Michael stared at the trophy, and time slowed as the seconds dripped into the pools of thought rippling in his mind. His fingers ran over the tiny figure. The engraving pulsed on the burnished gold surface, and he traced his finger across his father’s name. And the name below it: Serviceton High School.
This trophy was Dad’s? Michael racked his mind for some—any—kind of memory of seeing it on the mantelpiece between his brother’s haul of glory and his own.
He drew a blank.
Then a second and third thought pressed in on him. Why am I carrying this around? And why would Dad put it in my suitcase?
From the sofa, the Baggage Handler quietly whistled. What was that tune? Michael knew it, but it crouched in a dark corner of his mind.
Michael offered the trophy to him. “Why would he do this?”
The Baggage Handler leaned back with a low whistle. “Why would who do what?”
“Dad. Put this trophy in my suitcase.”
“I prefer to call it baggage.”
Michael’s anger flickered, and he poked a nervous head out from behind his usual defenses. Who cared what it was called?
The Baggage Handler smiled. “You’ve never seen this trophy, have you?”
Michael pulled back his hand. How did he know that?
“Do you know why you’ve never seen this trophy?”
Michael shook his head, his curiosity piqued.
“Because your father never wanted you to see it.”
“How do you know that?”
The Baggage Handler fixed piercing blue eyes on Michael. “You’d be surprised.”
Michael folded his arms, still grasping the trophy. “Really? Try me.”
The Baggage Handler moved from the sofa and squatted down next to Michael. “Because I’ve seen this thousands of times, even down to a similar athlete on the top of the trophy. And the reason is always the same. Michael, your father is a proud man. He obviously thought if you saw this, it would change how you felt about him.”
Michael ran his fingers over the golden figure. His father had talked for years about how he could have been an Olympian but never had the opportunity. “How would this change how I felt about him? So he won some trophies. So did I.”
The Baggage Handler smiled, yet he looked a bit sad. “Because it made him feel inferior, he thought you’d see him as inferior.”
Inferior? Michael again stared at his father’s name, etched in a flowing script on the plaque on the marble column. The harsh fluorescent light caught it, and the plaque began to glow. A flash of light spread across it, and then a gray patch extended into a line and then a second and a third to complete the letter. Michael was transfixed as two more words were added to the plaque.
Eighth place.
Michael knew what that meant in a race of eight runners.
“But my father never tried athletics.”
“I think you’ll find he did, Michael.”
“So why would he put this in my baggage?”
“We’ll get to that.” The Baggage Handler nodded at the suitcase.
Michael again looked inside. The sea of red rosettes had parted to reveal paper underneath. Michael swept the ribbons aside to reveal dozens of participation certificates, each labeled with his father’s name and the bulk-printed logo of Serviceton High School. They looked like the artistic merit certificates he had brought home every year he was in school. Certificates that divided his parents—his mother’s encouragement was often tempered with his father’s comments about the poor prospects of an artistic career.
But these weren’t certificates of merit. He shuffled through them—participation in the 400m, participation in the 1500m. Tried hard in the 110m hurdles. Participated in cross-country but didn’t finish. His father had tried everything. And failed.
Michael made his way to the sofa, realization shining into every dark corner of his childhood. “Is this real?” He let go, and the certificates fluttered back into the suitcase.
“This is very real. You’ve carried this baggage all the way here.”
Michael dropped onto the sofa, fireworks bursting in his head. The fake timber of the chunky TV, the explosion of color, the mismatched furniture, the rickety mustard-yellow fridge. Old trophies he’d never seen before. Certificates from his father’s failed attempts to be an athlete.
This strange guy.
“Where is here?”
The Baggage Handler tapped the badge on his overalls. “This is Baggage Services! This is where people come to deal with their baggage.”
“Are you part of the airline?”
The Baggage Handler laughed. “No.”
Michael tried to put this experience in some kind of order, some sort of sense. It hurt his head. “How can you not be a part of the airline but have my suitcase?”
“We prefer to call it baggage.”
