Safe Flight

My mom drives me down to the bus stop every morning because the road is winding and narrow and not made for walking. As the bus pulls up she hands me my lunch and hurriedly ushers me out of our big purple family van. I move slowly. I am a bird who is not ready to leave the nest.

I can hear the chaos inside the bus before the folding doors have even opened. Lifting my short legs up the steps, I glance with tired eyes over the crowd. My peers are like white-capped waves violently churning up books and bags. One student, Forbes, has thick round glasses, a permanently dirty face and is—beyond a doubt—the root of this morning’s madness. I can hear his croaky voice wheedling the others on, testing to see how far they can push the bus driver’s patience before he snaps. I lay low and try to get comfortable on the squeaky brown pleather. As the bus turns onto the highway I keep my eyes on our van until I cannot see it anymore.

I clutch the edge of the pool to catch my breath. Even at the shallow end I cannot touch the bottom. As the lesson ends I glance over at the waiting area for mom. If she were here, it meant I would be able to escape the bus ride home. It would mean I would get to spend time by her side doing whatever she did. Looking out at my classmates bobbing around in the water it is hard for me to imagine a time beyond this moment, but there will be.

There will be graduation day. That night, while we are all under the same roof for the last time, we will have a moment of silence for our friend Forbes who earlier that year will have been killed instantly in an ATV accident. I will attend his funeral. I will not be able to bring myself to the edge of his open casket. I will remember being surrounded by friends and crying on each other's shoulders. 

A month later, I will be boarding a plane to take me to a new corner of the planet and it will be on my own accord. I will be so excited for an adventure but I will cry as I leave my family at the security gate. The airplane will feel cold, quiet and sterilized. I will arrive at my destination in the middle of the night to be driven an hour or so through the darkness until headlights illuminate a white cottage with a pomegranate tree in the front yard. I will smell the sea and fresh mint growing wild as I step through the threshold for the first time. I will watch as these new faces—who I will soon come to know as family—try to properly dial international area codes. After much trial, I will be connected over a global network of thin electrical wires to my home phone. In a small voice I will say, “I made it, mum” and after a long pause, in a quiet voice she will respond only with “be safe,” because that’s all she will be able to muster in that moment. I will hang up the phone and be shown to my sparsely adorned room, doors and windows open in an attempt counteract the extreme humidity. I will try to fall asleep that night during a screaming match between stray dogs and cicadas.

But until then, I will be here, at the edge of the pool craning my neck to see if my mom is waiting in the stands to take me home.