The twelve hour journey was complete with thunder and lightning ripping across the wings of the jet. I decided not to take it as a warning...Instead, I clutched the edges of my seat, closed my weary eyes and focused on the fact that at least the air-conditioning was finally working.
We had been left to broil on the Phoenix runway, between stops. Even the Captain was roasting when we finally managed to move away. The new passengers boarding from Phoenix were griping about the sauna, inside, but they hadn't been experiencing it first hand for the last hour. I tried to keep what little cool was left as the businessman with the string tie and cowboy boots kept whistling and loading over-sized carry-ones over my head.
The thunderstorm was the first time I've ever flown in totally frightening weather. Somehow, what was outside the plane's windows wasn't as scary as what was running amok in my head. What the Hell was I doing, interrupting my adult life and suddenly re-winding back to New England? Gardner,no less! The economy there was just as bad as CA,or so my sibs had warned me. Gardner was a tiny furniture making town with the furniture factories transformed into homes for the elderly. All the large industries had moved off. Only WalMart had infiltrated and continued to grow. (Could I exist as a WalMart clone? Had it come to that?)
The plane dipped, suddenly, and the cowboy businessman with the piercing one-note grunted.
"Sorry folks, I am trying to find a pocket of calmer air..." the Captain's strained voice broke into my cloudy thoughts. Right. Me too. Calmer air, all around.
The sibs seemed finally resigned to the fact that it was time for me to re-insert my raggedy self into their midst,no matter how much time had passed nor memories gone unshared. I had resigned myself to accepting whatever Purgatory they wanted to inflict, in order to be tolerated. It was true, I had missed the entire childhoods of my nieces. I had missed the life changes and touchstones of my brothers and sisters, as they eked out their own karmic adulthoods. I had even skipped the aging of the Parental Units--something both inevitable and slightly horrifying. (Most shocking was how unchanged both parents actually seemed to be...if my life follows their genetic maps, I have to find some decent investments!) But, it had been my decision. My choice. This was on no one's head but my own.
My stomach shifted into a final lurch as we descended into Manchester, along with the rain.
The difference between friends and family is that one might always need a backup plan when arriving at midnight, at an airport and relying on the kindness of peers--however, with family, at least my family, no backup plan is necessary. Somebody will meet you at the gate. Maybe not smiling. Maybe not in the best mood, but, they WILL meet you at the gate.
I tried to wipe the sweat off my face, apply some neutral lip gloss, spike up my wilted spikey hair. I sucked in my middle-aged paunch and tried to think about the re-entry. This was a new wilderness for us all. The return of the failed artist...into the arms of the middle-aged nest...with nothing to show for her arrival except rumpled clothes and a splitting head-ache.
They didn't even ask how the flight had been. The midnight rainstorm was its own answer.
In the parking garage, we had almost made it to my cop brother's SUV when we heard two men with cell phones and raised voices, arguing, outside a high end AUDI. My brother sighed, seeking his own vehicle, wanting to begin the two hour drive back to MA. My ER nurse sister pointed her cigarette over the SUV and in the direction of the arguing men. "I'm off duty --it isn't even my home state, geez!" Kev turned around, dropping my duffle bag, and walked in the direction of the guys. Ann followed. My eldest niece was next in line.
I had enough "stuff" for a month. I crawled into the car and just tried to breathe. Pray. Then, Ann came back.
"They locked themselves out. One guy is trying to hook the lock with a wire hanger. The other guy is yelling at him..." Ann puffed her cigarette in disgust.
Then, she went back to the scene.
I waited fifteen minutes. I was freaked out with no one to vent to about the flight; my losses in L.A.; my dehydration migraine nor the fact that I hadn't eaten anything but a banana at six a.m. Still, my family of rescuers was intent on rescuing these two men in the parking garage, now half-past midnight.
I pulled my Blackberry out of my pack. I pulled my AAA card out of my wallet. I had no more truck, but I had a fully paid upper tier membership. I walked over to the crowd.
The guy who owned the AUDI was almost a stereotype--Armani suit, expensive hair cut, thousand dollar hand-made shoes; designer eyewear. He clutched his own cell against his ear and the rescued Owners Manual from his trunk. (I didn't even want to ask how he got into the trunk.)
"I have a triple A card. You can use my card to call... " I hold it up.
"Kev almost has the door open," Ann tells me, watching my brother maneuver the coat hanger and another tool up and down, uselessly.
"Dad! You almost have it!" my niece encourages.
The maintenance man, who had begun the rescue operation, cheers my cop brother on.
Of course, this doesn't work.
"I have a triple A card. You can use my cell to call them--" I try again.
"Look, Lady, who are you?" the owner
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