Eighty Days to Elsewhere

by kc dyer

  “Like I don’t want to be strapped onto a stretcher,” I say, trying and failing to tug my arms loose.

  The woman makes a shooing motion to Sumaya and Dom. “Seatbelts,” she says, then turns back to me.

  “We’re about to land, so I need to leave you where you are for the moment. Hang tight.”

  I can’t turn my head either, for some reason. “Where are we?”

  The strange woman’s face returns. “About to land at the air force base outside of Anchorage. You’ve had a head injury, but we’ll have you to the hospital in no time.”

  Then she vanishes again.

  And because there’s no more frightening word in all the world, I close my eyes and start to cry.

  * * *

  —

  Together people—organized adults, who have control—people like that don’t cry in public. They don’t melt down right in front of a teenager—a displaced child—who has lost her own parents in the most horrific fashion. They don’t cry so hard, they hiccup for an hour afterwards.

  I used to think I was a together person.

  I was wrong.

  It’s hard enough to learn this truth, but to learn it about myself in such a public way, with both Dominic and Sumaya making sympathetic eyes at me—it’s humiliating.

  The tears don’t stop until after I’ve been bundled off the chopper and into an ambulance. Until after the ambulance has taken me to the Providence Medical Center. Until after a determination is made that my neck is uninjured, and in fact, all I need is to have my left eyebrow stitched back together.

  The woman, who turns out to be a paramedic named Sara Amaklak, pats my arm with one blue-gloved hand. “I have to head back. Are you feeling better yet?”

  “I’m really sorry,” I manage, between hiccups.

  “No worries. People are scared to fly with us all the time. At least you didn’t barf on me.”

  “It wasn’t the flight . . .” I begin, but she’s gone before I can find the words.

  After she leaves, Dominic slips into the seat beside me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to him too. “I’ve messed everything up.”

  The taste of the Ativan the nurse gave me before the x-ray is still bitter under my tongue.

  He shrugs my apology away, but his face is still puzzled. “Was it the helicopter? You didn’t have this reaction in Africa,” he whispers.

  His head is right beside mine, and the feeling of his breath on my cheek is almost more comforting than the Ativan.

  I take a deep, shuddering breath, but at that moment, a nurse enters.

  “Just going to get these stitches done,” she says to Dominic. “We’ll have her back to you in no time.”

  “I’ll be in the waiting room,” he says. “Maybe we can talk then?”

  I nod, and the nurse wheels me away.

  * * *

  —

  The nurse is right. I’ve never had stitches before, but she’s so fast, I don’t even see the needle. In less than ten minutes, I’m sitting on a bench outside the hospital, squinting into the thin spring sunshine while Dominic calls us a cab. Someone has given me a khaki jacket to wear, and I huddle inside it gratefully.

  Dominic slides onto the bench beside me. “He’ll be here in five.”

  “Where’s Sumaya?” I ask, feeling the bandage over my eyebrow gingerly.

  “Don’t touch that,” he mutters, pulling my hand into his lap. “She’s back at the base. Now we know you’re okay, there’s an armed forces plane taking us down to Vancouver as soon as we get back there.”

  “Armed forces? Who’s going to pay for that? Is it because Sumaya is considered a threat?”

  He laughs. “Not the U.S. Air Force. The Canadians. It’s a water bomber on loan for a forest fire up here, so they’re heading down to Vancouver anyway. We’re hitching a ride.”

  “That’s nice of them,” I say, still feeling a bit foggy.

  “I think the search and rescue guys pulled some strings, after the whole helicopter thing in Kodiak.”

  A yellow cab pulls up, and Dom stands to help me into the back seat.

  “Wait a minute,” I say, slowly, as he slides in beside me. “Kodiak? I thought we were in Anchorage.”

  He squeezes my hand. “We are. It’s April twenty-fourth today, and you’ve missed a few things.”

