Not bad, but enough to make the overhead bins rattle, enough to make the flight attendant stumble.
I watch the clouds, endless and gray, the sky a slab of concrete pressing us down.
The guy next to me asks if I’m scared of flying. I say no, but he keeps talking anyway.
At cruising altitude, I order a whiskey, even though it’s barely sunrise. It comes in a plastic cup, the ice melting before I can take a second sip.
I stare at it for a long time, then dump it in the sink of the tiny bathroom. I’m not sure what I thought it would fix.
Back at my seat, I pull out my phone and type a text to Ash.
First: “Sorry.”
Erase.
Second: “I needed some space. I’ll explain when I get back.”
Erase.
Third: “I miss you.”
Erase.
By the time we start descending, I’ve written and deleted a hundred different versions, none of them right, none of them enough to bridge the gap.
I turn the phone off, press my forehead to the window, and watch the California landscape drift into view.
The wheels touch down with a jolt that rattles my teeth.
I wait for the plane to empty before I stand, shouldering my bag and shuffling down the aisle.
Outside, the air is warm, different, like the world here belongs to somebody else.
I stand at the curb, watching cars roll past, watching people hug and shout and drag their luggage home.
I think about calling my mom, about telling her I’m here, about letting her see the mess I’ve made.
I think about Ash, about the unread messages piling up, about the words I still can’t say.
I walk to the taxi line, keeping my eyes down, and climb into the first one that stops.
The driver looks at me in the rearview and says, “Where to?”
I almost say, “Anywhere.”
Instead, I give him the address, and watch the world blur by as we speed into the day.
———
The cab drops me at the curb of the old house, the one with the pomegranate tree out front and the chipped blue paint that my mother always swore she’d get around to fixing “next summer.”
It’s warm, even for Oakland, the kind of sticky, restless air that makes everything feel louder.
I stand there with my bag, staring up at the porch, and for a second I think about getting back in the car and telling the driver to keep going. But then the door swings open, and she’s there.
My mother is not a big woman, but she’s the kind of person who fills every inch of a room.
Even now, barefoot and in a faded Stanford t-shirt, she radiates this forcefield of “don’t mess with me” that could break a lesser person in half.
