Emily, Alone

by Stewart O'Nan

  She kept thinking they wouldn’t be having this problem if Margaret had just taken a half day yesterday as Emily originally suggested. So she didn’t have any vacation days left. What about sick days, or personal days? Couldn’t she talk to her boss? Margaret acted like it was an impossible request, as if Emily didn’t understand her position. This might be their last Christmas together, Emily was tempted to say, but didn’t, knowing that Margaret would see it—correctly—as blackmail, and so they had both come away frustrated.

  It was no one’s fault, just the weather, and the airlines’ idiotic system that hadn’t saved them from going bankrupt and then asking for a government bailout every few years. She knew she shouldn’t let it upset her, but she’d been anticipating this visit for so long. On the phone Margaret had sounded harassed and testy, and though Emily knew better, she’d taken it personally. They were both just having a bad day.

  Rufus was helping her set out candy dishes of red and green M&Ms when Margaret called.

  “Right now they’ve got us leaving at two-twenty, which would get us into Charlotte around four-fifteen. We miss our connection, but they say they can get us on the five o’clock, so if everything goes right we should be there around six-thirty.”

  “That’s not bad.” This way Emily could cook the lasagna ahead of time and then reheat it. All they’d have to do was warm Arlene’s garlic bread and put together the salad.

  “We’ll see if it actually happens,” Margaret said.

  “Hang in there.”

  Arlene was following the storm on the Weather Channel and didn’t think it was likely. They had Charlotte experiencing four-hour delays.

  Emily wanted her to be more positive. “We’ll just plan on leaving here at five-thirty unless we hear something different. I’m going to go ahead and put my lasagna in regardless.”

  Preheating the oven took longer than she’d thought, but maybe part of that lag was her impatience. Everything was going slowly today. She was already dressed for the airport, and tied on her apron to protect her outfit. The pan was heavy and cold from the fridge, and she almost dropped it, one end banging the rack. She set the timer and went back to the living room, where the French were in full retreat. The house was ready, each room tidied as if she were opening her doors to the public. She’d moved Henry’s chair so they could put the tree in the front window. In the dining room the table was set, complete with a rambling holly centerpiece and brand-new candles. Her mother’s crèche stood on the sideboard, unadorned, Joseph and Mary kneeling beside the chipped Baby Jesus, humble under his blanket of brown corduroy. Downstairs, a dozen flimsy boxes of old ornaments rested on Henry’s workbench, along with the inside lights. There was nothing left to do but wait.

  The lasagna had been in for about a half hour when Margaret called again. Sarah’s plane had arrived in Chicago, but their flight had been pushed back another forty-five minutes, meaning the five-thirty was out of the question. The next flight to Pittsburgh was at six-ten, but it was overbooked, and they couldn’t get on standby until they were all in Charlotte. She’d looked into trying another airline, but they’d already checked their bags.

  “It really shouldn’t be this hard. I’m seriously thinking of just turning around and going home.”

  “Don’t do that,” Emily said.

  “I know, they’ll charge us anyway, but at this point I’m so fed up I just want to leave. The thing that pisses me off is that no one cares. Not a single person here is taking any responsibility for what’s happening. It’s not their problem—that’s their attitude. And then they wonder why everyone hates them.”

  “How’s Justin?”

  “Tired of listening to me bitch. He’s watching a movie on his laptop. He’s like Dad—he just shuts it all out.”

  “It’s a talent.”

  “I suppose it is, in this case. So we have no idea when we’ll be there.”

  “That’s fine,” Emily said. “Just let us know if anything changes.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Arlene said. “So are we still having dinner or should I plan on fixing something for myself?”

  “Let’s see what happens,” Emily said. “There’s still a chance they could make it.”

  “I think you’re being optimistic.”

  “Of course I’m being optimistic. I want them to get here.”

  As the grandfather clock marked each passing quarter hour, the odds grew longer. Still, when Margaret called around four-thirty and said they were boarding and had confirmed seats on the eight-forty-five, Emily was as disappointed as she was relieved. What was she going to do with all that lasagna?

