Travels (Part 1)

We are hustling through the Atlanta airport. Our flight to Minneapolis leaves in less than half and hour. Sylvia is on my back in the Ergo. In one hand, I am holding the handle of my carry-on, a roll-y backpack bulging with books, markers, coloring books, play dough, snacks, pull-ups, water bottles-- everything to help get us through this three-leg, three thousand mile trip to Washington to visit my sister. Looped over the handle of my carry-on are two kids’ backpacks, each carefully packed the night before with all the favored stuffed animals and a random assortment of toys. With my free hand, I cling tightly to Dee Dee’s paw; this is no time for her signature sprint away from me.

“Stay close,” I tell Clayton. “And hurry!” Despite my nightmares, our first flight has arrived on time, and I am determined to make this close connection.

We pause momentarily at the top of the escalator, the moving steps descending rapidly in front of us. Dee Dee shrinks back, but there’s no time to find an elevator. Clayton bravely steps on, and I lift Dee Dee up by one arm and swing her onto the moving stairs in front of me.

At the bottom, I see the train that will take us to our terminal, and I hustle toward it instinctively. But the doors are already closing; we won’t all make it. The people inside see me hurrying and reach their arms out to hold the doors.  I shake my head at them; we’ll wait for the next one. But Clayton hasn’t sensed this unexpected pause in our momentum. He shoots past me and leaps through the closing doors of the train like the hero in an action movie.

The doors close behind him.

“Clayton!” I scream. The other passengers’ mouths are frozen in perfect Os. There arms reach out as if to force the doors open, but already the train is accelerating away, taking my four-year-old son away from me.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” I chant. I remember I said the same thing the time I discovered Dee Dee and Sylvia on my bathroom floor a year ago, their hands full of candy-coated Advil. “Oh my God,” I kept repeating as I rushed them into their carseats, my cellphone pinned between my ear and my shoulder, calling 911.

“No Mamma say, “Oh my God,” Dee Dee said through her tears as I sped out through our neighborhood.

“No Mamma say, “Oh my God,” she wailed as the woman from Poison Control on the other end of the line reassured me that they were fine. My heart in my throat, I turned the car around.

“Okay, Dee Dee,” I managed. “I won’t say ‘Oh my God’ anymore.”

But “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” I am saying now, as Clayton disappears into the tunnel. My stomach plummets in my gut. My little boy!  “Oh my God.”

Dee Dee and Sylvia immediately start to cry. “Clayton!” Dee Dee wails. “Clayton!”

“Tayton!” Sylvia echoes. “Tayton!”

“It’s okay,” I reassure them. “We’ll find him. We’ll find him.”

“It’s okay. We’ll find him,” I chant now. With the train gone, it is strangely quiet, misleadingly calm. My heart races. “We’ll find him,” I say again, and I believe it. Children get lost in airports. I’ve heard the announcements over the loudspeakers: “Will the parents of ... please come to....”  A strange calm comes over me. I am not rushing now. We will find Clayton. We will find him.

But what do I do? Do I follow him? Do I wait here and pray that some good samaritan will bring him back? The second option seems the smartest, somehow, as if I were a child lost in the woods, remembering her parents’ oft-repeated command: “If you get lost, stay where you are!” But when the next train arrives with a great rush of air, I step on, lifting Dee Dee in beside me.

“Don’t worry. We will find him.”

As we pull up to the next stop, my heart is in my throat. What if he isn’t there? But there he is, waiting on the platform with two rugged young men in backpacks. I could kiss them, but as soon as I see Clayton safe I am rushing again. We can make our plane! “Thank you! Thank you so much!” I gush at them as the train doors close again, my family intact inside them. “Thank you!”

Clayton is dry-eyed and accusatory. “Why didn’t you tell me that wasn’t our train?”

“I didn’t have time! You were just like a superhero, making a flying leap!” I am making light, for all of us. He looks unconvinced.

“Hold this,” I tell him, handing him a strap from the carry-on. “And stay close!”

The rest of the journey goes as smoothly as one could expect.  Dee Dee cries each time our plane takes off. She is such a daring, adventurous girl, but the loud noises on the plane terrify her.

“It’s okay, Dee Dee,” Clayton comforts her. “It’s just like in the book. Remember?”

As soon as we are airborne, the girls need to pee. We troop down the aisle. They are endlessly fascinated with the airplane potty. 
“My pee is blue!” Dee Dee marvels. While I help them with their underpants in the impossibly small space, Clayton locks himself inside the lavatory on the other side of the aisle. This scares him more, I think, than his solo train ride. By the time we arrive in Spokane, my voice is sore from reading so many books over the hum of the engine. I am also dazed with exhaustion and relief. But we made it.

My sister is waiting at baggage claim, an Ergo already around her waist. She lifts Dee Dee effortlessly onto her back. Dee Dee beams at me.

“Momma, it’s Aunt Claire!” she says. “Aunt Claire! Aunt Claire is here!”

I smile back at both of them. “Yes, Aunt Claire is here-- thank goodness!”

To be continued...