Airplane orange juice bears little resemblance to real orange juice. When I pull back the hermetically sealed foil, it makes a light hiss that sounds vaguely carbonated. It’s syrupy and sour, but I drink it anyway, hoping the vitamin C will ward off the germs of my fellow passengers. As a child, I ordered it over and over, hoping it would be the same sweet drink we were only allowed on special occasions, and the half-full cup of disappointment slid around on my tray until it ended in my lap.
I have learned to wear white headphones on the plane, from the moment I take my seat until the moment I exit the plane. Most of the time they aren’t connected to anything, but they stop my seat mates from treating the airplane as a flying confessional. I’ve heard about how ballroom dancing saved one man’s marriage. I’ve been told about a job interview that went poorly and the man’s fear that this wife would leave him if he didn’t find employment soon. It was after one man tried to recruit me for a blackmail scheme that I stopped talking to people on planes. This passenger wanted me to find an older, married man to buy me a drink in a hotel bar when we landed, and then invite him up to my room. My fellow passenger would snap photos, which would be “good for $5,000, usually.” He wound up next to me on the shuttle bus to the car rental pavilion. “Lillibridge,” he said, looking at my luggage tag. “I’m going to look you up later.” After that, I flipped over my luggage ID so that only the words “see reverse for info” were visible, and I stopped talking to strangers on planes.
After my divorce, I flew with my sons from Ohio to Florida to visit my parents. I pushed one toddler in a stroller, carry-on bags hanging off the handles. I wore the baby in a sling across my chest and a backpack diaper bag on my back. I told my three-year-old that TSA was looking for hamsters when we went through security—he was too young to have to worry about bombs and other implements of terror. My son stood there looking confused, trying to figure out why so many people were smuggling rodents, but he knew if he had been given the opportunity to bring his guinea pig he certainly would have. I packed toy surprises and snacks for my children, just like my mother did for me years ago. The children and I flew every year, and gradually they grew into two boys that could walk on their own holding my hands, then eventually into two boys who could carry their own luggage. They are quiet and polite and never complain about delays, and even as infants they did not scream in flight. They, too, love the transitional space of airports, the timeless feel of encapsulated air travel. But on the planes and in the airports in between, they always belong to someone—they belong to me.
loon landing
Father and #Four bought an old hunting camp on Lake Louise, a four-hour drive from Anchorage, and named it Loon Landing. There were four little log cabins, each with its own wood-burning stove, because there was no heat or electricity. Outside each cabin was a paint bucket with a toilet seat on top—there was no running water, either. One cabin was set apart on its own, and Father rented it out to fellow campers. The other three cabins sat all in a row, halfway down the hill, overlooking the lake. #Four and Father shared the Taylor cabin, which had the biggest stove and shelves of canned and dehydrated food. There was a counter that ran the length of one wall, and that was where everyone ate. Next to the Taylor cabin was the Lillibridge cabin—Father had carved signs for each cabin out of wood, named for all the family’s last names: #Four’s name was Taylor; Father, Juli, Girl, and Brother were all Lillibridges, and #Four’s children shared the surname King. Girl and Brother shared the Lillibridge cabin, sleeping on metal cots. Father hung posters over their beds—golden retriever puppies on Girl’s side, Battlestar Galactica on Brother’s. #Four covered a small table with contact paper so the children had a place to draw. The contact paper had giraffes and zoo animals all colored orange and yellow and brown. Father locked Girl and Brother in at night, but he left a bag of granola mix for the morning, and a pee bucket in the corner, which was an improvement over the jar.
The third cabin was the King cabin, where Juli and their stepsister, Anne, stayed. Of their three stepsisters, only Anne came to Alaska regularly. Jane and Sara were older, and often stayed home with their father in Toronto, with whom they lived full-time. None of #Four’s children lived with her. Juli and Anne were both the same age—fifteen. Anne listened to Pink Floyd and smoked pot. Juli listened to Barry Manilow and did not smoke anything. No one minded that Anne smoked pot, though, because Father and #Four did too. Girl spent a lot of time trying to figure out how they smoked a pot—did they leave it on the stove until it burned? All she
