She’s four minutes late, which doesn’t seem like all that much when you think about it it’s a commercial break, the period between classes, the time it takes to cook a microwave meal. The clock above them says 6:48, and just beyond the window the plane sits like a hulking metal fortress it’s clear from the looks on the faces of those around her that nobody else is getting on that thing. Not once.īut when she finally reaches the gate this evening, it’s to find the attendants sealing the door and shutting down the computers. She’s never missed a flight before in her life. Who ever heard of a plane leaving on time anyhow? Hadley isn’t a big believer in things like fate or destiny, but then, she’s never been a big believer in the punctuality of the airline industry, either. Perhaps the day’s collection of delays is beside the point, and if it hadn’t been one of those things, it would have just been something else: the weather over the Atlantic, rain in London, storm clouds that hovered just an hour too long before getting on with their day. Though maybe it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. If she’d run just a bit faster to the gate. If the wheel of her suitcase hadn’t been off-kilter. If they hadn’t missed the exit, or if she hadn’t fumbled the quarters for the toll, the coins rolling beneath the seat while the people in the cars behind them leaned hard on their horns. Or later: if she hadn’t given herself a paper cut while printing out her ticket, if she hadn’t lost her phone charger, if there hadn’t been traffic on the expressway to the airport. Or before that, even: Imagine if she hadn’t waited to try on her dress, so that she might have noticed earlier that the straps were too long, and Mom wouldn’t have had to haul out her old sewing kit, turning the kitchen counter into an operating table as she attempted to save the poor lifeless swath of purple silk at the very last minute.
She wouldn’t have had to run back into the house while Mom waited outside with the car running, the engine setting loose a cloud of exhaust in the late-day heat. Imagine if she hadn’t forgotten the book. There are so many ways it could have all turned out differently.
0 kommentar(er)
