Landline (31 page)

Georgie needed to get to the other side of the terminal. She found a people mover and walked quickly. It felt like time was moving faster for her than for the people she was passing. No one else seemed to be in a hurry. And most of the shops were shuttered and dark, even though it was only six.
Christmas Eve
, she thought. And then,
Snowpocalypse
.

When she got to her gate, every seat was taken. People were standing around a muted TV, watching the Weather Channel. There was a sign over the desk with three flight numbers, all delayed. Technically she hadn’t missed her flight—because it had never taken off.

Georgie got in line, just to make sure that staying put was her best bet to get to Omaha.

When she finally got to the desk, the airline employee was surprisingly upbeat. “Your
best
bet is to Apparate.”

“Sorry?”

“Just a little Harry Potter humor,” he said.

“Right.”

Georgie hadn’t read the Harry Potter books. But she’d gone to see most of the movies with Seth on days when he felt like getting out of the office. She didn’t care about wizards, but she thought Alan Rickman was dreamy.

“When did you start lusting after middle-aged guys?”
Seth asked.

“When I became middle-aged.”

“Rein it in, Georgie. We’re still thirty-somethings.”

“God, I loved that show.”

“I know,”
he said.

“That’s proof that I’m middle-aged,”
she said.
“I miss
Thirtysomething.
”

The Starbucks next to her gate was closed. And the McDonald’s. And the Jamba Juice. Georgie bought a turkey sandwich from one vending machine and an iPhone charger from another. She got terrible coffee at the only place that was open, a Western-themed sports bar, then walked back to the gate and found a spot against the wall to lean against.

The glass behind her was cold. Georgie squinted out the window. She couldn’t see anything—no snow, nothing more than shadows—but she could hear the wind. It sounded like she was still in the airplane.

Across from her, a woman was breaking a cookie in half and splitting it between her kids, two girls small enough to share a seat. They had napkins folded in their laps and boxes of milk. The woman was sitting next to her husband, and his arm hung lazily over the back of her chair, stroking her shoulder absently.

Georgie wanted to move closer to them. She wanted to brush crumbs from the littlest girl’s coat. She wanted to talk to them.
“I have this, too,”
she’d say to the woman.
“This exactly.”

But did she?

Still?

Georgie kept testing herself, cataloging her memories, tracing them backwards. Alice’s seventh birthday. Noomi’s first Disneyland Halloween. Neal mowing the lawn. Neal getting frustrated in traffic. Neal shifting toward her in his sleep when Georgie had insomnia.

“You okay?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Come here, crazy.”

Neal teaching Alice how to make Jiffy Pop. Neal doodling a sleepy gerbil on Georgie’s arm . . .

Georgie could never remember the difference between a gerbil, a hamster, and a guinea pig—so Neal had taken to drawing them on her when he was bored.
“Cheat sheet,”
he’d say, writing
I am a guinea pig
in a word balloon on her elbow.

She ran her hand up over her blank arm. The little girl across from her knocked over her milk—Georgie leaned in and caught it. The mother smiled at her, and Georgie smiled back.
I have this, too
, Georgie’s smile said.

She missed her girls. She wanted to see them. There were photos on her phone. . . .

Georgie scanned the gate for an outlet and found one on the wall a few feet down; two people were already plugged in. She walked over and asked if she could charge when they were done. “I just need a minute,” she said, “just to check something.”

“Go ahead,” a twenty-something boy said. He was Neal’s age—1998 Neal. The boy unplugged his phone and moved a few inches away to give her room.

Georgie knelt down awkwardly between him and a woman who was typing on her laptop. She broke open the new charger and dug her phone out of her pocket, then plugged it in and waited for the white apple to appear.

Nothing happened.

“Has it been dead awhile?” the boy asked. “Sometimes it takes a few minutes.”

Georgie waited a few minutes.

She plugged and unplugged it at both ends. She pushed the two buttons.

A tear fell onto the screen. (Hers, obviously.)

“Do you want to use my phone?” the boy asked.

“No, that’s okay,” Georgie said. “Thanks.” She unplugged her phone and stood up, rocking backwards awkwardly once she was on her feet. She turned away. Then back. “Actually, uh, yeah. Could I use your phone?”

“Sure.” He held it up to her.

Georgie took the phone and dialed Neal’s cell phone number.
“We’re sorry. This mailbox is . . . full.”
She gave the kid back his phone. “Thanks.”

Her spot on the wall, by the little girls, was gone. A woman was sitting there now with her toddler.

Georgie checked the sign over the desk again. Still delayed. One of the other flights had been canceled. She walked away from the gate and dropped her phone in the trash.

Then she thought better of it and reached into the trash can to get it back. (It was right on top.) (Airport trash is relatively clean.) An older man wearing a big puffy jacket watched her. She tried to wave her phone around, so that he wouldn’t think she was digging for food.

Then she shoved it in her pocket and walked over to the people mover. She rode it as far as she could in one direction, then came all the way back, then got on again.

Just because Georgie couldn’t see the photos of her kids on her phone didn’t mean that the photos weren’t still there.

Just because she couldn’t see the photos of her kids on her phone didn’t mean that her kids weren’t still there.

Somewhere.

Noomi’s bed with a dozen stuffed kitties. Alice’s paper dolls. Noomi chewing on her pigtail, Neal pulling it out of her mouth. Noomi chewing on her other pigtail, Neal tying her pigtails in a knot on top of her head.

Neal in the kitchen. Neal making hot chocolate. Neal making Thanksgiving dinner. Neal standing by the stove when Georgie got home late for work. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted to pack, but I washed everything in your hamper. Don’t forget that it’s cold there—you always forget that it’s cold.”

If Georgie could just look at her photos, she’d feel better.