  The rest of the cab ride is taken up with what turns out to be a pretty long story.

  chapter fifty-five

  IMAGE: Bering Strait in April

  IG: DomBakes, April 24

  #Alaska #Detour #AFinalGoodbye

  27003

  Things I learn in a cab ride in Alaska:

  1. Falling down the stairs on a moving ship is not a great idea.

  2. My skull is apparently partially granite.

  3. After the close call, the whalers did indeed vanish, but the Arctic Björn’s engine seized. Captain Kapena’s distress call was answered by the search and rescue out of Kodiak, Alaska.

  4. KISAR sent a Sea King helicopter to drop a mechanic and fuel supplies to the Arctic Björn. They collected me, my head injury, and my companions and returned us all to Kodiak, where the Sea King refueled and then flew us to Anchorage.

  5. I slept through just about all of this.

  Okay, that explains a lot,” I say as the cab rolls to a halt.

  Dominic leans forward. “Wait a sec,” he says, handing his credit card to the cab driver. “I’ll help you out.”

  I swing open my door and climb out before he can make it around to my side.

  “You should let me help you,” he says reproachfully as the cab pulls away. “Head injury, remember?”

  “I’m okay, really,” I say. “No concussion, even.”

  “You’re still going to have a headache, when the freezing wears off.”

  In front of us is the gate to the American Air Force base. A cold wind whistles around our feet as we walk up, and a soldier steps out of the booth.

  Dominic pulls out a folded paper from the inside of his jacket and hands it over.

  “The SAR Buffalo, huh?” the soldier says, scanning the page. “Lemme see your passports. I need to call this in.”

  He disappears into his booth.

  “So, Sumaya is waiting for us here?” I ask.

  Dominic nods. “They—ah—wouldn’t let her off the base to come to the hospital, because of the no-passport thing.” His eyes shift to where the soldier is still talking on the phone. “Technically, they’re going with not admitting she’s on American soil,” he whispers. “If anyone asks, the transfer was straight from the Sea King to the Canadian plane. Less paperwork that way.”

  I wince. My painkillers are wearing off a little.

  He grins at me. “When I left, she was trying out some new material on the search and rescue pilots.”

  The soldier reemerges. “Sit tight,” he says. “Jeep’s coming to take you to the plane. Might take a few minutes.”

  He returns our passports and then lifts the gate. We walk over to a wooden bench tucked against the fence and out of the wind. Behind us, the grey waters of Cook Inlet lay flat and cold. We both fall silent, listening to the wind swirling off the water, around the treeless streets, and between the buildings. The ground is bare—not quite frozen, but dry as a bone, with a few patches of stiff yellow grass.

  “So . . .” Dom says, at last. “Why Anchorage?”

  “Why what?” I growl, feeling immediately defensive.

  “Why were you so upset when you found out where we are? What’s so scary about this place?”

  I’m about to snap that I don’t know what he’s talking about, or why it’s any of his business anyway, but something about his expression makes the words stick in my throat.

  Instead, I take a deep breath.

 
“I was thirteen years old when my parents went on their second honeymoon. They’d saved up, and made a deal with my uncles for me to sleep over for a week. I was excited, because it was the bookshop. I loved staying at the bookshop.”

  “Okay,” he says, his face still puzzled.

  “My dad was a photographer, and he promised to bring a ton of pictures of polar bears and wolves home. He worked for a newspaper then, and he was excited to do some real wildlife photography. Made a change from all the usual urban stuff, I guess.”

  “So—they came—here?” Dom asks softly.

  All I can manage is a nod.

  “Car accident,” I say at last, but with the words, the tears come again. “On their way to the airport. It’s—the reason I’ve been afraid to go anywhere, for my whole life. If you leave home? You die.”

  I wipe away the tears, and laugh a little. “Intellectually, I know this isn’t true, obviously. And now I’ve proved it—just about, anyway. I mean, I’ve been most of the way around the world, and I’m still here. But that’s why I never left New York, after the accident. And I probably never would have, without this trip.”

  “Do you mean to say that you were convinced—in your heart of hearts—that you were going to die if you left New York?”

