Chapter 24: The Counter Again

At six on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the departures hall at MSP smelled of floor cleaner and coffee.

I walked in through the sliding doors with a small blue suitcase that was mine.

Dot walked on my right with her purse strapped across her chest, and Keir on my left, pulling the bag we shared.

Brittany had driven us in the Corolla.

She came behind us with a foil-wrapped slice of lemon meringue pie, held out in both hands.

"For the plane," she said. "Dot said I wasn't allowed to film it. So I'm not."

"Thank you."

"Eat it before Customs."

"That's the point of a pie."

We joined the line at the airline counter, and I stopped.

At the end of the next row of stanchions, at a different counter, a woman stood alone in a plain wool coat.

She had one suitcase, a handbag held against her stomach, and no pearls.

Her silver hair needed doing.

Stanton stood a few feet behind her with his hands in his jacket pockets.

He saw me first, and his face did something small and careful, and he gave me one nod and nothing else.

I nodded back.

Bernadette had not seen us yet.

She was talking to the agent in the church voice, softer than it had ever been, because there was nobody left to hear it.

"It's only the bag fee," she said. "I'm sure it's a mistake. Try it again."

"I did, ma'am. It's declined."

"Try the other one."

"That one's declined as well."

She was holding two black cards.

I knew them both.

I had cancelled the second one myself, on a Saturday night, at a microphone.

"It's thirty-five dollars," the agent said.

She was kind about it, and she had already glanced past Bernadette to the line behind her.