"At the Airport" by Olivia Fantini
This is a story from our Winter 2022 Issue, guest edited by Raad Rahman. Click here to purchase the print edition and click here to purchase the digital version.
“We’re going to miss our flight.”
“We have two hours.” Noah’s phone chimes. He grunts at the text, and then forces the ancient flip phone into the pocket of his too-big khakis.
“Was that Brian?” his wife asks. He nods. Behind them, their daughter Avery takes out an earbud to listen. “And?”
“The buyer backed out.”
Avery replaces the earbud.
Eveline raises her eyebrows and shrugs. “Not everyone wants a six foot drawing of a dead salmon in their living room.”
A tremor shakes through Noah’s hands, momentarily robbing him of his dexterity. He holds the handle of his cane and looks away, into the busy Saint Kitts airport, waiting for it to pass. The cellphone weighs down his pocket like a stone.
“Did Brian tell them you could do something on commission?”
“They bought a different piece.”
“Which one?”
“One of Jenkins’.”
“He does the seascapes?”
Noah nods and scratches his bristle of mustache. Since they decided—since Eveline decided “not to have a physical relationship anymore”—his facial hair, at least, has been his own. For the last fifteen years, he has worn this salt-and-pepper mustache, more salt now than pepper, along with a beat-up Red Sox hat so faded it appears a tepid pink.
“People really like his work,” Eveline goes on. “Especially the view from Good Harbor. What if you painted the docks, that fishing boat that does the Christmas lights? People would buy that. Reds and yellows, something to brighten . . .”
Noah isn’t listening. In two weeks, his run at the New England gallery will be over, and the salmon will return to his studio, back among the other dead fish, the gray-silver pencil sketches of flaccid tails and bloated bellies. He has never been able to explain why he draws them. They are grotesque. They repulse him. They haven’t sold in years. But he isn’t able to stop. He will walk into his studio in the morning, thinking, “Today I will paint something for the tourists,” but when he steps back, it’s a grouper. Once, he had almost painted a periwinkle, but then somehow, before he was able to get it out of him, a dome of uncertainty settled over the image, and he couldn’t bring himself to lift the bell jar and look inside. He sat before the page not daring to touch it with his pen.
Beside him, in the college hoodie Eveline bought her at the school she later turned down, Avery tears open a bag of Skittles. In her palm, she sorts out the green candies and offers them to him wordlessly. He accepts and chews each individual sphere. She is the child in which he sees himself. Her elder sister Madison is the spitting image of Eveline, but Avery has his mouth. With her asymmetrical haircut and nose ring, she was the one to force her way out of Eveline’s mandate of homeschooling. At fourteen, she enrolled herself at the local high school, which had recently been in the papers for having the highest rate of teen pregnancy of any school in the county. Eveline had thrown a fit, but Avery hadn’t budged. She was struggling now, in her own quiet way. She spent most of the vacation in the shade of a large sienna umbrella, reading a thick book of Ginsberg poems.
Noah leans heavily on his cane, watches a thirty-foot TV screen flash ads for different airlines, and senses his wife’s anxiety growing. In front of him, Eveline fidgets with the extendible handle of her suitcase. Her honey hair, in its usual schoolmarm bun, has grown dull with strands of gray. The tanned skin of her arms is loose, it has begun to tremble over the muscles of her biceps, still strong from lifting crying Sunday school children and securing them on her hip. He feels the buzz of her agita expanding until it presses in on his shoulder and the part of his back that he turns to her when he doesn’t want her to speak. He studies the hairs on his knuckles and wishes he had kept the catfish he scribbled on the back of a placemat at the hotel breakfast buffet. Very soon, Eveline will speak.
“This line isn’t moving,” she says.
He could draw the catfish again. He practices in his mind, the thick lips, the whiskers, the four long tines of beard white as the underbelly, the uneven color line where the mottled green-gray rises up.
“If I tell them you can’t stand anymore, they’ll put us through PreCheck, and—”
“Don’t do that.” It comes out as a bark. Eveline folds her hands over her thick purse and looks away. A gold starfish necklace splays over her white throat. He wishes his voice were gentler. One of the many things the stroke changed thirty years ago—or maybe it didn’t. Maybe his voice has always been gruff. He can’t remember. His life has been this cane, this disability check, this look from his wife, for so long, now, that in a way it hardly matters.
The line inches forward. He tries to go back to the catfish, but the spot where it lived in his mind has gone dark. Eveline tugs at the handle to her suitcase, which is jammed again. The long, loose sleeves of her blouse flap as she pumps the mechanism, but the handle remains where it is. She breathes out sharply through her nose and then lifts the turquoise bag and hefts it forward several steps. His boat shoes scuff along the carpet as he shuffles forward, Avery follows with her suitcase and his own. Newly settled, Eveline stares at her phone, neck rigid.
