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Show Motherlunge a novel 71 "Like.. .like what expression?" I asked. I felt huge and remote in my rectangular sunglasses, like someone trying to reach a distant canister of bacon bits from behind a salad bar sneezeguard. "Like they like me," she said. "Faking it. Like how Jack still looks at me. Anyway, it's just for a second. Just for one last look. We can follow them to the baggage claim, and we'll take this stuff off, I'll talk to them there." She reached up with two gloved hands and slapped her wig so that I flinched. "Please," my sister said, "Let's go" So I wheeled her out into the concourse, stopping where the carpet began in front of the security gate. Passengers were filtering through the doors already, melanin-dappled and exhausted, burdened with carry-ons and walking in the defeated way of people returning from indulgent vacations. I spotted Ed and Nanette. Truly, they too wore matching sweat suits; pale blue, unstained. Their eyes passed over Pavia and me like waves on smooth sand, and retreated. Then they saw Jack. And all at once Ed's lined face was drawn smooth with a wide smile and Nanette was rushing forward, her arms shooting up into the air. And then her tote bag fell off her shoulder, knocking her briefly to one side as she kept coming forward toward her son anyway, and Ed put his hand on her back to steady her and began to laugh with a deep and booming laugh as Jack came up to them. Jack put his mother inside his open arms and bent his head to her. And Jack's face and mouth were saying, "Mom" and other things as his father laughed again and the crowd curved and flowed around the three of them, diverted. |