  “I’ll stick it in my freezer and have it for lunch,” Arlene said. “I’m not proud.”

  Emily could do that too. That wasn’t the point.

  “What time do you want me to come over?” Arlene asked.

  “I don’t care. Whenever you’re hungry.”

  “Is it too early? Actually I’m getting a little peckish.”

  “That’s fine,” Emily said, giving up.

  The light was dying, night filling in the bare trees, closing around the house. War and Peace gave way to the news, and she turned off the stereo, the silence forcing her back upon herself. She should have been glad they were going to make it, but it was too late, her hopes for the day had soured. She left the good china on the table and set the breakfast nook with her everyday dishes.

  “Isn’t this cozy,” Arlene said, an attempt to cheer her that Emily let pass.

  “I hope it’s all right. I haven’t tasted it.”

  It was fine, but she ate without appetite. Once the pan had cooled, she divvied it up into two Tupperware containers. The tiramisu from Prantl’s she’d save for another day.

  Their flight wasn’t due till ten, a good half hour past her bedtime. She’d gotten up early that morning to get everything ready, and needed a cup of coffee to keep going. She had to remind herself to use the bathroom before they left.

  “Good idea,” Arlene said.

  The airport was farther than she’d driven in years, and though there was no traffic, it was dark. They skirted downtown along the Mon wharf, the Parkway feeding them through a chute, up a sweeping ramp and into the flow of the Fort Pitt Bridge.

  “Watch,” Arlene said, of a Hummer looming up behind them.

  “I see him,” Emily said.

  The view of the Point tempted her—the Hilton would be lit for Christmas, the rivers black and glittering—but she needed to concentrate on the road, and then, that quickly, they were into the bright, tile-lined tunnel, the lanes so narrow she was afraid of bumping the Hummer, passing on the right. Once they were through, she found an opening and moved over to the slow lane, where she was content to stay, keeping pace past the vacant office parks and discount furniture outlets, the towering mercury-vapor lamps tinting everything a hazy copper until the I-79 interchange, beyond which lay a spacelike blackness broken only by floating taillights. She slowed and flicked on her high beams, revealing the shoulder and a speeding strip of hillside. There were deer out here. Even if she glimpsed one entering her headlights, she wouldn’t be able to stop in time. It didn’t avail her to dwell on the fact, and she focused on Margaret and the children, her sole reason for being there.

  Margaret and Justin had come for the week at Chautauqua, but Emily hadn’t seen Sarah since last Thanksgiving. She was doing something with computers for a commodities brokerage right there in the Loop and sharing an apartment with a college friend, the way Emily had her first year out of school with Jocelyn, waiting tables to pay the rent. She imagined being young and free again, the whole city opening to her—Grant Park, and the Art Institute, taking the El to work in the mornings. She hadn’t been to Chicago in nearly forty years, yet that made it seem only more romantic. Margaret said there was a boyfriend. Emily wanted stories.

  Margaret had a new beau as well—a man-friend, she called him, as if their arrangement were casual and adult rather than passionate. With her lo
oks, she would never lack for suitors, as long as she paid attention to her weight. Emily couldn’t imagine anyone brave or patient enough to take on all of her problems, though some men, she knew, would be drawn by the idea of rescuing her.

  Of Justin she’d heard little beyond his major—astrophysics—and his grades, straight A’s. Like most boys his age, he struck Emily as unformed. He’d been a timid child, bright but quiet, oddly impersonal, always watching, and she wondered if, away from his mother, he might find himself. Like Henry, he had a scientist’s mind. Henry had been soft-spoken, and could seem easily swayed, but on points that mattered to him he was adamant, his silence effectively the last word. She hoped Justin was tending the same inner strength.

