Take What You Can Carry by Gian Sardar (superbooks4u .TXT) 📕

In Paris, get brandy at the duty-free.

And then there is a question he asks that explodes within her chest.

“What do you think about the photos you took?”

In her purse, the canister burns with betrayal. “I won’t know till I look.”

He glances at her. “You said you know the second you take it if it’s good.”

“I got some good ones. I just can’t think about them. Not till the film is home safe.”

But the checkpoints are a breeze. There is a daring within her that now sits at the surface, exposed with the erosion of so much else. Delan chides her with being an old pro, having perfected a respectful disinterest in the men with guns who demand their papers. To that she just shrugs, watching pale cars in the distance. Sometimes her eyes glide over the soldiers’ banners of bullets, but she lets herself register nothing, stopping meaning in its tracks. Instead she takes in the wavered gloss of a distant river, realizing it could be a mirage but not caring because in either case it shines, and the simple fact that something could be made of nothing is itself a fascination.

Hours pass. He tells her to take a nap, but she can’t waste their last time together. The air grows hotter. The landscape drained of its green.

They talk of places they want to visit in the future: Scotland, Hawaii, Spain. They talk of childhood: the first time a friend chose another, that cruel induction to life. And they talk about children. I always wanted more than one. A smile. A hint at their future. She wants to say, I love you. The words press against her, like something that could erupt without notice. He feels it too; she knows he does; she sees it in him, the way he looks at her. But those words, those beautiful, aching words, they shouldn’t emerge now and forever be tied to what’s just happened.

And then they are at the airport, in time for evening prayer.

At the ticket counter, she listens to him speak in Arabic, a difference she can hear though could not describe. She wants to know what he’s said, if he gave a return, and he must see the question in her because he looks down at the counter, unable to meet her eyes. “A credit will be easiest. I’ll set the date later.”

They walk. The steady roll of her suitcase on the cement. Cigarette smoke that trails and spreads upon the ceiling.

“Everything,” he says when she wraps herself around him, “always, is the beginning.”

Of what? Of our future together? Of losing you? But she discards the questions. Later she can break down. Now she needs to not think. Now she just needs to get home.

His hand under her chin, he makes her look at him. “Liv. My Liv. I just want to be home with you.”

Home. The thought—it’s amazing and sad all at once.

“Us cooking,” she says. “Picking things from the garden and cooking and sitting on the porch. You down the hall or in my room. Our room.”

“Our room. It will be our room.”

“And us at breakfast, you reading the paper and me making lunch and Rebecca in a hurry and Mason just being Mason.”

He laughs. “Mason. Poor Mason.”

“I might be able to handle him now.”

“He was jealous, you know. Of us. There was always an us. It drove him crazy. He’s annoying but smart. He saw it.”

“And there will be. Us is not over. You just need to come home.” And stay safe. Stay alive.

“I promise.”

Then she rests her head on his shoulder and feels the slight lift of his breathing. Never did she see this moment. Never could she have imagined leaving him like this.

“I don’t want to say goodbye to you,” he says.

She lifts her head and watches the mountains in his eyes, his faraway land.

“Then it’s not goodbye,” she says. And with that she turns and forces herself to walk away—even as she feels his eyes upon her, even though with every step she feels as though she’s falling.

CHAPTER 13

April 28, 1979

The gate at Los Angeles International. Plants with shiny leaves. Rows of orange chairs. People everywhere. Olivia waits for Rebecca to arrive, and the noise and the crowd feel foreign. This world is loud and bright. Color is everywhere. Jumping from walls, slipping from polyester, plush in velour. People swim in it, and it swims from them. And the touching, the hugging and hand-holding. Everywhere are embraces. People push around her and at times even against her, and Olivia finds herself fighting just to be still.

When Rebecca finally arrives, it’s in a rush of apologies for being late, all while looking past Olivia for Delan. Olivia tries not to cry. “He’s not coming,” she has to yell. “Look at me. He’s not coming.”

And then she tells her the rest, or most of the rest, as fast as she can. And Rebecca continues to look to the gate and moves only when Olivia is halfway down the concourse, the people and all their colors simmering with tears she refuses to give in to.

A return to anywhere is strange, to see that a place has gone on without you, and Los Angeles is no different. Banks still have their tall, dark windows and the same strange sculptures outside. Billboards are unchanged; the ad for the upcoming movie Alien keeps promising terror while the Marlboro Man still rides his horse, lasso frozen midspin. It’s as if no time has passed. As if nothing has happened. And it feels wrong, for their city to turn on them like this. To let her back in without a glance and not even notice that he’s gone.

As they inch along the 110 freeway, she takes in the curves of the Bonaventure Hotel and remembers the boot-shaped glasses they got from the restaurant, how they drank strawberry daiquiris as the top floor rotated and the windows flared with sunset,