How to Walk Away

by Katherine Center

  * * *

  I ALMOST CHICKENED out. This couldn’t possibly be a good idea. But then I’d circle back around to the sad, quiet version of herself that my mom had been this whole long year, and my resolve would come back. I didn’t honestly know if she could win my dad back. The plan seemed like a long shot with deep potential for crushing humiliation.

  But it didn’t really matter. I knew I had to help her try.

  Besides, my mom had already spent all of her frequent flyer miles to get us an upgrade to first class.

  Kit gaped when she told her.

  My mom shrugged. “Go big or go home.”

  I looked at Kit. “We’re going to need that on T-shirts.”

  The morning-of, I had a few more second thoughts.

  “What was I thinking?” I demanded of Kit as we shotgunned our morning coffees. “How am I supposed to lug this wheelchair all around Europe? That place is one hundred percent stone steps! Stone steps and fashionable people. This is lunacy. They’re going to stop me at the gates and send me home.”

  Kit wasn’t having it. “You’re not a quitter.”

  Maybe not—but I wanted to be. “It’s going to be the worst thing ever.”

  My mom was walking by, and she paused to squeeze my shoulders. “No,” she said. “You’ve already survived the worst thing ever.”

  And there was the crux of it. This would be my first flight since the crash. “I’m not sure I can do this,” I said.

  Kit drained the dregs of her coffee and clanked her empty mug down in the sink. “Loving the self-doubt,” she said. “Let’s definitely run with that. But let’s get on the plane first.”

  * * *

  FIRST CLASS WAS like a VIP party.

  Not only had I never flown to Europe before, I’d never flown anything but coach before. Now I was ruined, because I found out what I’d been missing. First class greeted us with champagne and strawberries, and it only got better from there. It practically had a swimming pool and a DJ.

  We had to fly direct to London, then hop over to Belgium on a second quick flight, then take a train out to Bruges. It was going to be a long day and a half. But I couldn’t complain. They gave us warm blankets and steamed hot towels for our hands, like we were at a spa. We had our own little sleeping pods with seats that reclined into beds. Plus, our seats were in the closest row to the door, so it was easy to wheel right to my spot.

  Still, no amount of luxury could change the fact that this was my first flight since the crash. Despite all my attempts to focus my brain on something else—and I was doing a valiant job—my body could not be fooled. My hands felt cold and quivery. My eyes darted left and right like a trapped rodent’s. My heart stumbled around in my chest like it was being attacked. There was no point worrying about it, I knew. This was happening. It was out of my hands. I’d made my choice, and now I just had to survive it.

  Once we were buckled in, when my mom reached across the aisle to squeeze my hand, it was ice cold.

  She met my eyes. “Are you terrified to fly again?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Just a smidge.”

  Kit leaned over. “Remember that time we went to Hawaii—and you lived?”

  “We all lived, as I recall,” my mother said.

  “Would you like me to distract you?” Kit asked, nodding as she said it to let me know that Yes, I absolutely would.

  My hands were turning kind of a bloodless gray. “I really can’t imagine any possible way you could do that.”

  Kit wiggled her eyebrows at me. “I can.”

  The engines were whirring into action. Our seats faced each other. I leaned forward. “How?”

  She met my mother’s eyes and gave her a little nod, like they shared a yummy secret. My mom fished around in her carry-on and pulled out a little wrapped box that I recognized instantly. It was Ian’s birthday present to me.

  “Hey,” I said. “I threw that in the kitchen trash.”

  “I fished it back out,” my mom said.

  I stared at it.

  “Do you want it?” she finally asked.

  The captain was making final announcements over the loudspeaker. I nodded.

  She handed it over, and I peeled off the paper and the tape. Then I lifted the lid off the box. Inside was a necklace—a delicate silver chain attached to each end of a small silver bar, and stamped into the bar, in tiny typewriter-like letters, was one word: Courage.

  “What is it?” Kit asked.

  “A necklace.”

  “What does it say?” my mom asked.

  “Courage.”

