disappear on new journeys.
As she waited for Mia’s backpack to pass beneath the heavy plastic teeth of the carousel, she played a game with herself, trying to match pieces of luggage to their owners. The first couple were easy; she knew that the padded black ice-hockey bag belonged to the broad teenager with a lightning bolt shaved into the back of his sandy hair, and that the pair of ladybird-print cases would be passed to twin girls in identical blue coats. It was a small surprise, however, when the gentleman in a tired panama hat reached not for the tan leather suitcase she had predicted, but a sleek silver case with the sheen of a bullet. But then, neither would she have matched the smartly dressed blonde woman in charcoal ankle boots and a fitted blazer to the tattered backpack that she reached for.
Grabbing a worn strap, Katie hauled it from the carousel using both hands. She struggled to put it on, bending her arms in awkward contortions to force them through the straps, and then jumping a little to shift it into position. She felt compressed by the weight of it, and bent forward at the waist to balance out the load.
She trudged through the arrivals gate where a crowd watched eagerly for their loved ones, their eyes moving quickly beyond her to see who followed. A heavyset man in a Giants sweater ducked beneath the barrier and ran forward, throwing thick arms around the boy with the hockey stick. Katie didn’t rush to leave the airport, excited to see San Francisco, as Mia and Finn might have; instead, she joined the crowd on the other side of the arrivals barrier, set down her backpack, perched on top of it and watched.
Time ran away as Katie sat perfectly still, hands placed together in her lap. She began to understand the rhythm of arrivals, anticipating the empty space alongside the barriers between flights, which filled in correlation to the overhead screen announcing the next set of arrivals. If a flight was delayed or there had been a hold-up, then two groups of passengers could arrive at the same time, and the barrier would be pressed taut.
There were fathers collecting daughters, girlfriends being met by boyfriends, husbands waiting for wives, grandparents beaming at grandchildren – but the reunions she searched out were always those between sisters. Sometimes it was difficult to tell which women were friends and which were siblings, but more often Katie knew instinctively. It was in the casualness of how they embraced, the way their smiles were completed when they saw each other, or how a joke quickly passed from one pair of lips to a smile on the other. It was in the same angle of their noses, a gesture they both displayed, or how they walked arm in arm, as they left together.
A woman with fox-red hair spilling over the shoulders of her kaftan placed a hand to her mouth when she saw her sister. A purple silk scarf partly concealed the sister’s bald head, but the strain of illness showed in her sallow skin and gaunt cheeks. The redhead reached out and squeezed her sister’s fingers, then lightly touched her empty hairline and then, finally letting go of whatever composure she’d privately been battling to maintain, embraced her in a long clasp, sobbing over her shoulder.
If someone had watched Katie and Mia, she wondered whether they’d have guessed they were sisters. Katie’s fair features were distinct from Mia’s strikingly dark looks, but someone paying attention might have noticed that their lips shared an equal fullness, or that their eyebrows followed the exact same arch. If they had listened closely they would catch crisply articulated word endings from years of good schooling, but might have noticed that they still mispronounced the word ‘irritable’, both placing the emphasis on the second syllable, not the first.
Vivid memories of Mia flew into her thoughts, details from their childhood she hadn’t thought of in years: lying together in the sun-warmed rock pools that smelt
As she waited for Mia’s backpack to pass beneath the heavy plastic teeth of the carousel, she played a game with herself, trying to match pieces of luggage to their owners. The first couple were easy; she knew that the padded black ice-hockey bag belonged to the broad teenager with a lightning bolt shaved into the back of his sandy hair, and that the pair of ladybird-print cases would be passed to twin girls in identical blue coats. It was a small surprise, however, when the gentleman in a tired panama hat reached not for the tan leather suitcase she had predicted, but a sleek silver case with the sheen of a bullet. But then, neither would she have matched the smartly dressed blonde woman in charcoal ankle boots and a fitted blazer to the tattered backpack that she reached for.
Grabbing a worn strap, Katie hauled it from the carousel using both hands. She struggled to put it on, bending her arms in awkward contortions to force them through the straps, and then jumping a little to shift it into position. She felt compressed by the weight of it, and bent forward at the waist to balance out the load.
She trudged through the arrivals gate where a crowd watched eagerly for their loved ones, their eyes moving quickly beyond her to see who followed. A heavyset man in a Giants sweater ducked beneath the barrier and ran forward, throwing thick arms around the boy with the hockey stick. Katie didn’t rush to leave the airport, excited to see San Francisco, as Mia and Finn might have; instead, she joined the crowd on the other side of the arrivals barrier, set down her backpack, perched on top of it and watched.
Time ran away as Katie sat perfectly still, hands placed together in her lap. She began to understand the rhythm of arrivals, anticipating the empty space alongside the barriers between flights, which filled in correlation to the overhead screen announcing the next set of arrivals. If a flight was delayed or there had been a hold-up, then two groups of passengers could arrive at the same time, and the barrier would be pressed taut.
There were fathers collecting daughters, girlfriends being met by boyfriends, husbands waiting for wives, grandparents beaming at grandchildren – but the reunions she searched out were always those between sisters. Sometimes it was difficult to tell which women were friends and which were siblings, but more often Katie knew instinctively. It was in the casualness of how they embraced, the way their smiles were completed when they saw each other, or how a joke quickly passed from one pair of lips to a smile on the other. It was in the same angle of their noses, a gesture they both displayed, or how they walked arm in arm, as they left together.
A woman with fox-red hair spilling over the shoulders of her kaftan placed a hand to her mouth when she saw her sister. A purple silk scarf partly concealed the sister’s bald head, but the strain of illness showed in her sallow skin and gaunt cheeks. The redhead reached out and squeezed her sister’s fingers, then lightly touched her empty hairline and then, finally letting go of whatever composure she’d privately been battling to maintain, embraced her in a long clasp, sobbing over her shoulder.
If someone had watched Katie and Mia, she wondered whether they’d have guessed they were sisters. Katie’s fair features were distinct from Mia’s strikingly dark looks, but someone paying attention might have noticed that their lips shared an equal fullness, or that their eyebrows followed the exact same arch. If they had listened closely they would catch crisply articulated word endings from years of good schooling, but might have noticed that they still mispronounced the word ‘irritable’, both placing the emphasis on the second syllable, not the first.
Vivid memories of Mia flew into her thoughts, details from their childhood she hadn’t thought of in years: lying together in the sun-warmed rock pools that smelt
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