  Her sole wish, now, was to be closer to them. It was hard to follow their lives from a distance, to send out cards and letters and presents, to call week after week and then receive in return only the barest of news, grudgingly given and heavily censored. Since Jeff had left, their lives seemed precarious. She worried for each of them individually and for the family as a whole. She fretted especially about Sarah and Justin, how they would turn out, and thought it unfair that she would probably not be around to witness it. She’d watched her own children grow up, maybe that was enough—as if one were allowed to see only so much of life, the future, like the past, necessarily hidden and mysterious.

  A cluster of taillights veered off, and their exit appeared, the sign floating out of the night.

  “You said US Air?”

  “Yes,” Emily said, though where they were going, it didn’t matter.

  They parked in the short-term garage and walked through the echoing lower level in the cold. Ahead, across the concrete island reserved for shuttle buses, the curbside pick-up was a madhouse, taxis and vans and limos jostling for position, cars double-parked with their trunks popped, blocking others in, while a single state trooper blew his whistle and pointed to drivers trying to find a spot, waving them through. Travelers with bags lined the sidewalk, searching for their rides. As she and Arlene crossed, traffic had to stop, snarling things further, and Emily wondered who in their right mind had designed this system.

  Inside, the newly arrived milled like penned cattle around the baggage carousels. The sheer number of people made her eager to leave. She checked a monitor but couldn’t find their flight.

  “Are we too early?” Arlene asked.

  “Maybe I’ve got the wrong number.” Because there were three from Charlotte.

  The number she had was right. According to the big board they’d been delayed. They weren’t due till eleven.

  “Why didn’t she call me?”

  “Maybe they were already on the plane,” Arlene guessed, though at that moment no explanation could have consoled Emily.

  Upstairs, most of US Air’s ticket agents had been replaced by electronic kiosks, and the few who remained acted as if Emily was bothering them. “I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t have any other information here.” Then what were the computers for? She remembered Margaret’s tirade over the phone. At the time she’d thought she was being unreasonable. Now she totally agreed with her.

  “I think I need to sit down,” Arlene said as they rode the escalator, and when Emily reacted with alarm, patted her arm. “I’m fine, I just need to get off of my feet.”

  With the crush, seats were at a premium. She installed Arlene in an alcove between the rental car desks, and after making sure she was okay, went in search of a Hershey bar to tide her over. In the little newsstand she winced at the price, thinking this could have been avoided if she’d just served the tiramisu. But why should any of her plans work today?

  She’d lost faith, or lost the energy for it. Sitting beside Arlene, she was overcome by the urge to surrender, to lie down across the filthy seats and go to sleep. She hadn’t brought a book—as her grandmother had wisely counseled—and her mind spun empty, juggling the letters of signs (BUDGET: BUD, GET, BET, DEBT), reading the people in line.

  “Want a piece?” Arlene asked, offering the bar, and Emily broke one off.

  The mystery of chemistry. For a second the chocolate dissolving on her tongue made her feel better.

  “I really didn’t think it would be like this.”

  “Please,” Arlene said. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I wish she would have called.”

  As they waited, watching the escalator, Emily thought of all they would do tomorrow. After church they were supposed to get their tree. They had tickets to the matinee of The Nutcracker at the Benedum, then dinner reservations at the club. She was hoping they could stop at the Carnegie afterward and see the trees of the world (the paper said there was a carol sing-along), but now she was afraid she’d conk out.

  “What time have you got?” Arlene said, as if she couldn’t trust her watch.

  The last ten minutes were interminable. At eleven sharp the monitor said their flight had arrived, and Emily and Arlene took their places among the other families and hired drivers at the foot of the escalator.

  “I feel like we should be holding a sign,” Arlene joked.

  Above them, a girl with Sarah’s red hair appeared, wearing a pair of felt antlers, but it wasn’t her. A soldier in desert camouflage said no, this flight was from Atlanta.

  “They sure are taking their sweet time,” Arlene said.

  “It’s a big plane,” Emily said. “Then they have to walk a ways and wait for the train.”