If she just had a little proof—not that she needed proof—but if she could just have a little proof that they were still there. She rubbed her naked ring finger. She emptied her pockets for signs of life: All she had was a credit card and a driver’s license, both in her maiden name.

It got darker in the airport.

Airports are always dark at night, and this one was even darker with all the sleeping storefronts and the snow. Georgie could still hear the wind, even though she was nowhere near the windows now. The whole building keened with it.

At some point, she stepped off the people mover. The ground was too still beneath her, and she staggered. When she recovered her bearings, she went to the nearest bathroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror.

As soon as the room was mostly empty, she lifted up her T-shirt and ran her hand along the stretch marks and the ropy scar under her belly.

Still there.

G
eorgie knew something was wrong because she’d been through this once before, and that time, the baby had come right out.

With Alice, there’d been an incision, then a slippery pull—like someone had just hooked a wide-mouthed bass and yanked it out of Georgie’s guts. Then a nurse had rushed away with the baby, Georgie thanking God for the screams.

The slow part, after Alice, had been putting Georgie back together again. Neal told her that the doctors actually took out her uterus and set it in on her stomach, then poked around inside her abdomen to make sure everything checked out.

Neal had been sitting right next to her that day, when Alice was born.

He was sitting right next to her now. Georgie’s hands were strapped to her side, and he was holding one.

Georgie knew something was wrong this time because the incision happened, and she felt the pressure of the doctor’s hands inside her—but then there was no baby. There was no rush of movement. The nurse who was supposed take the baby away stood tensely behind the doctor (and the intern and the two medical students), empty-handed.

Georgie knew that something was wrong because of the tension in Neal’s jaw. Because of the way he was watching everyone.

She felt more pressure inside—more hands, more than just two.

The anesthesiologist kept talking to her in a low murmur.
“You’re doing just fine, Mom. You’re doing great.”
Like it took special talent to lie still on the table. (Maybe it did.) She was poking Georgie’s chest with a toothpick.
“Can you feel this?”
Yes.
“Can you feel this?”
No.
“It might feel like you can’t breathe,”
the anesthesiologist said,
“but you can. Just keep breathing, Mom.”

They were all talking now, doctors and nurses; everything that came out of their mouths was numbers. The table suddenly ratcheted upwards, so that Georgie was lying at a mild incline, her head toward the floor.

This isn’t good
, she thought calmly, looking up at the lights.

It seemed smart to stay calm in this situation, with her body wide open, her blood pumping who knows where. She could see someone’s arm reflected in the light fixture above her—the sleeve was red.

Then Neal squeezed Georgie’s hand.

He’d turned away from the doctors and the place where the baby was supposed to be, and was hovering over Georgie’s shoulder. His jaw was tense, but his eyes were fierce and open.

Maybe this was why Neal always had his guard up. His eyes, unguarded, could burn tunnels though mountains.

Georgie kept breathing. In, out. In, out.
“You’re doing great, Mom,”
the anesthesiologist hummed. Georgie knew she was lying.

Neal’s eyes were pouring fire on her. If he always looked at Georgie like this, it’d be uncomfortable. If he always looked at her like this, maybe she’d never look away.

But she’d never doubt that he loved her.

How could she ever doubt that he loved her?

Neal was saying good-bye to her with that look. He was begging her to stay. He was telling her that she was doing just fine—just keep breathing, Georgie.

How could she ever doubt that he loved her? When loving her was what he did better than all the things he did beautifully.

The anesthesiologist pushed a plastic mask onto Georgie’s mouth. Georgie didn’t look away from Neal.

When she woke up, later that night, in a recovery room, she realized that she hadn’t expected to.

There was a hospital bassinet pulled close to her bed, and Neal was asleep in the chair.

T
he airport had brought out cots and laid them out in the hallway between gates. It looked like an army field hospital.

Georgie didn’t feel like she could sleep in front of strangers like that—or at all, tonight. Though she wished she had a blanket. . . . If any of the airport stores were open, she’d buy one of the giant blue and orange Broncos sweatshirts in the window displays.

People were sleeping around her, too, in chairs, and against the wall. They slept with their heads on their purses and their hands on their carry-ons. Like they were worried about pickpockets. Georgie wasn’t worried about pickpockets; she had nothing to steal.

It must be late. Or early. Georgie’d lost track of time completely—she kept checking her dead phone out of habit. The airport hadn’t dimmed the lights, but it was still too dark to read without a book light. The wind seemed to be pushing the darkness into the terminal.

There was a lull in the storm. Or maybe it was just dying down—Georgie didn’t know how blizzards were supposed to end.

There was a gate change, then another wait. Then she was boarding, only half-conscious of which flight was hers and where it was going.

“Omaha?” the flight attendant asked when Georgie stepped onto the plane.

“Omaha,” Georgie replied.

The plane was only about fifteen rows long, with just two seats across. She’d never been on a plane this small; she’d only heard about planes this small when they crashed.

Georgie wondered if the pilots were as tired as she was. Why even bother taking off, at this point? In the middle of the night? Unless the flight crew was heading home, too.

T
he sun was rising when they left Denver, and now Omaha was a blinding white below them. Georgie gripped her armrests through the landing and stood up in her seat before the seat belt light went off.

She’d done it. She was here now. She was close.

Alice. Noomi.
Neal
.

The Omaha airport seemed abandoned. The coffee shop was closed. And the little magazine stand. Always before, when Georgie’d walked past the security checkpoint, Neal’s parents—or just his mom—had been waiting right there, in the little row of chairs.

There was only one person sitting there today. A young woman in a heavy purple parka. She jumped out of her chair and started running toward Georgie. Then someone else ran past Georgie the other way—the boy from the Denver airport who’d lent her his phone.