We’re excerpting parts of Meredith Turits’ second novel, which is still in progress. This is part three of three. Check out part one here, and part two here.

ANAÏS

The plane touches down in Montreal, and here’s what I do. Actually, it’s so stupid and embarrassing that I almost don’t want to say it. The plane touches down at Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, and I’m clenching the armrest and turn to the seat next to me and I swear I’m ready to put my hand in the person sitting next to me’s hand, something that I always used to do with my brother, but, well, for one, you can’t do that with strangers, and what’s really worth mentioning is that there’s no one there. No one in the seat. It’s first class and there’s no one next to me even though every other seat in the section is full. So, we touch down, like I said, and I’m shaking for no reason I can discern, digging my nails into the blue leather so hard that I leave scratch marks, and we’re skidding along the runway and finally get to the gate. The pilot says, “Bienvenue à Montréal” incredibly loud. Everyone around me is clicking their seat belts undone, you know, that sound that is so totally distinctive, and I’m still sitting even when the flight attendant opens the gate and all of the first class passengers start leaving and then everyone else in coach does, too, and I’m hearing “au revoir, au revior” every second and when the plane is finally empty, when I hear the last clatter of an overhead bin being emptied, I unclick my seatbelt, too, and finally stand up. I hit my head on the compartment. The flight attendant, she’s watching me closely and she asks me if I’m okay, first in English, then again in French, adding, “Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle?” I nod and rub my eyes, and she goes to open my overhead container but doesn’t say anything because she has no idea which language to continue in, and this sort of pleases me for whatever weird reason. She gets my carry-on—it’s this beaten-up-as-shit tan bag I’ve had for a million years—hands it to me, and then looks over my shoulder at the vodka mini-bottles sticking out of the seatback pocket. I nod again and she says, “Enjoy Montreal” as I walk past her and out onto the jet bridge. And then I pass out.

I wake up in an airport wheelchair in that little room where they take people who are suspicious or carrying produce or both, and I see two fat guards eating big sandwiches and plates of fries and talking to each other. One notices my eyes are open and says to me, “Ça va?” and I say, “Yeah, I’m fine” in English but he continues on in French and asks me if I need to see a doctor or if I need some water. And I reply, “I think I made a mistake.”

Here’s the thing about big decisions. About figuring out big things. Once you do, everything is sort of…funneled through that. Whatever big thing you’ve figured out controls all of your thoughts, basically. So when you figure out that very little matters, and the only thing that can shake you back to living a reasonable life, maintaining a reasonable existence (or at least one that’s not haunted) is like, death or something else just as big—nothing in your life from that point forward has the right feeling anymore. I kind of always knew my brother thought like that, but never really got it. I do now.

Here’s the thing about my parents, which is what I thought about the whole plane ride over. I don’t remember them ever reading me a bedtime story, or having spent a Sunday night before Christian’s and my birthday making cupcakes for school. You know, doing the things from the films that no one took us to see. But here’s the thing about it all, and the reason why I knew I made a mistake the second I woke up in that little room. Those things, the family trips and cookie-baking sessions, they aren’t things we ever knew parents were supposed to do, or at least never stopped long enough to think that they were. I didn’t really resent my parents or hate them or get angry at them or anything because there was never a reason to even stop to think that might be an appropriate thing to do. Like, I had my friends and my life and most importantly Christian, my brother, and it’s not the kind of thing where you stop and are like, “Oh, it’s not like this for anyone else.” Like, it’s not that I wasn’t aware that most people’s parents were around more than ours, or around at all, I just wasn’t hyper-aware that there was something so fundamentally wrong with the way we were raised (or not raised, I guess). Never had much of a reason to believe that nannies were any less qualified to do the things that everyone else’s parents were doing until Christian and I split, really. That’s why it’s really hard to blame my brother, because I basically had the same reaction to our upbringing as he did. He just thought everything through more than I did, and thought it through sooner. Was always more about the big picture than me. Didn’t really have much else to focus on besides that. I always felt sorry for him, honestly. He was always so angry. I never knew why. I get that now, too.

But all of this shit, this self-indulgent, troubled-childhood shit, this putting-together-the-pieces-of-the-life-that’s-no-longer-mine-while-sitting-on-a-plane shit, none of that’s actually the part that’s embarrassing. Neither is what happened with the flight attendant, nor passing out in the airport. Okay, I drank too much and got anxious. This really isn’t news or anything. The part that’s so absurd is that after I clear customs and get into the main part of the airport, I take a look at the departures board, and not three hours later, I’m sandwiched between an Asian guy and a teenage boy on a plane to New York. And I’m going to find my brother.

Image by Jacob Van Loon.