Michael’s eyes flicked left and right. Another way? To be an artist? His mind tumbled through the possibilities before they were swallowed by a familiar heaviness that settled on him like a thick blanket. What if I’m not up to it?
The Baggage Handler gave a soft chuckle. “Why do you think you won’t be up to it? You don’t even know what that opportunity is.”
Michael shot a look at this strange young man with the big grin. “How can you tell what I’m thinking?”
He tipped his cap. “Because I’m the Baggage Handler.”
“Okay, it looks like that’s your response for everything. What is this new opportunity?”
The Baggage Handler fixed a gaze on Michael with clouded blue eyes, a look approaching wistfulness. “Before we get to that, I think it’s important to discuss why you don’t think you’ll be up to an opportunity you know nothing about.”
Michael frowned and chewed his bottom lip. “Well . . . I guess it’s . . .” The words jostled in his mind to find the right order, but they stayed on the starting grid.
The Baggage Handler leaned forward to encourage a response from Michael. “Don’t try to say the right words; just say it.”
A pressure valve in Michael, stuck for years, popped, and an honest thought jumped unfiltered from his mouth. “Because I’ve heard my whole life how I’m not any good, so it must be true.”
The phrase bounced around the room, its echo both assaulting and teasing Michael’s ears. His spine tingled with the elation of the release of something that had been trapped within him forever, yet a numbness spread as, for the first time, he heard it out loud. The voice was free, but it was still in the same room as him.
The Baggage Handler fixed a piercing gaze on him, and then his eyes softened. “Wow, that’s pretty harsh. But if you don’t mind, I do need to say your artwork suggests otherwise.”
The familiar reactions rushed forward as Michael went into autopilot and batted away the praise. “It’s just art. It’s not anything that’s useful or that I can base a career on.”
“Now you sound like your dad.”
He was right. In Michael’s head, those reactions always sneered at him in his dad’s voice.
“May I ask you something, Michael? What does your father know about art?”
A light chuckle escaped Michael’s lips. “Not much.” He dropped into a near-perfect voice impression of his father. “You won’t pay the bills with your pencils, son.”
The Baggage Handler nodded and tapped a finger to his lips. “So he’s not the best judge of your talent, is he?”
A single crack drove up the middle of the wall he had built around his self-belief to defend against his dad’s constant rejection.
“You say your dad works in hardware.”
“Yep.”
“How long has he been working in that hardware store?”
“Too long. His words.”
The Baggage Handler stroked his chin. “So why would you take career advice from a man who’s so unhappy with the choices he’s made?”
With that revelation, Michael sank into the sofa, stunned. This guy was right.
The Baggage Handler gestured at the open suitcase. “You’ve got to understand, the way you see your true self is through your dad’s eyes. But that’s because of how he saw himself. Every day he saw himself as a disappointment, and then when you came along, that was all he knew, so he transferred that to you.”
Michael’s voice crawled out of him in a whisper. “I always thought Dad didn’t believe I was ever good enough.”
The Baggage Handler’s voice trembled as he pointed a quivering finger at Michael, his face reddening. “You mustn’t believe that. It’s because he never felt he was good enough, but now it’s holding you back.” He breathed deep and ragged.
The fear that usually rose within Michael in the presence of anger didn’t come. Instead, he felt something else. A comfort. A sense of protection. Someone was standing up for him.
In an instant, the Baggage Handler’s anger seemed to melt away, replaced by a gaze from clouded blue eyes, a look approaching wistfulness. “Do you still want to keep dragging that baggage everywhere, stopping you from taking the opportunities that come your way?”
“Well, no, but what can I do about it? Do I give this stuff to you?”
“Sure.” The Baggage Handler gave a broad smile.
“And I don’t need to give it to my dad at all?”
“No, I’ll handle that, although if you’re going to deal with this once and for all, you need to accept yourself for who you are.”
Michael’s eyes followed the Baggage Handler’s lifted finger as he pointed to the poster on the wall. You are you. Embrace it.
“Okay, I get it.” Michael nodded down at the open suitcase. “Take it.”
“No.” The Baggage Handler folded his arms.
Confusion exploded inside Michael’s head. “Hang on a minute. You just said I could leave it—”
“That’s not what I said at all. I said you need to give it to me. There’s a huge difference between that and asking me to take it.”
Michael churned that one over. “That’s just semantics.”
The Baggage Handler leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his fingers laced. “Oh no, it’s far more than that. This is what people don’t understand. When you hand your baggage to me, it’s a conscious act of your will to hand it over, and then”—he framed the room with his hands—“this is the most important part: when you give it to me, you need to let go of it.”
Michael nodded. “Fair enough.” He reached down into the suitcase and picked up the trophy. He looked at the plaque one final time and held it out to the Baggage Handler, who took it, a tear in his eye. Michael scooped up his father’s ribbons and certificates and dropped them into the Baggage Handler’s arms.
The tiniest weight lifted from Michael’s shoulders—a release from the crushing pressure he’d adjusted to. Michael lifted his shoulders, free of gravity for the first time in forever.
“I feel . . . different.”
But a heaviness flitted across the Baggage Handler’s face. “We’re not done.” And he pointed again to the suitcase.