She is not Grande Terre’s Corvus moneduloides, or the Northwest’s Corvus caurinus. But she is flying. She is Isabelle Austen, on United Airlines flight 272 to Nouméa. No. She is Katherine Wiley, flying United Airlines flight 272 to Nouméa. Flight says, you can leave whenever you’re in danger, whenever you need to be better fed, whenever you just plain wish. Flight says, you can change direction, with your own muscle and desire.
Her seat is in the upright position, and all carry-ons have been stowed, because they are about to land. God, she’s nervous. It’s like she’s had six cups of coffee. Even after this long trip, she’s awake as a newborn at some wrong, early hour.
Now, as the old man in his zipped sweatshirt and athletic shoes rouses from sleep beside her, she thinks of her father, running away from home. She is like him, she understands. She is someone who has a too-soft step, who’s had to learn about anger. She is someone who reaches the end of tolerance with sudden finality and swiftness and totality, someone who flees, for worse or for better. But she is like her mother, too. She is fierce, a force, full of rage, full of determination.
She is the fusion of both. Fight and flight. From here on out, she’ll have to claim the messy whole, and she’ll have to fight for the messy whole. She’ll hold her kindness close and wield it; she’ll hold her anger close and wield it. See that woman, the one in the next row who clutches the armrest as the plane’s wheels hit and screech on the runway? See her grip? That’s how hard Isabelle will have to hold both father and mother, both the girl on the toy box and the woman who says Fuck you.
Oh, she can hear the chorus now. Forgive all the injustices against you! Let go of your anger!
She can hear her own voice, clearly, though. Nope. Uh-uh. No way. Anger is necessary, and don’t you forget it.
She has such a small bag in the overhead bin, and a new purse, tucked under the seat. She bustles and shoves with the rest. Out the row of tiny airplane windows, there are palm trees swaying. The door is lifted. They walk down the steps onto the tarmac. Heat hits, the surprise of a new climate.
She waits in the customs line, with her heart galloping. But the officer only glances at her and then at her photo on the passport. He stamps the blank page with a decisive ca-shunk.
The airport is small, and only a few people wait there for the new arrivals. Even if the crowd were large, though, Isabelle would know her. Even with her gray hair pulled back, even with no makeup and cargo shorts and a man’s summer shirt, Isabelle would recognize the face she’s seen so many times in photos and news stories.
“Sarah,” Isabelle whispers, as they embrace.
“Isabelle.”
When they separate, Isabelle is surprised and touched to see that the professor’s eyes are wet with tears.
“Welcome home,” Sarah says.
They ride in her Jeep. Professor M. Weary’s Jeep. The professor is talkative. He’s way more animated and cheerful than Isabelle expected. Way more joyful than she’d been led to believe. It’s the chatter and glee and caw-caw-caw of a Corvus reunion, but Isabelle doesn’t know that yet. She has no idea. Not a clue. It’d be easy, if you could read the future, but then you’d miss all the surprises and delightful discoveries: a corvid, sliding down a roof for the sheer fun of it, a corvid, dropping a stone on a predator’s head, a corvid, waving a stick to get a friend’s attention.
“Thank God you’re all right,” the professor says again.
“And you.”
The top of the Jeep is off, and there’s a small splatter of rain. It’s not the cold, slanted downpour of the Northwest; it’s a warm drizzle, with a soft touchdown. They pass a pastel-colored city and curved beaches. They take a rough road that leads up a lush mountain. Isabelle stares at Sarah’s profile. She can’t stop staring. The professor is so familiar, yet not. His story is Isabelle’s own, yet not.
It feels like she could tell the story a thousand times, and it wouldn’t be enough. “I was so scared,” Isabelle says.
The face that turns to look at her is all Sarah’s face. “I know.”
“I’m having a strange sense of unreality.”
“You will. You will for a while. Fear does that. Flight, too.”
“Then what?”
“You land. You realize you landed safely. You realize your wings are trusty after all.”
“I have no idea what to do next.”
Around them are banyans and coconuts and palms whispering in a breeze. Not whispering: the birds. They click and twitter and sing and shout, and it sounds like every bird in the world, including Corvus moneduloides, has gathered there to speak their mind about the state of the world. Isabelle reaches a hand out from the moving Jeep, and it brushes against a vibrant red frond.
“This jungle?” the professor says. “It looks pretty much like it did sixty million years ago. Right there? That’s a giant tree fern, a species that’s been on earth so long it’s survived every mass extinction. You have time, Isabelle. To catch your breath. To figure out what you want. You have all the time in the world.”
“Maybe I’ll stay right here. Look at this place.”
The professor smiles. “I love it here. I love this life. Now, I wouldn’t go back if I could.”
“Maybe I’ll get a little house. Maybe I’ll travel…”
The Jeep strains up, up that road. The professor presses the clutch and shifts, looks over at Isabelle in the passenger seat. “Maybe you’ll never have to hear another fucking line of a fucking Poe poem as long as you live.”
They laugh. God, they laugh so hard. Isabelle could ride like this forever, with the beauty stretching to infinity, with the rain falling like an elixir. But she can tell their destination is not far off. There is the sense of a clearing, a widening road, a larger expanse above. In another slow and bumpy mile or two, they’ll reach the professor’s compound, with its welcoming wood shutters and blue-tiled pool.
It smells like paradise out there. Isabelle is still off-balance, both excited and exhausted from the trip, but she feels something else, too. Something indefinable. A small shift. It’s close to rest, but not quite rest. It’s relief, maybe, the kind that may one day grow into a true sense of safety and gratitude. But right now, it’s just a triangle of light; the same kind that comes when it’s night and a door is opened a little.
Isabelle exhales. And what a fine thing it is, she realizes. An exhale like that is worth fighting for.
The Jeep jostles forward. The professor is chattering again. Flight says, you can brave the tumult of the upper atmosphere. Flight says, the view from above will transform you. Isabelle tilts her chin. She lets the warm rain fall on her face as overhead, a bird calls to another bird, and the palm trees swish, and the sky pours riches.