Taking Flight

by Solmonson, Sarah

  I often worry that you hate me for the bridges I have burned. But I don’t think you would feel nearly as angry at me as you do at them. The ones who wished your daughter dead in your place, the ones who broke all their promises, the ones who cast your wife to the cold world of single, widowed parenting. I am only now, as an adult who may someday soon be a mother, comprehending how terrifying it must have been to be Mom. She shouldn’t have had to go through being my parent alone. There should have been a support system in the family that had loved us for over sixteen years.

  I asked Mom once who she hoped was alive in that horrible moment when she knew she would only get to keep one of us. I knew how she would answer, but I didn’t know if I would believe her.

  “You. Your Dad would have said the same thing. You never, ever, want anything to happen to your child,” she said.

  I believed her. As much as she loved you and you loved her, I believe that either of you would have sacrificed yourselves for me. And this is how I know that you want me to be happy, even if it means living a life without your family.

  I think of Grandma, who buried a son and a husband, and lost a daughter-in-law and a granddaughter. I miss her the most. I miss calling her on my drive home from work just to talk. I miss the way she made me feel like I was special among her lot of grandchildren. She isn’t innocent in the fallout, but she was definitely caught in unfair crosshairs. I resent the choices she made. I want to know why she couldn’t fight for me like I fought for her.

  I try to remember that family and blood don’t always go hand in hand. I think you would really enjoy the people who are in my life now. I don’t have many friends, but the ones I have are the type that you can call at three in the morning when everything is falling apart and they will show up to take you to the hospital or pour you a drink, whatever you need. We’ve seen each other through marriages, divorces, deaths and births. Every joy and sorrow gives us another opportunity to support and love each other. This is something that your family couldn’t do for us.

  I wish so badly that you could meet my in-laws, my father-in-law especially. Every time I see his band play I know you two could have talked about music for hours. He treated me like a daughter years before his son married me. Nothing could ever replace you, but he has made things a little easier.

  You raised me to cherish family, and I think by family you meant people who love unconditionally. And I think that’s really what you wanted me to learn, to look for in this life. As time has passed, as the emotions have calmed down and the expectations have disappeared, I’ve learned that the family I have lost were not people I would choose to have in my life. I am not the person who they would want in their life, either, but this doesn’t stop me from loving the woman I have grown to be, without them.

  I don’t think it would stop you from loving me, either, and that’s all the acceptance I need.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I took drivers education over the summer of 1999. Mom drove me to a little building in Chanhassen where I sat watching videos of bloody car accidents and then took practice quizzes out of a thick instruction manual. Mom was the one who took me to take the permit test, and when I passed, I assumed that Mom would be the one to teach me how to drive.

  Mom took me to a parking lot and after a few basic pointers put me behind the wheel. I made it less than ten feet before her invisible break pumping had me slamming on the actual breaks. She had her hands dug into the dashboard, her perfect long nails threatening to break. She screamed at me for hitting the breaks too hard, I screamed at her for making me nervous, and just like that, the lesson was over.

  When Dad took me to the same parking lot he seemed completely at ease when he switched seats with me. As I started to inch forward, my eyes were staring directly at the hood of the car, trying to see the road in front of me. In a calm voice Dad said, “Now Sarah, looking at the car is going to get you in an accident. Keep your head up and eyes forward. There you go!” he encouraged as I tried to position myself in the way he described. It was difficult to look straight ahead instead of looking down. We must have circled that parking lot for an hour before I was looking the right way, but he never yelled at me.

  As February and my sixteenth birthday approached Dad made sure I got plenty of practice driving in the snow. There were drifts at the ends of the streets that made it impossible to see around without stopping well over the cross walk. Black ice caused the car to swerve at random, leaving me to figure out how to correct my path. Parallel parking was demonstrated between cars awkwardly parked on the street and in between snow drifts. I was envious of my friends who were taking their tests in the summer, when they didn’t have the additional worry of snow to shake their confidence.

  The day of my test came, and I was convinced that I would fail. I barely ate breakfast and I couldn’t concentrate at school. It was February 29, a rare leap day, and I tried to be hopeful that magical things could happen on this extra day, including me passing my test on the first try.

  I was to be picked up when school let out to go right to the DMV. I assumed that Mom would be taking me, but to my surprise, it was my Dad’s grey Cutless Supreme that was waiting for me at the curb.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked after throwing my backpack in the back seat.

  “I taught you how to drive. Now I want to see you pass your test.”

  I knew that Dad had left work early to be there – and he never left work early. I felt special, and little more confident. At the same time, I knew if I failed it would be much worse letting Dad down than it would have been with Mom.

  “I’m really worried I’m not going to pass.”

  “I’m not,” Dad said.

  We got to the DMV and went inside the busy lobby. I stood in a line and checked in with a receptionist. Dad was sitting in a chair, looking excited. I sat down beside him, but before I could even think about my nerves, an instructor called my name. I let out a huge breath and made the sign of the cross. Dad’s laughter was the last thing I heard before I took the test.

