The Bookseller(67)

I pull a postcard from my handbag. It shows an aerial view of Honolulu, a range of high-rise hotels on the beach, one taller than the next, like the rows of tall books Frieda and I keep on a bottom shelf in the shop—the art and travel books, those too big for the regular stacks.

This card is the last one I will receive. My mother says as much.


Dearest Kitty,

This is the last time I will write to you from here. We are packing to leave, and we board the overnight flight on Wednesday evening. I must say I am a bit apprehensive about flying. Who knows what all those Communists are doing these days, and where they are? Who is to say they are not in some ship in the Pacific, just waiting for us? Your father says the idea of the Russians shooting a plane out of the sky, especially one full of tourists, is preposterous. I suspect he’s right.

What gloomy thoughts! I hope that by the time you see me, I will be all smiles again. Certainly I will—how could it be otherwise, when I will be seeing my girl after much too long a separation?

All my love,

Mother



I read and reread the card until finally I hear an announcement that the Los Angeles flight is landing. I rush to Gate 18.

Eagerly, I stand by the window at the gate as the airplane taxis. I can see my parents as they descend the stairs from the airplane and walk across the tarmac. I jump up and down and wave through the big pane windows. Mother sees me and waves back. She is wearing her navy blue coat and matching hat, which she holds against her head in the wind.

“Kitty!” My mother’s hug, after she comes through the doorway, is exuberant. I hold her tightly, breathing in her perfume—Chanel No. 5, which she’s worn for as long as I can remember. I wonder if she still feels that rush of warmth when she holds me that I feel when I hold Mitch and Missy. (Who knows how it would feel to hold Michael? Or if I will ever get an opportunity to hold him at all?) I wonder, as my mother and I cling to each other, if holding one’s child is always so warm, so powerful—even when one’s child is grown. I suspect it is.

Reluctantly, when I sense that people will probably start staring at us soon, I release her. Then it’s my father’s turn. He’s wearing a suit and tie for the special occasion of airline travel, his clothing a bit rumpled now after the overnight ride from Honolulu and the layover in Los Angeles. His buttons press against me as we hug. His shoulders, curved from years of hunching over an assembly-line table, straighten gallantly in my embrace.

We all three hold hands, me in the middle, as we make our way to the baggage claim—childish, I know, but I am more than overjoyed to see them. I’ve never been as elated in my life to see someone as I am to see my parents at the airport this afternoon.

Suddenly, I wonder if the self in my other life missed my parents this much when they went on this trip. For that matter, did they go on the trip at all? Surely, they must have; it’s something they’ve talked about doing for years, ever since Uncle Stanley and Aunt May moved to Honolulu more than a decade ago.

“Well, that long delay was unexpected,” my mother says as we wait for the luggage to come around on the carousel. “But worse things have happened. Did you hear about Tuesday’s Honolulu flight?” She shakes her head. “Not the Russians, but Mother Nature can be equally as dreadful. I almost didn’t get on the plane when we heard the news, but your father reminded me that it’s a long boat trip from Hawaii to the mainland.” Her eyes light up, and she changes the subject. “Tom, there’s my train case—don’t let it get away.” My father reaches for it, and then both of their suitcases come round, one right after the other. “Lucky!” my mother says triumphantly, as my father heaves the large bag. I take the midsize one, and she clutches her train case.

We go outside to hail a taxicab. “We didn’t plan to get here so late.” My mother glances at her watch. “Goodness, it’s nearly suppertime.”

“It’s all right. I expected to have supper with you.” Noticing how tightly I’m gripping her hand, I try to relax, loosening my grasp but not letting go. “But I thought you’d get a few hours to unwind first.” I shrug as a cab pulls up in front of us.

“I hope you didn’t plan to cook.” My father hands his bag to the cabbie and holds the taxi’s back door open for my mother and me. “Because I want nothing more than a steak at the Buckhorn.” His look is wistful. “You can get all the mai tais you want, but you can’t get a good steak to save your life in Hawaii.”

Unlike my mother, with her frequent postcards, my father wrote to me only twice from Honolulu. What his communication lacked in quantity, it made up for in quality; he wrote letters, not postcards, pages and pages describing his favorite holes at the golf course, the hike he took with Uncle Stanley up a mountain called Diamond Head, the surf on the beaches on the north side of the island. And the food; he told me all about the meals he’d been eating, the fruit salads and grilled fish and sweet rolls. In both letters he remarked that while the Hawaiian food was “interesting,” he missed eating “good old-fashioned red meat.”

Now, however, at his mention of going out to eat, I let my face fall slightly. “I have a delicious home-cooked supper planned.”

“Do you now? What a shame.” He shakes his head dramatically as he climbs in after my mother and me, a little smile playing around his lips.