The Brambles by Eliza Minot

Author:Eliza Minot
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307265517
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2006-07-18T04:00:00+00:00

9

The flight to Newark. Clouds like pulled wool. A stadium of blue sky. The sun screams through the window into Arthur’s face like something medical, a scan technique, jarring and intrusive. On the window, scribbles of frost are formed on the outer glass.

“I don’t like this,” mutters Arthur, his restrained tension heightening. He squints at his lunch tray, looks up at the curved catacomb ceiling, the little air streams above him with their clickety knob adjusters, person after person, face after face, all side by side, in front and behind, their heads like eggs cradled neatly in containers.

He’s short of breath. From every metallic seam, every rounded plastic edge, every button and switch and bing of the seat-belt alert come pieces of Florence: her healthy hair, her walnut smell, her way of chewing on her bottom lip as she listened on the telephone. Florence’s plane twirling like the nose of a maple seed, pinwheeling from the sky.

Arthur looks at his tray. “I have trouble with this food,” he musters.

Edie’s cast goes up to her mid-forearm, not such a bad break after all. But she has Percocets and an awkwardly shaped hook of a left hand. Edie rips open the plastic bag holding her father’s fork and knife with her teeth. “You unwrap it and eat it,” she says. “This is chicken. No, pasta. And this is—let’s see, a bean salad.”

“You used to be offered a choice, were you not?”

“Pretty soon they won’t serve you anything, Dad.” Then she realizes the death implication. “Pretty soon they won’t give you food.” Wrong too. “Airlines are doing away with food altogether,” she says.

“Get me a scotch, please,” he says.

“Sure, Gramps.” She snickers. He hasn’t had a drink in years. Edie looks at him. Or has he? “You haven’t had a drink in years,” she says cheerily, mostly for the benefit of the woman seated in front of them who Edie can tell is listening. The woman’s head is still, elevated just so, a frosted dome.

A flight attendant with a waxy complexion pauses next to them, holding up an institutional stainless-steel water pitcher and some frightening prongs. Her smile is relieved, as though at last she has finally reached them. “Would you lack s’mass?”

Gramps cups his hand to his ear to hear what she’s saying.

“S’mass?” she repeats.

“Pardon?” he says.

“S’mass?” She smiles, mannequin-like.

“I’m sorry,” he says, squinting.

“Ass?” still smiling. “You lack some?”

Gramps sits back, turns to Edie. “I think she’s asking me if I’d like some ass,” he says, dumbfounded.

“Ice,” explains Edie. “Would you like some ice. In your water.”

Arthur nods, throws his palms to the air. He coughs loudly.

Edie watches her father pull at his collar. Then she remembers. She forgot the diabetes. Margaret had told Edie to call in advance to reserve the special meal. The sort of thing Margaret would never forget. She feels awful that she forgot. She almost wishes that she never remembered and could sail on through the flight unaware. She can hardly bring herself to ask, “Can you eat the pasta, Dad?”

“If I want to lose a digit, yes.

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