  They’ll get here when they get here, her mother used to say, and now that they were almost upon them, Emily worried that, as in the past, the visit would not go smoothly. On top of all her holiday plans, she had serious matters to discuss with Margaret—last things, if that wasn’t being too melodramatic. She didn’t expect them to suddenly come to a deeper understanding, let alone acceptance, of each other. She just wanted to make known her final wishes, and for Margaret to honor them as she trusted Kenneth would. The money was the least of it.

  “Is that them?” Arlene asked. “I can’t see.”

  “I don’t think so,” Emily said, because the pretty girl standing beside the shaggy, dark-haired boy who resembled Justin was a blonde. It was only as they descended, revealing Margaret behind them, that she realized the girl was Sarah.

  “What did she do to her hair?” Arlene said.

  “What do you do to yours?”

  “I know, but … I don’t like it.”

  “I think I do,” Emily said as if surprised, and waved to get their attention.

  They held themselves back, trying not to block the other people, letting Sarah and Justin come to them. Sarah smelled sweetly of tangerine, Justin strongly of body spray. Behind them, smiling tiredly, Margaret waited her turn. She looked surprisingly good. She wasn’t as thin as she’d been that summer, when Emily worried she was starving herself, indulging in exercise the way she’d turned to food as a child, or drugs as a teenager, or alcohol as an adult. Her cheeks were fuller, and while Emily took it as a good sign, she knew from long and painful experience that, just as a relapse was part of the process of recovery, everything with Margaret was temporary and beyond her control, even—maybe ultimately—her happiness.

  Emily reached out and took her in her arms.

  “You made it.”

  “Barely,” Margaret said.

  PRESS FOR ASSISTANCE

  “This is us,” Emily said, and thumbed the remote twice to open the doors, the locks clicking, the hazard lights blinking orange.

  “Nice, Gram,” Justin said, nodding hearty approval.

  “I love the color,” Sarah said.

  Margaret took charge of the bags, arranging them in the way-back.

  “Why don’t you sit in front, with your long legs,” Emily told Justin.

  As the rest of them piled in, she showed him how to scoot the seat forward. Behind him, Margaret leaned her head back and crooked one arm over her eyes like a sleeping mask.

  “Everyone have enough room back there?” Emily asked.


  “We’re good,” Sarah answered.

  So far Margaret hadn’t said a word about the car, and Emily wondered if, with all of her money troubles, she resented it, then dismissed the idea. Why was it important that she say anything? And still it bothered Emily.

  The place was a maze. She followed the signs up a curving ramp and then at the booth had to switch on her map light to find the ticket.

  She fed it into the machine. The machine spat it back.

  She tried again.

  There was another car behind her.

  “What am I doing wrong? Anyone?”

  “The arrow goes on top,” Margaret finally said, flatly, as if it were obvious. “You have to line up the stripes.”

  She was right, and they were free.

  “I guess you’re an old pro at those things.” Emily flicked her eyes to the rearview mirror.

  Margaret still had her arm over her face. “No. The arrow always goes on top.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said. “I’ll have to remember that.”

  THE HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTEST

  The next morning Margaret went with them to the eleven o’clock service, leaving the children to sleep in. Sarah was fighting a cold, and Justin was wiped out from his finals. Emily wasn’t sure why Margaret felt compelled to make excuses for them. They weren’t regular churchgoers, and hadn’t been for years, a fact that confused and saddened Emily. She didn’t want them to feel obligated, but it would have been nice if they’d made an effort. It had been a late night for everyone.

  Normally she would have stopped in at coffee hour to show Margaret off, but they needed to eat lunch before they went out tree-shopping. When they got home, the water was running upstairs, and the Post-Gazette was strewn across the living room. In the kitchen, the cutting board was covered with crumbs. A jam-smeared saucer and a glass with a ring of milk at the bottom sat congealing in the sink. Justin was holed up in Henry’s office, wild-haired, in a T-shirt and sweatpants, e-mailing on his laptop. Sarah had beaten him into the shower, he confessed, shrugging as if he were powerless.