  Kit and my mom looked at each other. “Well,” my mom said, “aren’t we glad I rescued it?”

  As I fastened it behind my neck and felt the cool pressure of the silver bar against my breastbone, the plane started to back away from the gate.

  I felt a surge of fear.

  “I’ve got another distraction for you,” Kit said, watching me. “A better one.”

  “What?”

  “The address Rob got you for Ian is wrong.”

  Okay. That was distracting. “Wrong?”

  She nodded. “That’s his parents’ address in Edinburgh, but he doesn’t live there.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  She gave me a mysterious I’ve got so much to tell you smile. “We’re in touch.”

  I felt an anxious jolt of Where is this going? What could she possibly tell me that was that juicy? Without permission, my brain jumped to a worst-case scenario. “Please don’t tell me you are dating Ian,” I said.

  “What? No! Gross! I’m back with Fat Benjamin.”

  “Why on earth would you be in touch with Ian?”

  That smile again. “He found me online. He wanted to know how you were doing.”

  The plane stopped a second, then started rolling forward. “He did? When was this?”

  “A few weeks after I went back. He asked if he could check in with me from time to time.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “He asked me not to. He didn’t want to freak you out.”

  I tried to absorb the idea. “Did he? Check in?”

  She nodded. “He did indeed.”

  Off her tone, I said, “A lot?”

  “About once a week.”

  “Once a week!” She was enjoying this reveal too much. “He called you?”

  “Mostly just email. Also, you know all those articles I sent you?”

  The plane sped up on the runway. “The ones I’m pretty sure you never read?”

  “They were from him.”

  He’d sent the articles! That explained a lot. But why? “How did he sound?”

  “Like a concerned professional.”

  “Did you ever talk about anything else?”

  She shook her head. “Mostly just your health. Pretty dry.”

  The nose of the plane lifted. I nodded. “Okay.”

  “But my personal opinion? He still likes you.”

  “He never liked me.”

  “I disagree.”

  “He told me in no uncertain terms,” I said. “He never liked me. It was all just me being delusional, and he let it go on so I’d have, you know, a reason to live. Trust me. If there were any possibility for hope, I’d have found it.”

  Kit shrugged, like, Okay. Have it your way. The plane left the ground now, rattling and shuddering as it rose. I touched my fingers to my necklace. Courage.

  Kit said, “There is one other thing, though.”

  I looked up.

  “He started following me on Instagram.”

  I took in a breath. “Is that why you always take a million pictures of me?”

  She nodded, looking very pleased with herself. “And guess what else? He’s never posted a picture, and he doesn’t follow anyone else. He doesn’t even have a profile pic. I am the one person he follows.”

  I tried to process the idea of Ian using Instagram. “He saw the picture you took of my scars?”

  Ki
t nodded very slowly.

  “And the one this morning in the airport?”

  Kit nodded again. “Assuming he checks his phone.”

  “So he might know we’re headed to Europe.”

  “He might.”

  “So much for a stealth attack.”

  “The upside is,” Kit went on, “it makes it easier to find out where he lives.”

  “How so?”

  “When we get to Scotland,” Kit said, shrugging, “we’ll just message him for his address.”

  I nodded at her. “It’s almost too simple.”

  Kit patted me on the head. “Almost.”

  * * *

  EVEN BEYOND THE white terror of flying, I was nervous about the travel in general. At home, I’d developed routines and ways of doing things that had lifted my confidence. In Europe, I had no idea what to expect. We had researched everything online, of course, and I had a folder of printouts in my carry-on bag. You can call ahead for a ramp to help you board the train from Brussels to Bruges, for example, but you can’t just show up and demand one. I’d also made sure to find a hotel with rooms on the ground floor I could get to. Kit had wanted us to take a boat tour around the canals, but we learned in advance that none of the boats in town could accommodate wheelchairs.