“It’s too bad Madison couldn’t come,” he tries. The kids are her favorite subject.
“Noah, if we miss this flight—”
“We’re not going to miss the flight, Mom,” says Avery without removing her headphones.
Eveline clicks off her phone, shoves it roughly into her bag, looks at her watch, then pulls out her phone again. Noah thinks again about the six-foot salmon and the buyer who walked away. It’s his fault. Why does he have to draw these things? Most of the other artists at the Lofts make their living off the tourists that swell the seaside town every summer: pottery with bits of sea glass, jewelry made from shells, bright indigo and magenta stamps of a thirteen-pound lobster some snorkeler picked up by the docks. It isn’t that he refuses to sell out so much as that he seems incapable of it.
“I’m doing it.” Eveline stuffs her phone back into her purse and begins pushing her way through the line. She is gone before he can protest.
“Where’s Mom going?” Avery is tracking her mother’s awkward progress. Eveline climbs over a suitcase, sidesteps a woman in a ratty jean jacket, approaches a TSA officer, and points back to her family. He nods, and Eveline waves them over.
The TSA officer unhooks the rope, and they exit the packed corral. The man disappears, and then Noah hears the soft squeak and click approaching. The wheelchair is blue with the airline’s name written across the back in black Sharpie.
Beside him, Avery places a hand on his arm as if to hold him back.
It took nine months of physical therapy before he could walk with a cane: shaky steps, from the black folding chair to the anatomy and physiology poster on the wall of the doctor’s office. He remembers touching the tibialis anterior, the laminated paper quivering beneath his fingertips. He was unable to swallow the sob that rose in his throat. He had thought he would never walk again. He was thirty-two.
But that was a long time ago. There are sparks of silver at his temple now. He knows what is expected of him, but he stands for a moment longer and meets his wife’s gaze. She looks pointedly at the wheelchair. Noah looks back with his good eye. The Saint Kitts sun sprinkled freckles over her nose, and the skin around her mouth has begun to wrinkle.
She has changed too, of course, transformed beneath the pressure of a life spent dealing with his crap, cleaning up after his messes, and raising their children. He failed her. He lost his practice, his livelihood, the years spent in dental school, the life he had planned and charted so carefully for himself, but he has tried to spare her.
***
“Am I still the same person?” he asked an old friend, sometime during the year after. A biscotti shook in his hand as he lowered it carefully into his cup of coffee, this small bit of bodily engineering another triumph of physical therapy.
The long pause before his friend spoke was all he needed to hear. “Changes in personality—” the friend began, in his usual, methodical way, but Noah did not hear the rest.
Once, in quiet stocking feet, his hand outstretched for the doorknob to enter the bedroom, he heard her speaking within and paused. There was something in her voice, and he leaned close to listen. “I love you; I miss you,” he heard her say. She spoke with unbearable tenderness. Thinking she was on the phone with another man, he was about to throw open the door when he heard his name. He held his breath, fighting the tremor that vibrated through him at odd moments, the tremor that ended his practice and disrupted his art; he strove to remain still and silent.
She was speaking to him, to the old him, the one before, to the real Noah she had loved and chosen to spend her life with. He was dead, and she was speaking to him. Swallowing the unspeakable blackness that rose inside him, Noah turned away from the door. He was a ghost in his own life.
He tried to resurrect the other Noah, to live the life that had been planned. She wanted another child, and before his rehab was complete, he complied, propped up against the pillows while she moved her body over his. He thought she still loved him, then. She stood by him when the stroke took his hand, his leg, his eye, when he couldn’t work anymore, when the car went quiet in the driveway. He hadn’t thought to ask whether he, New Noah, loved her. Somehow, it hadn’t seemed relevant.
When the first disability check came, it seemed like everything was going to be okay. There was no talk of her going back to work; he couldn’t bear to bring it up, and perhaps now he didn’t have to. She wanted to homeschool the kids. He offered to teach music, art, anatomy, but somehow it was never the right time. She had a degree in education. She had experience teaching in a Montessori school before they were married. He nodded as she said these things.
It was more than ten years ago that he ceded the master bedroom to her and moved his things into the downstairs guest room. She told the kids the stairs had become too much for him, while he sat quietly by the window and scribbled another picture of a dead fish.
He once read of the Boxing Day tsunami. When the ocean receded from the shore—the Pacific inhaling sharply—thousands of fish were stranded on the damp sand to flap and gasp in the moment just before. Thousands more died after, chemicals in the water, destroyed habitats, sediment so stirred up the water appeared black. To be a fish is to be always at someone else’s mercy.
