“Is that everything?” Mom’s car idles as I haul my last suitcase out of the boot and onto the pavement. The wind is frigid, slicing through the tunnel of concrete and asphalt at departures, and whipping my clothes about my body like sails.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s it now.”
“Alright,” she says, and pauses, her face halfway turned, so I see her in profile from my place by the open boot, her sharp cheekbone silhouetted by the sunrays through the open floors of a car park.
“Right, well.”
“Yes. I better go.”
“Thanks for the lift.”
She hesitates, her chest rising and falling with a sharp breath. “I- It’s a shame you have to go,” she says eventually. “But it’s for the best.”
“Yes.”
“Call me when you land.”
“I’ll text.”
“That’s fine.”
I slam the boot shut, and she pulls away from the curb with a roar of her engine.
“Would all passengers travelling to Berlin on flight DLH-3478 please have your boarding passes and passports ready for boarding? Flight DLH-3478 now boarding at gate 41.”
“Welcome on board,” says a peppy flight attendant. “Can I help you find your seat?”
“No.”
I shuffle down the aisle to the sounds of sleepy murmuring from the other passengers. A combination of English and German. I find my seat and shove my bag into the overhead compartment.
As luck would have it, I was randomly assigned a window seat. I squeeze in, my knees bent and nudging the seat in front of me.
Next to me, an older lady, in her sixties maybe, struggles in. “Oh, goodness’ sake,” she says, in this lilting, Donegal brogue. “These seats weren’t made for tall fellas like you, were they?”
“Suppose not.” I turn my face to stare at the asphalt out the window.
She settles in, hauling a heavy purse onto her lap, from which she unloads her reading glasses, a book with a WHSmith sticker on the cover, a BLT sandwich and a knitting project, still on the needles.
I breathe slowly from my nose.
“Terrible early flight, isn’t it?” She says, wiggling into her seat.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“I came all the way from Letterkenny. I had to get a bus at midnight. Imagine that. Took three hours overall. It’s desperate.”
“Mm.”
“Where are you coming from?”
“Clontarf. It’s like, fifteen minutes away.”
“Oh, lucky you!” She pulls down the table, but soon has to fix it back in place when the flight attendant coming to close the overhead lockers asks her to. The handbag is repacked and squeezed under the seat in front.
She happily talks over the safety announcement. “I’m excited about this,” she whispers as the attendant demonstrates how to blow up the life vest. “I’m visiting my sister. She’s lived over in Berlin for years and years. She’s got a German husband. Gerhard, and I’d say the last time I visited, well, we were trying to figure it out together when I was on the phone with her. Was it eight years? When was… No, it was 2001…”
When the engines roar to life, and the plane begins its slow taxi across the runway, she produces a bag of sweets from her cardigan pocket. “For your ears?” she says.
“I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?” She rustles the bag, and I look. They’re lemon bonbons. I like those.
“Yeah, actually, thanks,” I say, and pluck one from the packet. I haven’t yet decided if I can eat it while my stomach is so knotted up and queasy. Maybe I’ll just hold it.
“What’s bringing you to Berlin?” She says, as the plane rounds a wide corner to reveal the expanse of sky over the flat of north Dublin.
“I’m moving, actually.”
“Oh! Wow, isn’t that exciting?”
“Yeah, I suppose it is.”
“What has you going to Germany?”
“College,” I say, because it’s all I think I can say. Something is happening behind my face. I clench my fist around the lemon bonbon, sticky in my hot palm.
“All on your own?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, well, it’s a big change, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“You’ll miss your family and friends, won’t you? It’s not far, but you know how these things are. It’s never easy leaving home for the first time.”
“No.”
“You’re very brave.”
A murmuration of starlings cuts through the blue. “Mm. I suppose. I-” I break off as my voice catches. No. I think. Not here. So I blink, hard, but it can’t stop the tears coming, because they’ve been waiting, as though building behind a dam, and now at last, in the most inconvenient location on the planet, something has given. “I… um…”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she produces a tissue and I take it, pinching it against the bridge of my nose while tears spill over and snot flows, my teeth bared. I can’t bear to look at her as she fusses over me, her hand stroking my sleeve. I sniff, and it’s loud, and thick, and humiliating.
“Darling, you’ll be alright, c’mere, now, you can just let it all out.”
“Sorry.”
“No need.”
Like a mother, she murmurs vague, comforting sentiments as the tears pour, and build, and flood my vision until the view of Dublin blurs like wet paint. I sob until I think I’ll retch. The plane speeds along the runway, and lifts, and takes off into the sky, and I leave my little green island behind.
"..." She's staring at his bunny hat with withheld enthusiasm. "Can I... pet it?" (Kikoru to Reno)
H e eyes her, then instantly looks away, emitting a defeated breath whilst his cheeks gain faint roseate pigments. How embarrassing, he thought, to be caught by her, of all people." Go on - Get it out of your system, Shinomiya." He's never agreeing to betting with Iharu again.