  We were as prepared as we could be, but nothing could have prepared us for the actual experience of being in Bruges. It was like a fairy-tale city. None of the normal twenty-first-century clutter, like neon signs or billboards. Just medieval stone and brick buildings with turrets and gables, a town square with a Gothic church, and chocolate shops, and cobblestone streets. And the canals! Every few blocks, stone bridges arched over the quiet water below.

  Not to mention all the swans.

  All my prep was worth it. There were tricky moments of travel—like when we boarded the train and found it packed with people, shoulder to shoulder—so full, folks had to move to the next car to make room for us, and Kitty sat on my lap in the chair to make space. But, in general, it wasn’t as hard as I’d feared. I’d expected roadblock after roadblock, and humiliation after humiliation, as I tried to navigate a world set up for able-bodied, French-and-or-Flemish-speaking foreigners. But we got along with surprising ease.

  We reached the hotel in the late morning, and our jet-lag guide said we only had to stay awake until 10:00 P.M., so we ordered room service—steak frites—and watched European TV. Before it got too late, Kit and my mom popped out to raid the chocolate shops, and came back with a full shopping bag of dark, milk, white, peppermint, and salted caramel chocolates in every shape under the sun, from hearts to starfish, and filled with creams and nougats, fruit purees, coffee, almonds, macadamias, and peanut butter.

  Kit dumped it all out on her bed in a pile.

  “You’ve lost your marbles,” I said to them both. “We can’t eat all that.”

  “Sure we can,” Kit said.

  “We’ll get sick,” I insisted.

  “Not me,” Kit said. “I’ve spent years building up a tolerance.”

  In the end, we ate it all. The more we ate, the more it felt like a challenge we had to win. We really did make ourselves sick. It was impressive debauchery. Afterward, my mom and I had to lie green-gilled on the bed, and Kit threw up in the bathroom.

  “I think I’m just dehydrated,” she said, climbing into her rollaway bed by the window.

  But in the morning, Kit was sick again.

  “Maybe I picked up dysentery in the airport,” she said. The nausea got better by midday. By evening, Kit was exhausted—but luckily nothing worse.

  When it was time to get dressed, Kit lay on her rollaway like a corpse.

  “You’re fine now,” I tried to insist, as she adjusted the cool rag over her eyes. “You haven’t barfed in four hours. You and Mom need to get going.”

  But Kit, her voice froggy, didn’t open her eyes. “I don’t think I’m going.”

  “Um,” I said. “You have to go! This was your crazy idea!”

  “I do not feel good at all,” Kit said.

  My mom clutched her purse. “Maybe we should just skip it,” she suggested.

  “You’re not skipping,” Kit said.

  “Well, I’m not going by myself,” my mom said.

  “Mags can go with you.”

  “I wasn’t invited,” I said.

  “Go as me,” Kit said. “We RSVP’d for three.”

  “But they don’t want me there.”

  “Nonsense,” my mother said. “It was an oversight.”

  I looked at Kit, who really did look awful, and then I looked at my nervous mother, who also looked awful. Kit clearly wasn’t going anywhere. But no way was I making my mom go alone. I sighed to my mom. “Get me Kit’s dress.”

  It was red—a “your-life-is-ruined crimson,” Kit called it—and strapless, and kind of fifties-looking, with a crinoline underskirt. I worked my way into it while my mom fussed and tried to help. I also—fuck it—wore the new lingerie. I did my hair. I put on all the new makeup Kit had bought me, including red lipstick. I thought about wearing a scarf to cover my burn scars before deciding that would look worse.

  Taking one last look in the mirror, I stopped to wonder if I should leave Ian’s not-quite-formal-enough necklace on, before deciding of course. I’d be needing the word “courage” tonight.

  Then I forced my mom out the door.

  We were doing this.

  Honestly, in the face of all the other things we’d survived this year, how hard could it be?

  * * *

  THE WEDDING CHAPEL was not far. Just around the corner.

  My research had assured me that Bruges’s terrain was very flat and that the cobblestones would be more of a nuisance than a barrier—both true. I also knew from my research that the chapel itself was right on ground level, so I could wheel in with no trouble. What I didn’t know, until we got there, was how very tiny the chapel would be.