It’s over now, really. There aren’t any fights left to win, besides this one. Behind him, Avery hasn’t removed her hand. He feels the grip of her fingers through the light cotton of his shirt, but really, it’s already too late. He steps forward, Avery’s hand falls away, and Noah lowers himself into the chair. When he looks up at his youngest, she has averted her eyes. It doesn’t matter, he thinks—within her lifespan he has always been this person.
***
They are led through TSA PreCheck. Although he is not yet sixty-five, they do not make him take off his boat shoes. He is wheeled through and left to sit on the other side, facing a bay of windows that look out onto the runways as Eveline and Avery lift their arms for the woman with the metal wand. He hears a quiet beeping and tries to turn to see who it is, but the chair has been tucked away beside a fake potted plant. The wheels have been locked in place. Long plastic branches obscure his view. To his left stretches the dark paneled exterior of an airport seafood restaurant. Occasional windows reveal tables set with overlarge wine glasses and tall pepper grinders. A man in a blue sportscoat emerges from the restaurant holding a cellphone and looking back to address the rest of his party.
“It looks like they just delayed it again.”
Noah recognizes the broad shoulders of his brother-in-law. His mother, his sister, and her husband should have departed for New York two hours ago. As he watches, Brogan slides his phone into his pocket and faces the terminal. They will see him in a minute, in the chair. Chelsea is typing on her phone, eyes down, as she walks slowly beside their mother, probably firing off emails to her secretary. Before he can choose to look away and hide his face, he raises an arm and waves.
His mother sees him first. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Chelsea lowers her phone and notices the chair. “Are you all right? What’s going on?” She grabs the handles of the chair and with a grunt pushes him out of the shade of the fake plant.
“It’s just Eveline’s stupid idea to get us through security faster. There was a long line.”
Brogan bursts out laughing. Chelsea grins and shakes her head. A smile twitches across Noah’s face. He feels his shoulders relaxing. Brogan’s laughter is deep and warm. Noah has always liked his brother-in-law. “Did it work?”
“They put us through PreCheck. Eveline and Avery are right behind me.”
“Excellent!” Brogan claps his hands. “We’ve got to try that with Mom next time we’re running late!”
Noah smiles again. Of course, Chelsea, Brogan, and his mother already have TSA PreCheck. New York CEO and her banker husband. His mother who pays for this whole trip every year. Or at least, he had thought she did. That had always been the arrangement: Mom took the whole family to Saint Kitts for Thanksgiving, everything on her. Now, looking at Chelsea’s burgundy pantsuit and Brogan’s watch, he realizes that his sister must have been paying her own expenses for some time.
Noah wants to get out of the chair, but then Eveline and Avery are there, and the family has gathered around him too closely; there isn’t room enough to stand. They exchange hugs and greetings as though they haven’t just seen each other this morning at the resort. Noah looks at their pockets and belts and neat designer handbags, hanging at his eye level. He knows he should be grateful. His mother, almost ninety now, rests her hand on his shoulder, and he covers hers with his own. Of course he is grateful.
In a little over a month, he will turn sixty-five and his disability insurance will run out. Everyone in their smiling circle knows it. His mother will help, but it won’t be enough. Their savings account is empty. What little he had managed to put into a retirement fund before the stroke was cashed out to pay for Madison’s college. They will have to sell the house. He has tried to say this to Eveline, but she refuses to hear it. The market is good; at least that is in their favor. Some repairs are in order before they bring in a real estate agent. His wife hasn’t been in his bedroom for ten years. If she had, she would know he took a marker to the walls a long time ago. At first, he was surprised she hadn’t caught the scent and come to investigate. But with time, everything settled into place. What would she find that she didn’t already know? He was unhappy. He hated the house. And now they had to sell it. Somehow his hatred for the place didn’t dull the teeth of this fact. Being a man means owning your prison.
The family all say their goodbyes. Eveline turns the chair and wheels him away towards their gate.
“Avery had a jar of that island honey in her bag. Can you believe they wouldn’t let her take it on the plane? Ridiculous.”
She pushes him down the long hallway, whose walls are covered in yawning ads for restaurants, ziplining companies, and snorkeling locales. Behind him, he hears her orange flip-flops slapping against the tile. He wants to stand, to get out of the hateful chair, but she is walking so quickly, faster than he and his cane can manage. Even Avery has fallen behind his line of sight. They pass a food court and a magazine kiosk and a bank of empty chairs and still he does not rise. It’s easier this way.
“And Madison said they found a house! Putting in an offer on Monday. It looks great in the pictures.”
He nods.
At the gate, she checks her watch. “We’ve got another hour. Do you want something to eat?” He shakes his head. She sets her carry-on beside his chair and walks off towards a long Starbucks line.
Beside him, Avery pulls at the strings to her earbuds. The small white bulbs swing in the air.
“Why do you let Mom do that to you?”
