“LANDED.”
People rushed toward the doors.
A boy ran into his father’s arms.
A woman dropped her flowers to embrace her husband.
I kept looking for Jeremy.
I’d rehearsed this moment a hundred times.
Jeremy would see the girls first.
He would crouch beside their stroller, and I would pretend not to cry while he tried to decide which daughter to pick up.
I had even practiced saying their names together.
So he could tell them apart.
Now the balloons floated above two empty spaces where his hands should have been.
The woman who had dropped her flowers was still holding her husband.
I hated her for one awful second.
Then I hated myself.
One of my girls kicked beneath her blanket.
I tucked it around her and wondered how I could be somebody’s mother while feeling so much like a frightened child.
Then someone touched my shoulder.
