The Miles Between

“Today. Now. I want to go.”

“Go where?”

“May I finish what I was saying?” Aidan grumbles.

“Shhh!” Seth and Mira both tell him.

“I’ll row,” Mira says cheerfully, lifting herself back up to the seat. “Where do you want to go, Des? The other side of the lake?”

“My house. I want to go see my parents. I have things to say.”

Seth nods.

Aidan’s brows rise.

Mira grins.

“It’s about time,” she says. “Let’s go.”

27

IT’S ABOUT TIME. All about time. Could it have been different? We all know the past cannot be relived, but how many of us really have the will not to visit that realm? A world where you imagine the steps that might have been placed in a different order, a word spoken louder or not, a breath that might have been exhaled a heartbeat faster. A split second that fractures into endless other possibilities. If only I had been a different person. Or they had. Even for a few minutes. Could I have been kinder? Could they? Would one step have added up to a thousand different ones?

I look back every day. The sky was filled with fat, fluffy clouds, the kind that move from one shape to another. A bird. An elephant. A rabbit. Shapes that make the sky look like a child’s party plate. A birthday party plate. How could they not see that? A brief spatter of rain pelted us as we ran to the car.

Father was nervous on the way to the airport. He preferred to be the pilot and not the passenger, but a last-minute change in their appointment time made it impossible to fly his own jet. The flight plan couldn’t be cleared in time for the destination airport. Of course, at seven years old, I knew nothing of flight plans or changed appointments—Aunt Edie related these details later—but I do remember Father twisting the band of his watch, and checking the time over and over again. He sat in the front seat with Esme, the babysitter, who was driving. Mother, Gavin, and I sat in the back. He turned often to check on Gavin and then would give a cursory glance to me. He lingered once, trying to get me to smile. I turned away and looked out the window. It was my birthday, after all. Mother was too preoccupied with Gavin to notice Father’s nervousness or my silence. Gavin was smiling and cooing and not looking sick at all. “That’s my good boy,” Mother said over and over again, not even trying anymore to play up the sick story. It was clear her allegiance had already shifted.

Langdon Airport is small—only two gates—with one public waiting area. Esme parked the car, and we went in to see them off. She pulled me close and whispered in my ear, “Don’t sulk. Say good-bye. I’ll buy you an ice cream on the way home.” If only she had known me better. The world had been at my fingertips. A single ice cream cone was hardly a fair trade.

At the last minute, when I realized my sulking wasn’t going to stop them, I cried. I created an embarrassing scene that made them stop. Mother knelt and began to cry too and explained to me all over again why they had to go today. But they were still going. She wiped my tears with her fingers. “There now, be a good girl, Destiny. Mama’s good girl. No more tears. Let me see you smile. Give Mama a nice good-bye.”

I wasn’t a good girl. I didn’t smile. I didn’t say good-bye. I was silent, stunned that they really were leaving me.

“We have to go, Caroline. Everyone’s boarded. They’re holding the flight for us. She’ll be fine.” Father gave my forehead a rushed kiss. Mother did too. It was a fitting scene for Esme and anyone else who might be watching. Their final obligation was fulfilled, they were rid of me. They walked away, Gavin still smiling at me from his car seat as it swung from Father’s hand. The babysitter grabbed my hand to go, but I pulled away. I ran to the window to watch them walk across the tarmac and up the stairs of the waiting plane. Within seconds, the stairs were pulled away, the blocks behind the wheels pulled, and they were moving, taxiing out to the runway. The puffy clouds above had pulled together in a thick, dark blanket.

Was it too late? Would they know? I began to lift my hand. Maybe they would look out the window and see me. But the timing. Changed appointments. Changed planes. Running late. A hundred unrelated events that choose to come together at a single moment. A weaving of errors that some might call coincidence. I was too late. My face flushed hot. They were gone. They didn’t look back. They left without me. “Destiny!” The babysitter pulled me away from the window. She pressed my face into her belly. She pressed so tight I couldn’t breathe. Or maybe I stopped on my own. They left me. My parents and Gavin left me behind.

If that wasn’t enough, they sent me away when they returned, out of the house so I wouldn’t taint their good little boy. Moving on without me. Not that I care anymore. It’s been too long to care.

28

IT IS DECIDED THAT WE WILL “finish our escapades” in Langdon, as Mira put it, before we go to my house, which is beyond the outskirts of town. That way, as I explained, if things turn sour, we will at least have our day in Langdon to remember—and as I didn’t explain, I will still have time to change my mind. When we return with our boat, we see all the other boats battened down for the winter, pulled onto scaffolds on the shore, canvas stretched tight over their tops.

“I thought he wasn’t closing up until the end of the week.”

“Changed his mind, I guess.”

“The weather is turning.”

“But how did he get all those boats put up so fast?”

“He’s too old.”

“Must have had help.”

We see the boat keeper at the end of the dock waving us in, Lucky by his side. Mira expertly guides us close to the dock, and the boat keeper slips a rope over the cleat to secure us.

Baaaa.