Chapter 22 - The Trip Nobody Expected
My first response was no.
Walter ignored it.
My second response was also no.
June ignored that one.
By the third week, Hannah was looking at flights.
“I have patients,” I protested.
“You have vacation days.”
“The boys have school.”
“Summer.”
“I don’t want to spend fourteen hours on an airplane with Walter.”
From the phone speaker, Walter said, “Coward.”
I had not realized Hannah had called him.
The Tokyo trip started as a joke.
Then it grew.
Walter wanted to return to the hotel where he had collapsed only hours after leaving Japan.
June wanted to visit a garden they had missed.
Hannah wanted the boys to experience another country.
Rebecca surprised everyone by saying she had no interest in returning.
“I’m not ready,” she said.
Sophie had a different answer.
“I am.”
That created a problem.
Sophie wanted Tokyo to stop being the place where her father disappointed her and her mother disappeared into a screen.
Ethan wanted to take her.
Rebecca did not know whether she could handle it.
Counselors became involved.
Schedules.
Boundaries.
Eventually, a plan formed.
Not everyone traveling together like some strange sitcom.
Ethan and Sophie would fly separately and spend four days in Tokyo.
Our family would overlap for two.
Walter and June would travel on their own itinerary.
Rebecca would stay in Chicago.
Her choice.
The first time she said it aloud, Sophie looked hurt.
“You don’t want to come with me?”
Rebecca knelt.
“I want you to have a new memory that doesn’t depend on me being there.”
Sophie frowned.
“That sounds like counselor language.”
“It probably is.”
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
They hugged.
Months earlier, fear had become accusation.
Now it became information.
At O’Hare, we met Walter and June near the gate.
Walter wore compression socks and carried enough medication to stock a pharmacy.
June carried the list proving he had taken it.
“Romance,” Walter said, “is being audited before breakfast.”
Our boys were electric.
Ben wanted to know whether pilots slept.
Owen wanted to know why airport coffee cost seven dollars.
Hannah wanted them both quiet.
Then I heard a familiar voice.
“Dr. Adrian.”
Sophie stood ten feet away.
Purple sneakers.
Not the original pair.
Same color.
I pointed.
“Bold choice.”
She grinned.
“I thought you’d appreciate them.”
Ethan stood behind her.
He looked almost embarrassed.
“I tried to talk her out of it.”
“Good luck.”
We were on different flights.
That had been intentional.
The adults wanted Sophie’s trip with Ethan to belong to them.
Still, our gates were close.
For twenty minutes, everyone talked.
Then Sophie pulled me aside.
“I’m scared something bad will happen on the plane.”
“What kind of thing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Walter?”
She nodded.
I crouched slightly.
“Walter had a medical emergency. Airplanes didn’t cause it.”
“I know.”
“Knowing and feeling aren’t always roommates.”
She smiled.
“What if somebody gets sick?”
“Then the crew asks for help.”
“What if nobody knows what to do?”
“Then they follow their training and talk to medical support on the ground.”
“What if I panic?”
I thought about the girl who once turned fear into kicking.
“Tell your dad.”
She looked toward Ethan.
“What if he’s working?”
I raised an eyebrow.
Sophie laughed.
“Okay.”
Then Ethan joined us.
“What am I missing?”
“Your daughter plans to hold you accountable.”
“Terrifying.”
Boarding began for their flight.
Sophie hugged June.
Walter.
Hannah.
The boys.
Then me.
As she pulled away, she said, “No fractions.”
“Never.”
Ethan extended his hand.
“See you in Tokyo.”
“Show up.”
His smile was small.
“I plan to.”
Their flight departed forty minutes before ours.
When our plane finally climbed over Lake Michigan, Ben fell asleep almost immediately.
Owen watched a movie.
Hannah rested against my shoulder.
Behind me, someone bumped my seat.
Once.
I turned.
A teenage boy looked horrified.
“Sorry, sir.”
“No problem.”
Walter leaned across the aisle.
“Disappointing. I was ready.”
“For what?”
“To teach fractions.”
June hit him with a pillow.
I laughed.
Somewhere over the Pacific, another airplane carried Sophie back toward a city that had once taught her how badly adults could fail.
May you like
This time, she was not going there to repeat the story.
She was going to rewrite what the place meant.