  I sigh, and look away from him. “It sounds so stupid when you say it out loud.”

  “Romy.” He turns sideways on the bench, and puts a hand on each of my shoulders so that I’m forced to look at him. “It’s not stupid. It’s fucking brave, is what it is. You agreed to race around the world to save your uncle’s bookstore, even though you were convinced you were going to die?”

  I shrug. “I’m not brave. Sumaya is brave. I’m only an idiot who let a thing—I mean, yes, it was a terrible thing—but I let it ruin my life.”

  I can feel the tape holding the dressing over my left eye give way, and I push it gingerly back into place. “The whole time, at each stop, I thought—okay, I’ve made it this far. Maybe I can do it. The West Coast part was supposed to be through San Francisco, right? And then, even in Hong Kong when we learned we needed to take Sumaya to her auntie, we were going through Vancouver. It’s Canada, but at least nowhere near Alaska.”

  I have to stop to catch my breath a minute. Fishing around in the pocket of the stranger’s jacket I’m wearing, I find a shred of tissue and use it to wipe my nose.

  “On their way to the airport?” Dom says, his voice choking a little on the last word. “On their way home?”

  “Their car went into the water. Through the ice. I don’t know the details . . .”

  He drops his hands, releasing my shoulders, and I slump back against the bench.

  “Wait here a second,” he says quietly, and then hurries across to speak with the soldier in the booth.

  Seconds later, he’s back.

  “Come on,” he says. “I checked. We’ve got ten minutes. Let’s go for a walk.”

  As I get to my feet, he pauses to do the zipper of my jacket all the way up to my chin. It’s a man’s coat, and probably looks about as good on me as the float suit on the Arctic Björn, but it cuts the wind.

  “Where are we going? There’s nothing around here,” I say as we walk past the guard again. “It’s pretty barren.”

  He reaches to take my hand, and tucks it with his, into his pocket.

  “The water’s right here,” he says, pointing with his other hand toward the rocky shoreline. “Let’s go say goodbye.”

  chapter fifty-six

  IMAGE: Vancouver Rain

  IG: Romy_K [Above Vancouver, April 24]

  #AJoyousReunion

  5545

  I’m awakened by a shift in the engine as the plane makes its final descent. We’re flying in a bright yellow Canadian Armed Forces Search and Rescue plane, returning to Vancouver after dropping firefighting supplies in Alaska.

  There are only two windows in this section of the plane and I can’t see out of either of them, so there’s nothing much to do but sit and think.

  The walk to the shore had been brief. I have no idea where my parents died, but I could see commercial planes taking off and landing in the distance, so it had to be somewhere nearby. Dom didn’t say anything—just took me in his arms and held me as I stood there on the rocky shore and cried.

  By the time we got back to the gate, the jeep was waiting. I’m sure my face was still red when we got to the plane, but Sumaya threw herself into my arms anyway. She was overflowing with the exciting news that she had reached her Auntie Nkruna, who will meet us in Vancouver. Before we left the hangar, Dominic managed to connect with ExLibris via FaceTime, and give Teresa Cipher’s assistant a brief update. I kept my stitched-up face well in the background, and let him do the talking. Powell agreed to pass on the information about what Dom referred to several times as our extenuating circumstances, and told us to reconnect with her once we made it to Vancouver.

  What neither of us remembered was that crossing the international dateline, somewhere off the coast of Alaska, has bought us another day. All the same, there are now only five days left to the end of April. Five days to cover the whole of North America.

  The plane lands with a thump and a slight hop. Sumaya, who has managed to score one of the window seats nearer the front, gives a little squeal of delight.

  “It’s so green,” she exclaims.

  “What? The airport?” Dom asks.

  Sumaya shakes her head. “No—the city. I’ve been watching as we landed. So many trees. The whole coast is mountains and trees and . . .”

  As the plane taxies to a stop and the engines gear down, another sound emerges, like drumming on the rooftop.

  “Rain!” Sumaya finishes. Her smile is a ray of sunshine against the grey light outside.

