Ebbing between visions of my childhood house and the home we left two-and-a-half-years ago, our flight barreled over a cluster of air pockets.
The plane jostled. My wife, Susan, grabbed my forearm. My heavy-lidded eyes popped open. Lilly, our Boston terrier, bolted upright from a slumberous pile in my lap. Her ears pricked. She trembled.
We’d known turbulence before, but I read these shakers as some kind of sign. Other destinations we’ve winged toward held the promise of respite and renewal. This destination was different. This one was charged with memory and speculation, intimacy and estrangement. Susan and Lilly and I were returning to the place we’d left. The place where we’d lived most of our lives.
Par-umph! More air pockets. Susan dug her fingernails into my forearm. Lilly pressed her head into my chest like she was trying to climb inside me. One of the final scenes from the series Breaking Bad replayed in my head; the one where Todd reproaches Mr. White from revisiting the Neo-Nazis’ den: “You shoulda never come back.”
We banked over the Santa Monica Mountains, the wing tip skating the trails I probably hiked with Lilly at one time. Somewhere to our left, at the base of the Encino Hills, nestled the condo complex the three of us called home for 12 years: Lilly’s second shot at security; the lawns and sidewalks where she managed, through her fear-aggression, to cultivate four enduring fur-pals. We’d sold the unit to a videographer employed by the actor whose slap was heard round the world. It wasn’t our home any more.
Approaching LAX from downtown, the wings leveled and the wheel wells opened. Rain was forecast, but the sky was a searing blue-violet, just like I remembered. Susan let go of my arm. Her nails left welts.
* * *
Cousin Walter welcomed us at the front door of our cozy B&B: my grandma’s old apartment, the bomb shelter I was whisked to whenever my parents hurled verbal grenades at each other. Walter had redone the den into a southwestern-themed bedroom. Lilly dipped into a play-bow. Walter teased her into tug-of war.
That night, we dined at an Italian place in West Hollywood Walter hadn’t been to since his beloved wife, Shelley, passed three years before. Lilly sat, rapt, through our tears and smiles. When we returned to grandma’s, Lilly flopped down on the bed — roughly over the spot where grandma passed away. She didn’t stir until morning.
A family reunion in San Clemente was preempted by illness. Instead, we visited Lilly’s Auntie Joy in Long Beach. Lilly whimpered upon seeing her. We set her loose and she tore to her auntie who scratched her butt and coaxed a tap dance. Susan, Lilly and I later strolled our favorite haunt: the Manhattan Beach Strand. I grabbed some pics of the pier and roller skaters. Funny to be a tourist in your old home town.
Lilly made the rounds of all her beloved aunts and uncles including Don and Livia who so kindly babysat her while we scouted properties in Portland. On a night when Susan attended a professional conference and I downed chicken chop suey with a childhood friend, Lilly curled up on what used to be Shelley’s sleep space next to Uncle Walter.
* * *
Air pockets were no strangers on our flight home. This time, Lilly barely trembled and Susan didn’t grab my arm. One jolt in particular shifted the contents in the overhead bins. It was that Arthur Fonzarelli rap on the jukebox that bumps life’s tune back into groove, resets one’s heart to love the old anew.