Death of an uncle
There was nothing to be done, the Air Canada person insisted with a face that lied about how sorry she was pretending to be. They had missed their connection to Nashville during the time it took them to go from D34 to F63 via yet another security check and a singularly surly representative of the United States Department of Homeland Security. They’d missed the 4:40 to BNA.
She knew they should have taken the earlier flight from Ottawa instead of playing it so tight. But he insisted they would have no problem making that connection in 47 minutes. “I do it all the time.”
All the time, evidently, didn’t apply to holiday travel.
“I don’t understand,” he lamented as they remained on the Ottawa tarmac for an extra 20 minutes, delay that would forever remain unexplained. Or more to the point, un-communicated with passengers.
She was angry that this delay might make the difference between being able to say goodbye to her beloved uncle before his death instead of after. And that there was nothing she could do about it.
Pearson Airport’s Terminal One is a blight on the air transportation system. It thinks it works, and on those rare occasions your flight is on time, and assuming you don’t need comfort, convenience or wifi that doesn’t eat your email, it’s kind of OK. The mood wasn’t especially upbeat that late afternoon. Anxious passengers awaiting their connections stared out the large windows and saw nothing but a chaos of rain and — ugh, were those ice pellets? Whatever it was, it was hitting sideways, obscuring the view of Toronto and Mississauga.
Now that they had cleared US customs they did not want to exit the terminal, not even to take up smoking again. The stress was getting to her so bad, lung cancer almost felt appealing.
She immediately hated herself for thinking that thought. Cancer is the darkness that was taking her beloved uncle away from her and everyone else who loved him.
The next flight to Nashville wasn’t until morning. She cried as she clutched the piece of paper on which she’d written all the things she needed him to know before he died. Surely someone would find a way to make it possible for her to tell him in person.
“At least we didn’t check any bags,” he said softly. “Maybe we can find an alternate route.”
He got up and walked back to the Air Canada counter without another word, and just for taking charge at this moment she fell in love with him all over again. That was him alright – doing things for her when she really needed it.
One good thing about Pearson is the series of reclining chairs near the gates to US destinations. She’d never fallen asleep so fast.
“I found a way!”
She totally didn’t hear him.
“Honey,” he said, gently rubbing her arms.
“What…”
“Get up. We’ll get to Huntsville tonight.”
“Huh!? How?”
“It’s going to be a long journey, and it will cost a little extra, but they’re sending us to Atlanta, and I’ve arranged to rent a car. We should be in Huntsville before morning.”
Nobody prepares you for just how dark the western Georgia countryside gets once the I-75 recedes into your rearview mirror after the turnoff. Wanting to save whatever money he could, he’d opted for a very sensible sub-compact vehicle, and she was wishing she were riding in one of those obnoxious super-tall pickup trucks with 5000-gigawatt headlights.
They never saw the deer until it was right in front of their bumper. It almost made her lose the sheet of paper she’d been reading and re-reading to the point where it now had the shape and consistency of a Kleenex.
She was so scared by the sudden apparition as to be rendered speechless. It felt like that time she’d impaled herself on a broomstick that got stuck between two rocks at her grandma’s cabin.
The breath got stuck in their throats. The beautiful beast bounded lightly over the car and went on its way as if nothing at all was the matter.
They were thoroughly awake the rest of the way to Huntsville, through hopelessly empty roads punctuated by ghost towns where not even gas stations were open after midnight. One imagines the life that animates these communities during the day. At 1:38 am, whoa.
To say there was nothing and no life would almost be a disservice to the English language. It was like a longitudinal black hole.
Eventually, the road gets to Huntsville – emerging at the eastern end of the I-565 that goes past the airport to Decatur and that ginormous Buc-cee’s.
They weren’t going that far. Not even through downtown. Harry, the uncle who’d raised her after her parents died when their plane crashed into the Indian Ocean, lived in a small house in Five Points. They exited the highway and let themselves be guided by the haunted glow of the Pratt Street Waffle House, around the block from the Star supermarket where she remembered buying candy as a kid.
He was barely alive when they stepped inside the dark house at 2:37 am. Nobody was sleeping; they were waiting for death, as though it would be impolite to snore through its arrival. She rushed to him, to touch his face and feel the soft stubble on his chin. Her friends growing up all had daddies with five o’clock shadows and prickly beards. She felt inferior because of that, a reminder that Harry, though performing all the duties of a father and then some for his late brother’s daughter, wasn’t her real daddy.
She gave him the gentlest hug. She’d been warned about the pain he was enduring, despite the palliative care team’s best efforts.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, offering her his last breath.
She didn’t have time to tell him what was on that mangled piece of paper. She didn’t need to. He already knew.
They buried him on the first Monday in January, the thin layer of frost on the ground crunching under their patent leather shoes. There was sadness in this Huntsville family that year. But also sweet memories. Harry’s love would carry on. So would she.
