, she’s probably driving in circles, looking for a spot. We both know what a headache parking at the airport can be,” I offer with assurance, not wanting Mrs. Eisenberg to become unnecessarily agitated.
“I gave her Eddie’s old handicap placard to use for parking when she’s running late,” Mrs. Eisenberg comfortably shares, as if her granddaughter using her dead grandfather’s long-expired placard isn’t illegal.
“Look at you going allShawshank Redemptionon me.” I playfully tap her shoulder, working to alleviate her worries with a shared favorite film reference.
“Just help me find my granddaughter, Morgan Freeman,” Mrs. Eisenberg teases. I nearly choke on my LIFE SAVER.
As we turn our backs to the arrivals board, Mrs. Eisenberg stares intently where Livy should be. I look in the opposite direction and see a man whose face is vaguely familiar in a way that I know I’ve come across him before, but I can’t place where. Either way, he’s handsomeenough for my eyes to linger as my memory tries to work out where this remarkable man may have existed in my unremarkable past. I turn the wheelchair and casually move toward this sorta-stranger, wanting a closer look without seeming obvious. Too quickly, the man’s gaze locks in on us, and he starts jogging in our direction, his wing tips not impeding his pace one bit. Imagining he recognizes me, I think the whole scene feels right out of a romantic comedy—except this is my mundane life, not the movies. Startled by his speed, not knowing if he’s going to run right past us or run right into us, I pull back on the wheelchair. I don’t want to frighten Mrs. Eisenberg.
“Ash! Ash!”Mrs. Eisenberg cries, waving in delight, stepping out of the wheelchair as I continue to pull back to avoid a collision. Our opposing momentums send Mrs. Eisenberg stumbling forward into this mystery man’s arms. I lunge over the back of the chair to grab Mrs. Eisenberg’s cardigan from behind but miss by inches. The stranger sprints up to Mrs. Eisenberg just in time to catch her in an embrace.
When people talk about accidents feeling like they happen in slow motion, they’re mistaken. There was nothing slow about Mrs. Eisenberg tumbling forward as I imagined her new bionic hip shattering into a million pieces due to my recklessness. Seeing Mrs. Eisenberg unharmed and upright in this man’s arms, I let out a massive sigh of relief as a trickle of sweat makes its way down the back of my sky-blue polyester shirt.
“Ay Dios! Oh my God, Mrs. Eisenberg, are you okay? I’m so sorry. I can’t believe that happened! I was trying to move out of this man’s way, but I didn’t know you were stepping off, and then you did.” I reach for Mrs. Eisenberg’s forearm to return her to my care.
“Thank you, thank you, sir,” I babble, but I receive no acknowledgment of my gratitude nor for seeming as familiar to him as he does to me.
“Antonia.Antonia!It’s okay, honey. Take a breath. Calm down. I’m perfectly fine. This wonderful gentleman who caught me is my grandson, Ash. Ash Eisenberg. Livy’s cousin.”
I stare, speechless. Picking up Mrs. Eisenberg at the airport is not how I know him. It’s only ever been Livy to meet us at baggage claim.
“He’s never come to greet me at the airport before, he’s always flying in and out himself,” Mrs. Eisenberg gushes, looking up adoringly at her grandson. “Oh, sweetheart, can you stay for a cocktail?”
You’re not the only one who needs a cocktail.I choke it down before it slips out of my mouth.
“My goodness, where are my manners? Ash, this is my friend Antonia,” Mrs. Eisenberg introduces us, having tucked herself under her grandson’s protective arm. She doesn’t give my last name, leaving me to wonder if, after all the time we’ve spent together, she even knows it.
“Antonia Arroyo,” I clarify for Ash and for Mrs. Eisenberg. “But I go by Toni.” Mrs. Eisenberg huffs, sharing her annoyance at the shortening of my name.
“Hello,” the prodigal grandson says, but his neutral face does not register that there is a person with a name on the receiving end of his disinterested salutation.
“I know, Ash.” Mrs. Eisenberg claps, enthused by an idea forming in her head. “You should get Antonia’s phone number. She could use some help with her business ide—”
“Grandmother, let’s grab your bags and get going. Livy’s waiting curbside in the car,” Ash answers to his grandmother’s unfinished attempt at niceties. Not that I would have given Ash Eisenberg my number because his grandmother suggested it, but he didn’t need to make it so obvious that my presence is inconsequential to his day.
“Both of my grandchildren here to greet me, how wonderful!” Mrs. Eisenberg beams, already having forgotten her number-exchanging idea. I smile to meet her enthusiasm, but I keep my mouth shut as the third wheel in this family reunion. “Your being here is such a surprise, I love it!” Mrs. Eisenberg continues to coo as her grandson towers over her in what has to be the most expensive pinstripe cashmere suit I have ever come this close to. A heavy matte steel watch peeks out from under his jacket sleeve, screaming statement piece, annual bonus, or both.
Without a goodbye, grandmother and grandson make their way toward carousel six to retrieve Mrs. Eisenberg’s luggage. I’m left standing alone, with my heart rate finally beginning to slow from the collision of events.
Watching them walk away without so much as a backward glance in my direction, it hits me why I remember Ash Eisenberg. I grab the wheelchair to steady myself. “His being here isn’t just a surprise for his grandmother,” I mutter out loud for no one’s benefit other than my own.I can’t believe my past has found me in baggage claim.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 3
“Lou, Coco, come and see what I have for you!” Zwena knows the way to fourteen-year-old girls’ hearts is through consumer goods. I shake my head at her in mock disappointment. Being born on Christmas Eve, my girls are inundated with gifts from the moment midnight mass ends on the twenty-fourth until the last bite of Christmas ham has been consumed on the twenty-fifth. Dry January in our house means buying absolutely nothing for the twins. Zwena, however, doesn’t believe my rules of parenting apply to her.
With the grace of a herd of elephants, my twins plow into the kitchen, where I’m frying up a batch of sorullitos. If only they’d travel that fast when the dishwasher needs emptying.
“Whatchoo got for us, Auntie?” Coco asks with the signaturecare don’t caretone of a teenager who lives on the cusp of perpetual annoyance.
“What do you have for us, Auntie?” I correct, in what feels like a losing battle against TikTok to keep the English language intact in my house. “This isn’t the mall food court.”
“These!” Zwena pulls out two boxes, one from each of her back pockets. I’m impressed she could slip them in there, since she likes her jeans two sizes too small with her muffin top slightly rising.
“Baby-pink press-on nails!” Lou whoops, lunging for the box in Zwena’s left hand. Louisa’s a girly girl, just like my mother, Gloria. When Lou was a toddler and couldn’t pronounce herp’s, she would go around the house saying, “Ink! Ink!” I’d bring her a pen, thinking I had a future Pulitzer Prize–winner on my hands, and she’d pitch a holy fit that got the neighbors talking until I finally figured it out.
“I’m trying to get these girls into Princeton, not hot pants,” I remind Zwena, swatting her now-empty pockets with my spatula.Whoops, I left a little grease mark.