Noah looks away, pretending he hasn’t heard his youngest, waiting for her gaze to shift, for the headphones to return to her ears. She watches him, unmoving, long after the others would have looked away. Isn’t this why he loves her best? She never forgets that his hearing and his comprehension are unimpaired. He turns to the window, hoping to watch the planes take off, but there are no planes, just miles of simmering tarmac.
“It’s complicated,” he says.
“No, it isn’t.” Her brows are angular, her lips taught, impatient.
Noah shifts his cane on his lap. “Your mother isn’t a villain,” he says, meeting her clear eyes. He holds her stare until she looks down at her sandals and nods once. God, there is so much more he could say, perhaps should say. Your mother isn’t a villain. He looks back at the tarmac, reaching for words, but the past is a net that catches him and pulls him down, and though he wants to, he does not speak. Somehow it is always his inaction that defines him, he thinks bitterly.
“What are you going to do when the disability runs out?”
“Your mother and I will figure something out.”
“You mean you’ll let her make all the decisions like you always do.”
“Avery.”
“She’s the one who should go back to work. But that’s never going to happen. You know she’s going to make you sell your studio.”
Noah’s legs shift on the silver footplates. Of course she will make him sell his studio. He can’t believe he hasn’t realized until now. He can hear Eveline’s voice, the stern tone she uses when she is trying to get the kids to see reason. Things have been slow for years. Your run at the gallery is almost up, and you haven’t sold a single piece. Were you ever really an artist? All those sketches covering the floor of the studio. You walk over them on your way to piss in that freezing cold, windowless bathroom. Your cane left dark circles on the paper! Last winter the space heater caught fire. You can draw from home. Wouldn’t it be nice not to have to take the bus? We’ll carve out a spot in the basement. Noah, we can’t afford . . . The argument continues in his head, but he stops listening to her.
“I’m getting pizza. I’ll bring you a slice.” Avery’s shoulder bag bounces as she walks away. At the next gate, a flight is boarding for Los Angeles. He watches the toasted people line up and funnel down the jetway onto the metal bird. Somewhere nearby, someone has opened a carton of Chinese food. A female voice clicks on over the intercom and announces that group four is now welcome to board.
***
When Noah was in high school, he got a job at Curious Creatures. He cleaned the cages of guinea pigs and pulled out lizards when kids wanted to hold them. Not long after he started working there, he arrived one morning to find that every fish in the store had leapt from its topless tank. The tiles were covered with brightly colored tetras, betas, and fancy guppies, some pristinely preserved, others squished by frantic workers. The manager explained there had been a fluctuation in the pH of the water, causing the tanks to become slightly acidic. According to the security cameras, it began sometime around 6 a.m. They leapt in schools, tropical-electric waves pelting the linoleum, bodies wriggling up and down aisle seven until the floor grew still. He wonders how the fish knew the exact moment to jump.
***
The flight to LA has finished boarding. He watches the woman in the blue pantsuit swing the door closed and change the sign to Rio, Brazil. The blue pleather seats around her are empty now.
“Are you mad at me about the wheelchair thing?” Eveline is back, the ice cubes in her plastic cup rattling softly. The liquid moves with the tilt of her hand as she waits for a response. He wishes she would sit down, but she stands with her coffee in one hand, a pastry bag and crumpled bill in the other.
In the intensity of her waiting, everything dies. The scratch and buzz of the intercom and the whirr of wheels on suitcases are silenced; the people fall away; the itch of the chair beneath him fades; and although it has only been a moment, it seems she has waited an eternity for his answer. A heat begins at his throat and builds up to his eyes.
In the moment before he says, “No, no, I’m not mad at you,” he remembers the day he bought his studio. A small human interest story had come out about him in the Globe, and he was sitting on a handful of new commissions. New Noah. He was going to survive after all. It had been nearly two years since the stroke. Eveline had long ago sold his office, put the dental chairs up on eBay and gotten ripped off. Everything was gone. His diploma was in a Kendall Jackson box in the basement.
The realtor gave them the keys to the dilapidated studio, and Eveline carried in a pad of sketch paper and a box of ballpoint pens. They had sex in the cramped bathroom and discovered both the taps ran hot. That day, when it felt as though something was finally being returned to him, after Eveline left, and maybe even while she was still there, it was forming in his mind: the sand trail, the whorled shell, the slippery glisten. Two tentacles visible over the half-open trapdoor of the sea snail’s operculum. He would begin with that opening: with the door, and the foot, and the muscled body.
Olivia Fantini grew up in Massachusetts and spent six years working in public schools as an English Language Development teacher. She is currently an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Minnesota where she was awarded the Gesell Fellowship. Her short story “Experimental Trials” received third place in the 2021 Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction from Philadelphia Stories, and her fiction has also appeared in TriQuarterly. She is currently at work on a novel and a memoir. More information available at OliviaFantini.com.