  I had no reason to be worried. Dad taught me how to drive with the same thoroughness he used to meticulously craft his airplane. There was no detail, no angle that he hadn’t considered. The instructor even complimented me on my parallel parking skills. “You aren’t even nervous! Everyone gets nervous to parallel,” he said, sounding truly surprised.

  I shrugged, playing cool. “My Dad is a good teacher.”

  When we got back to the DMV, I parked the car out front and looked to my instructor. “Congratulations,” he said. I smiled like I had just won the lottery.

  I opened the car door, intending to run right in shouting that I had passed. But before I even shut the door Dad, looking so professional in his suit, was standing outside in the frigid air, grinning from ear to ear, watching for me to return. He didn’t say a word, just opened his arms nice and wide, and like a child I ran into them. I laughed into his chest and he ruffled my hair with his knuckles.

  It was the best hug we ever shared.

  When we got home from the test I wanted to drive somewhere, anywhere, by myself. Dad said I could drive to Emily’s house, probably because she lived so close. “I’ll tell your Mom. Have fun, and be careful,” he said.

  Even though it was far from warm out, I rolled my window down. As I backed out of the driveway, Dad leaned against Mom’s car, his arms folded over his chest. I was elated at my success, my new freedom, the strangeness of being alone in a car. I waved goodbye to Dad, his reflection stationed in my rearview mirror as he watched me leave him behind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The last gift you gave me was a car. It must have been May or June, because I remember the sun shining on the green grass in our front yard when you pulled up in my first car.

  You did not tell Mom you were buying me a car. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, I suppose.

  The 1989 Plymouth Horizon was, without question, a beater. It was probably blue, once, and the seats ha
d various food and coffee stains all over them. But the radio worked and there was room for at least three of my friends and some beach bags. It cost you all of $500, but to me, that car could have been a shiny Rolls Royce. I loved it.

  Since there wasn’t a CD player I took my smaller battery operated boom box and buckled it in to the front seat. I would roll all the windows down, crank up a CD and gladly run any and all errands that gave me an excuse to drive my new car.

  Shortly after you died, Mom took my car away.

  She thought it was a safety hazard when you were alive, and after you died in a freak accident she was paranoid that I would meet the same end in that tiny, old car. I don’t know what she did with it, but one day, it was gone.

  Just like you.

  I started driving your car, which I loved just as much as the Horizon. I kept your radio stations programmed in and I took comfort watching the compass you had stuck to the dashboard bobble back and forth, telling me what direction I was headed. When certain songs came on the oldies station I was convinced you were driving with me, sending me a song from wherever it was you had gone.

  I’ve heard that if you have two dogs and one dies, sometimes the companion is soon to follow. They can’t live without each other. Your car must have known that you weren’t coming back, because before my junior year of high school began, your car was dead too.

  Mom arranged a tow truck to take your car away while she was at work. While I waited for the tow to arrive I turned your car on one last time, blasting the oldies station as loud as the volume would go, not caring who I ticked off in our neighborhood. I brought the basketball outside and took shot after shot, even though my eyes had filled with tears and I couldn’t see the net.

  Everything was so damn unfair. My arms weakly threw the ball as sobs shook my body. There was nothing left that would keep you with me. You would never come back for your car, or for me. You were gone.

  When the tow truck came I shut off the radio and pressed my face against the steering wheel, my tears dripping all over the rubber grips. The men in the tow truck ignored me, an emotional teenage girl. They hooked up your car and drove away while I sat alone in the driveway, feeling like I had buried you all over again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Every Memorial Day weekend my parents would pack up the car and we would drive the eight hours down to Missouri for a family reunion. Our family rented the same pavilion every year in Athens, a small town whose claim to fame was the Cannon Ball House. During the Civil War a cannon ball shot through the front of house and exited out the back. We toured the white house every year to stare at the splintery holes covered by protective plastic.

  That house is proof that survival is possible, even with a hole through your center.

  The reunion was an all day affair. My cousins and I would spend the morning playing soccer or volleyball in the open field of the historic park while our parents mingled with our extended family. A few of those distant relatives freaked me out. They were missing a lot of their teeth and their kids ran around without clothes on, picking their nose with their grimy hands. They were the rednecks and we had become city folk, and sometimes I could appreciate my parents’ decision to leave Missouri behind.

  After we had all eaten lunch we would leave the park and drive to the first of two cemeteries. At the first my Dad would walk around with his parents and siblings and leave plastic wreaths on the graves of people who mattered to him like my aunts and uncles mattered to me. It’s hard to expand your mind as a child to go outside of the family that you know and envision your parents having their own family before you came along. To do this means accepting that their aunts and uncles and grandparents have died, and one day, you will be at cemetery with your kids when your family has died.

