“What’s the deal with airplane peanuts?”~ Jerry Seinfeld

I’ve been alone, more or less, for five days, and I’m starting to talk to myself.

What’s left of my head is swirling with ideas for word-scratching, and I’ve been feeding on good, solid food (Peter Kreeft recordings, a book by G.K. Chesterton, a writing conference, an odd combination of Yo Yo Ma and Andrew Peterson music) and have had miles and miles to think long thoughts. But I don’t have it in me right now to write anything provoking or even decent. But my fingers need to move on the keyboard, and I just need to talk.

I missed a flight today. There was no real reason, really, other than I underestimated the time it would take for MARTA to make its way from Dunwoody to the airport. Hum de dum was my mode while I peered fascinated out the train window at neighborhoods I’d never visited. I was shocked when the ticketing agent said I couldn’t make the plane, not with the big old bag I’d brought to check.

“That has to go with you—for security reasons,” he said, each word carrying condemnation for my vanity. (I’ve never managed to fit my way-too-worldly goods into a carry-on.) Pleading looks and a soft voice got me nowhere. Blast. No, scratch that (I’m in an airport after all). Darn. Why couldn’t my embarrassingly large luggage and I meet up later? I thought today’s terrorists don’t care about getting blown up—why would they smuggle explosives into a suitcase for a flight they weren’t on?

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 “Good things come, but they’re never perfect; are they? You have to twist them into something perfect.” ~ Betsy

I didn’t know how I was going to do it. Back during spring break, I started fretting over the prospect of three whole months with no big yellow bus appearing at the end of the drive each morning.

“You’re the sort who worries you’re going to have a horrible time at the dance and then has a ball,” a friend told me.

I hoped she was right.

A funny thing happened on the way to summer this year. Luke flew his basement coop and got himself a job downtown. The Monday in April he was to drive off before dawn to write for the fizzy water folks became my new day of dread. How would I manage on my own? More precisely, what would I do with Sadie, our special needs bundle of joy?  I whined to friends. People at church prayed for me. I worried I’d grow to resent Luke’s absence so much I couldn’t stand his presence.

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Blood drips fast on bricks and I stare at bright red is disbelief. Whose blood is it, Sadie’s or mine? I check her all over, even inside her mouth—I think I remember grabbing her there as three adults tried to pry off raging child in the waiting area. No, it’s my hand—my watch pinched when Sadie and I scrambled.

Even though she sees lots of autistic kids, I’ll bet the doc has never done a psychiatric intake on the front stoop before, I think, sweat beading on my forehead. Sadie’s sobs ebb and she sits criss-cross in hot sun, basking. I breathe out and try not to cry in front of this stranger. Her eyes burn sympathy, though.

“This is so hard,” says the doctor, a mother also. “I’m so moved by her right now.”

Sunshine and lemonade and a wad of tissues later, we coax Sadie into the doctor’s air conditioned office. It is dark and cool with a couch and a shelf full of toys. Sadie’s not crying anymore, but her little leg is shaking nervously. The doctor notices. She looks into her eyes.

“She is so beautiful.” I know—that olive skin, those curls, those dark eyes framed by eyelashes enviable.

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