  Dom leans back in his seat and stretches before undoing his seatbelt. “Rain means life in Somalia,” he remarks quietly to me.

  As I watch him unfold himself from his seat and then turn to help Sumaya gather her things before he collects his own, I know, without a shred of doubt, my feelings for him have completely changed. How can I continue to compete against this person who has shown me—and Sumaya—such kindness?

  * * *

  —

  In the time it takes for the crew to winch open the back door of the plane, we’ve gathered all our belongings, and are waiting by the exit. Sometime on the flight, I handed Sumaya all the decals I’ve been collecting, and when I pick up my suitcase, I see it is emblazoned with memories of every country we’ve been through.

  No maple leaf yet, though. I’ll have to remedy that.

  From behind us, the pilot swings open the door to the cockpit and walks down to join us.

  “Welcome to Canada,” he says. “Lucky for you, this part of it is less of a frozen wasteland than the rest, at the moment.”

  Outside, the rain buckets down. Dom and I pause to pull up our hoods, but Sumaya bolts past us and down the ramp. On the tarmac she stops, arms spread wide, and spins in a circle. By the time we reach her, she’s soaked to the skin.

  “It smells SO good,” she says, eyes wide. Her headscarf is plastered to her skull. I think of all she has been through to get here, her new home, and I can’t help myself. I hold out my arms and she launches into them—and so does Dom. Suddenly, the three of us are in a laughing, crying, nerd-bouncing hug as the relief of the moment seeps into all of us. We are in Canada. Sumaya is safe at last.

  Of course, inside the airport building, there is paperwork. But because Sumaya is designated a refugee, and because she has a relative waiting on the other side of the customs barrier to sponsor her, things progress with a smooth, Canadian politeness that warms my organization-loving heart.

  Dominic is approved to move to passport control first, so he heads off, promising to locate Sumaya’s Auntie Nkruna. Sumaya and I are ushered into a white-walled room. The border
official stamps my passport immediately, but agrees to let me stay with my companion, now designated as an “accompanied refugee minor.” Moments later, the door opens and another guard enters. This one is female, and is wearing a hijab.

  “Galab wanaagsan,” she says to Sumaya. “Magacayguuwa Sulekha Hussen.”

  Sumaya bobs her head. “Wanaagsan Sulekha,” she says, grinning. “But I have English, yeah?”

  And things move at what feels like an extraordinary rate after that. The session with the Somali-Canadian border official is long enough for her to explain that Nkruna has completed all the preliminary paperwork required to allow Sumaya a temporary admittance to the country.

  “Your auntie is very organized,” Officer Hussen says. “She has practically the whole Somalian community in the Lower Mainland ready to meet you.”

  When we finally make it out of the customs area, the doors open on Dominic standing beside a willowy, dusky-skinned woman, with a high forehead crowned in sleek black curls. She is wearing a colorful print blouse over a pair of skinny jeans and Crocs. The resemblance to her niece is striking, though they look more like sisters than a full generation apart. My vision blurs with tears again as she envelops a suddenly very-shy Sumaya in her arms. When I turn away to give them a moment, I spot Dom also wiping his eyes, which makes me feel a little better about crying twice in one day.

  After hugging her niece tightly, Auntie Nkruna hands me a business card for her hair salon. Dom holds his up, too, grinning.

  “Ten percent off for you both, anytime,” she says, and smiles at Dom. “Those locs need some work, bro.”

  He laughs. “Hey, these were done by a pro.”

  Sumaya smiles shyly up at her auntie as we follow her past a totem pole standing guard over all our fellow travelers, and out to a small white car.

  The sun is setting as Nkruna drives us to her home in nearby Surrey, for a Somali feast. As we pull to a stop, I can see the house is entirely decked out with colorful streamers and banners, sagging a little but no less cheerful in the deluge of rain. As Sumaya alights from the car, she is swarmed by a seemingly endless group of well-wishers pouring out of Nkruna’s front door.