  The cemeteries didn’t scare me or make me upset; instead I was fascinated by the ancient tombstones. We were out in the middle of farm country, Amish country, and the headstones were often so faded with age that I couldn’t read most of the names. In that undisturbed land it was easy to picture a family, similar to ours, burying their own.

  The second cemetery we visited was at the top of a steep hill. Our family would park their cars off of the gravel road as deep into the ditch as they could go. We would get out of our cars and make the climb up the hill. Once at the top we would stretch out on our bellies, arms pointed straight above us, and together we would roll down the hill.

  There were a few headstones to maneuver around, but if you aimed right from the start you could usually avoid them. By the time you reached the bottom you could barely stand, you had to give your dizzy head time to catch back up with your body. Once you regained your balance it was back up the hill for another roll.

  Everyone, including my grandparents, would roll down cemetery hill. Becky, my strictest aunt, looked like a little girl when she took her turn. Children adore the adults in their lives who get messy with finger paints and dig mud pies in the backyard. Watching my family roll down a dirty hill, getting covered in grass stains, at a place where we otherwise would be silent and respectful was a tradition I cherished. I knew it was unique to my family alone.

  My cousins and I would race each other down the hill, laughing hysterically the entire time. Our shoes would fly off our feet in our attempts to go faster. Sometimes we would hold hands and race in pairs. M was the most competitive and it usually cost him the contents of his stomach.

  I imagine the people buried below us waited anxiously for our arrival every year, anticipating the sounds of laughter that echoed beyond death.

  As much as I loved going to Missouri for Memorial Day, it was an exhausting trip. We would leave when it was dark out and return home at the end of the weekend just in time to unpack the car and go to bed. As a holiday weekend I’m sure Dad could have used the time on his plane, an extra paid day off to work in the garage. Yet we always went to Missouri. Family came first.

  Memorial Day wasn’t the only turn-around trip home we would take. Every graduation, every birthday party, every baby that was born, we would spend sixteen hours in the car for eight hours worth of celebration.

  My grandparent’s fiftieth anniversary and my birthday fell on the same day, and my grandfather’s birthday was four days earlier. To celebrate, my family threw them a huge surprise party. We arrived just in time for the big reveal and stayed until the last guest left, only to get into the car and drive all night home. We all had red eyes when the alarm went off Monday morning, but we had done the right thing in going.

  During the party my Mom pulled me aside and apologized that my fourteenth birthday had been overlooked. I hadn’t thought of it that way until she mentioned it. Our family had bought a birthday cake for both my Grandpa and I. We had each held a cake and had been serenaded by a hundred people. Grandpa kept trying to blow my candles out while twisting his cake out of my reach. My family didn’t leave anyone out, and no milestone was ever forgotten. They were crazy and fun, loving and warm – worth every hour we spent in the car to be together.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  There was an hour before your wake when our family could view your body, though the funeral director strongly advised against it. Mom and I ignored him, though most of the time I wish I hadn’t.

  Diana and Marty arrived at the funeral home at the same time as Mom, Grandma and I. The three of them waited for Mom and I to go first, tissues at the ready.

  Mom took my hand, her rings digging into my fingers, and led me around the corner into the parlor. Rows and rows of rich brown chairs sat on the taffy colored carpet. At the front of the room was the casket I had picked.

  I couldn’t see you. Someone had draped a gauzy sheet from the top of the casket to the floor. It cascaded down, pink layer after pink layer. As we inched our way closer my heart started to race. Your body was in the box, under that sheet, and it was suddenly all too real. There were no more plans to make, no more decisions. You were in the box and the box was getting closer, and my legs forgot how to hold me
up. I let myself go limp, falling onto my knees.

  I cried out too, just a sound, no words. There weren’t words that could have described how it felt to know you were rotting a few inches away.

  Mom knelt down beside me and wrapped her arms around me. After a few moments of crying she pulled me up, and with an even tighter grip on my hands we walked the last few steps together.

  “Take the sheet away,” I demanded of the faceless workers that stood beside the casket.

  Slowly they moved forward and lifted the sheet, folding it between them.

  You didn’t look like you. Your hair was puffy and stiff with hairspray. Your face was swollen, deformed, the purple bruises peeking out from the layers of makeup that had been caked onto your waxy skin. I think your nose was broken. Your hands, folded together, were definitely broken.

  The good thing about the fakeness of your body was that I didn’t trick myself into thinking you were going to breathe at any moment. Had you looked normal I might have convinced myself you were sleeping. The body before me left no doubt that you were no longer inside of it.

  The wake was exhausting. I never sat down and I was always talking to someone. A long receiving line formed and Mom and I stood beside your closed casket shaking the hands of the people who had come to pay their respects.

  Mom’s family from Minnesota came, too. Brian and Bobbi carried Charlie and Marissa in their arms. The kids pointed to your pictures on the casket lid and asked where Uncle David was. Seeing them in their parents’ arms was almost too much to handle. I realized then that Marissa might remember you a little but to Charlie you would be all but lost.