  Seriously. It was like a little Christmas ornament.

  Standing around outside, in a large crowd, were all the guests who couldn’t fit in the building.

  Surely, there were other churches that could have held us all. Surely, Evelyn Dunbar had not overlooked a detail like the size of the venue. But the longer we stood there, surrounded by others who couldn’t get in, and craning our heads for glimpses of the action, the more it felt like Chip’s mom—perhaps in a grand gesture of triumph to the watching world—had overbooked the wedding on purpose.

  “Do you think she knew we wouldn’t all fit?”

  “I suspect she did,” my mom said, nodding. “Better an overflowing church than an empty one.”

  We found a place in the stone churchyard to wait, but there was no place for my mom to sit, and so we were at different altitudes, not even talking, and I spent the next half hour watching her worry her hands at her waist.

  “Why are you doing that?” I asked after a while.

  She looked down. “Doing what?”

  “Twisting your hands around. Are you nervous?”

  “I’m not twisting my hands around,” she said, stopping.

  That’s when I looked up to see that she wasn’t peering toward the church like everybody else. She was searching the crowd.

  That little moment right there made me glad I’d come all this way. She had something important to do, and I was helping her do it.

  Ten more minutes went by. Then another ten. Finally, my mom decided to go check in with the usher standing at the door to see what the holdup was.

  That’s how we got separated. She disappeared in that direction, cutting right and left through the crowd—and she hadn’t been gone five minutes before the church bells started ringing. Before she could come back, the chapel doors pushed open, and the bride and groom came striding out.

  Of course they did. This was a wedding! Their wedding.

  I felt myself hunch down, suddenly realizing in a new way that I was crashing Chip’s wedding.

  I had nowhere to hide, but as the
little stone churchyard flooded with strangers in sparkly gowns and tuxes, the photographer called all the important people off for photos.

  An usher directed everyone else to follow a little side street to the reception, but I waited for my mom—who never came back.

  I was not positioned well, down low in my chair. People I recognized walked straight on past without seeing my face, and all I could really see was belts and handbags.

  Finally, I wheeled up to the church doors to ask after my mom.

  “I’m looking for a woman in a green dress,” I asked the usher.

  He shook his head. “There’s no one left inside.”

  I looked around. Did she miss me in the crush? Did she go ahead to the reception, thinking I’d gone ahead, too? Was she waiting for me there, trembling and nervous? An image of my mother, twisting her hands through the reception, alone, appeared in my head.

  Time to find her. I wheeled off, following the last of the migrating crowd.

  * * *

  IT DIDN’T TAKE long for me to lose them entirely.

  My research swore that ninety-five percent of the streets in Bruges were manageable for wheelchairs, but this one street belonged firmly in the other five percent. These particular cobblestones were smaller and narrower, with deeper grooves between them. The “razor-thin” tires my dad had been so proud of on this chair were not exactly built for this terrain. In fact, I got stuck over and over—the wheel wedged between stones as I rocked back and forth, wrestling it out. Slow going. Frustrating. My hands got dirty. My fingers got pinched. At one point, the wind tangled the hem of the dress in the spokes.

  Then the side street opened onto a better, smoother one, where I was able to pick up some speed and coast up over the crest of a stone bridge. That’s where I caught up with all the wedding guests. At a taxi stand. Which turned out to be for a water taxi. The kind I knew from the Internet couldn’t accommodate wheelchairs.

  This was how we were all getting to the reception. Boats.

  I stopped right there on the bridge and took in the scene. Two boats, filled to the brim with wedding guests, had just motored away from the dock, and a last boat was loading. Men in tuxes and women in gowns waited in a snaking line around wood turnstiles. I scanned the guests for my mom’s green dress, but I couldn’t find her. Then I eyed the boat. I might manage to board, if somebody would help me. But as I coasted over and arrived at the entrance to the taxi stand, I found a bigger problem: It was about twenty stone steps from the road down to the water.