“How did I get the wrong baggage?”
Silence. The hint of a smile under a navy-blue cap.
Michael mentally retraced his steps at the airport. “I grabbed it off the carousel—”
Silence. Michael connected the dots.
“—without looking.” The last dot connected to the others.
The Baggage Handler clicked his fingers. “Bingo! In fact, you all did.”
You all? “How many other people are here?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Who knows about this place?”
The Baggage Handler yawned in an extravagant stretch. “Everyone.”
“So that suitcase I brought in. That was someone else’s baggage? Did you give it to them? What are they doing?”
The Baggage Handler’s brow furrowed. “They’re dealing with it, in their own way.”
“What does that mean?”
The Baggage Handler leaned forward. “Why are you interested in people you’ve never met? You all want to know how everyone else is handling their own baggage, almost as an excuse to not deal with your own. Dealing with your baggage is hard. Carrying it appears to be easier, but it’s not, and it can destroy people in the long run.” The Baggage Handler bit his lip as if holding back tears. “And you’ve asked me about someone else, not how you can deal with your own baggage.”
Michael fought back his own tears as he lifted his father’s certificate from the suitcase. Tears of shock. Anger. Frustration. “He always said I wasn’t good enough, except when I was winning a race. Even then he’d ask me if I could shave another tenth off my time.”
The Baggage Handler fixed a gaze on him with clouded blue eyes, a look approaching wistfulness. “I think you can see who he was disappointed in.”
In that moment Michael understood. He wasn’t carrying around his father’s disappointment in him. He was carrying around his father’s disappointment in himself.
The Baggage Handler picked up the school trophy. “Eighth place. Your father decided that rather than dealing with all his baggage about his failure, he would get you to carry it. That’s completely unfair to you—and I can’t express just how sorry I am he did that—but you don’t have to carry it.”
Tears blurred the room. “It would make sense that his stuff would end up in my baggage and not Scott’s.” Living in the shadow of an older brother who played his father’s beloved ball sports had stunted Michael’s growth for as long as he could remember.
The Baggage Handler smoothed his overalls, compassion sparkling in his eyes. “In Scott’s baggage is exactly what you’re carrying here. I’ll have a conversation with him once his baggage gets too heavy for him as well. Michael, your father’s baggage is taking up precious space in your own life, and it’s weighing you down.”
The weight of years of rejection perched squarely on Michael’s shoulders. He stared at the carpet.
“If Dad’s baggage is taking up space in my life, why have I carried it?”
“An excellent question that’s difficult to answer. It’s partially because you didn’t realize it was there. Look, the problem isn’t you’ve been handed some baggage. Everyone has baggage. It’s that it’s difficult for you to move forward with your life. Every time an opportunity presents itself, you can’t move quickly because this weight drags behind you.”
The Baggage Handler nodded, a single tear streaking its way down his face. “That’s been there for a very long time. A very long time. I’m sorry about what has happened with your father. You’ve heard how you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family? That’s true for you. But you don’t need to carry this baggage. You have a choice.”
Well, that’s good news. I don’t have to carry it.
But the next thought was terrifying. “Do I have to give all this back to my dad?” His father was a hard man to deal with in the best of times. The conversation about messing up the meeting with Coach Crosswell would be difficult enough. Handing back this trophy and the certificates would be impossible.
“No, you can leave it all with me.”
Michael shook his head in amazement. “Who are you?”
The young man simply tipped his cap, and black, curly hair sprung free over his forehead. “I’m the Baggage Handler. I’m here to help you with your baggage.”
Michael sighed as he checked his phone. “What’s the point? I’ve missed the rest of my meeting with the coach because of my baggage.”
The Baggage Handler chuckled. “You were going to miss out on that scholarship because of your baggage anyway. And it’s not pointless.”
“What do you mean?”
“Apart from the fact that if you deal with your baggage today, you won’t need to carry it around with you for the rest of your life, what if I were to tell you there’s another way to achieve your dream? Not your father’s. Yours.”