The Butterfly Lampshade

by Aimee Bender

  When it was time to apply to college, my mother had hoped I might return to Portland, this time on my own, by choice, to be near her, and to learn and study at Reed, or Lewis & Clark, or Portland State, or Pacific U. But I didn’t apply anywhere outside Los Angeles, and I ended up going to UCLA. I told her it was because I wanted to be near Vicky, which was mostly true. There were shows to see. There were essays to edit. I stayed, and did my time in the dorm, and took my classes, and ate the weekly dinners in Burbank, and graduated, and found my own apartment nearby. Soon, though, Vicky will be leaving the city, and my stated reason and excuse for staying will be gone. But I want to live here, now, no question, in the valley by the mountains, Vicky or no Vicky, heat-blasted or cold. I am comfortable here. I have made here my home, just as my mother did with Portland.

  At the airport, before she left, my mother gripped my hand and looked at me closely, like she was trying to give me something with her eyes. She was having her own experience, her own reasons for things, but it did register to me, to have her there with me at the airport. She had never been with me at any kind of way station before; I had never had her with me as I prepared to get on yet another mode of transportation, her the person at the side, waving goodbye, as we split and our dots on the map moved elsewhere, apart. The airport, as always, filled me with that vague queasiness, as I passed through the identification checkpoint and stood in line to take off my shoes. She walked to where they would let her stand, still waving, on the side by the donut counter and the trinket store. My security line shuffled forward. An agent directed me to the screening machine, and my bags passed through the X-ray devices. I couldn’t see her for a few minutes, and when I was able to check again, I found her in the far distance, stepping through the space between the electric doors, into the evening air.

  “All clear,” said the agent, moving on to the next person.

  There was all my stuff on the conveyor belt, waiting to be claimed. I put my shoes back on and slipped on my jacket. I shouldered my backpack and picked up my purse. Then I headed over to the gate with all of it to wait for the flight home.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AIMEE BENDER is the author of the novels The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake—a New York Times bestseller—and An Invisible Sign of My Own, and of the collections The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Willful Creatures, and The Color Master. Her works have been widely anthologized and have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles.

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