I woke up to the sound of the pilot’s voice, the rustle of passengers. Around me women were reapplying their makeup and cups were being collected.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking,” I heard over the loudspeaker. “We have begun our descent for landing at Cali. It’s a lovely evening as we had expected. We’ll pass a shower or two on the way in, but at the field right now, it’s good visibility, the temperature is two-three, that’s twenty-three degrees Celsius, and if you prefer Fahrenheit, that’s seventy-two degrees on the Fahrenheit scale. The winds are ten miles an hour from the northwest. It’s a very, very pretty evening. I’d like to thank everyone for coming with us.”
I fastened my seat belt, straightened my seat back; automatically I checked to make sure everything was in my purse: wallet, passport. I look at the diary, heavy between my hands.
The captain’s voice droned on, but the only thing that comes to my mind is the little girl in the bed. My little girl. My Gabriella. Her voice, but it sounds very far away. “How long will you be gone?” she had asked me the night before.
“Just two days, mi amor,” I had told her, smoothing her hair back against the pillow.
“Is that a long time?” she asked.
“No. No. It’s very short. Day after tomorrow, I’ll be back. Today is Tuesday. Tomorrow is Wednesday, and you’ll be with Grandma. And on Thursday, I’ll be here before you go to sleep. That’s not long at all.”
“You promise?” she asked me, and I laughed because that’s how I used to be, too, when my mother traveled.
“I promise.”
“You promise you’ll wake me up tomorrow before you leave?”
“I promise that, too,” I assured her, knowing full well that if she’s asleep, there is no way I’m going to wake her up.
In the darkness of the mountains, I sought out the lights of my Cali, little twinkling dots spaced far apart, then appearing in a wave of brightness as the valley unfolded beneath just ahead, over the mountains. Even now, after all these years, my heart can’t help but beat faster in anticipation, as if I were getting close to Disneyland instead of here.
“Again, I apologize for being late tonight,” the voice over the loudspeaker continued. “Like to wish everyone a very, very happy holiday and a healthy and prosperous New Year.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back, suddenly exhausted. I automatically lifted my right hand to bless myself—in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit—and reached, as always, for my locket, the one with your picture in it, but it’s not there, of course, because I gave it to you.
“Oh, well,” I shrug, and instead bring my hand up to my lips and then lower it, to the hollow of my throat, where the locket should have been.