what now? | outerbanks

• one hundred twenty-seven •

Rafe

I finish packing and leave no more than an hour after Sarah slams the door shut. I don't want to be here anymore, and there's a four-hour drive to the airport ahead of me.
I call Sofia one more time while I'm in the car.
She sighs as soon as she picks up. "Rafe, please."
"I know," I say. "I know. I just—I wanted to talk about Wheeze. I should've asked already."
There's a pause. "Okay."
"I know you're at your parents'."
"Yeah."
"And you're staying there tonight?"
"I think so. Wheeze is sleeping over at Lily's house tonight. We already told her she could."
I nod. I do remember that. "We just need to figure out what we're doing with her while I'm gone."
"She can stay with Sarah and John B."
"Yeah. I figured."
"They're not going to mind."
"I know." I glance at the clock on the dashboard. Five hours before my flight boards. "I just don't want it to be weird. Like, technically she's our responsibility, not theirs."
"It's already weird," she says coldly.
I let out a breath. "I'm just trying to make sure she's taken care of."
"She is." Another pause. She sighs. She can tell I'm not sold. "I can call Nanny and Pops," she finally offers.
It's not a bad idea.
"To come pick her up?"
"Sure," she says. "That, or they can stay at Tanneyhill. Either way. They'd be there to keep an eye on her, but I'm sure they'd love to spend time together anyway. They hardly ever see her."
"Yeah." I tap my thumb against the steering wheel. "That could work. I just want to make sure she's good."
"She will be."
I stare through the windshield at the road stretching out ahead of me.
"Okay. I'll talk to John B. and Sarah, see what they think. If they're fine with it, I'll call Nanny and Pops."
The silence that follows is uncomfortable in a way I can't quite explain. I can hear the faint sound of voices on her end—her little sisters, her dad yelling something in Spanish. Her mom's voice comes in closer, and I hear Sofia mumble a response back dryly. I wish I knew what they were saying.
I clear my throat. "Has Wheeze said anything?"
"No. She's still out, so."
"Okay."
"She knows you're going to your mom's. Sarah told her, I think."
"Yeah, I know. I just mean—"
"Rafe, she's not stupid. She knows things aren't great right now."
I swerve around a piece of tire in the road. "Right."
"Do you want me to talk to her?" Sofia asks.
"No. I'll do it."
"Okay."
"I'll call her when I get to the house."
"Good."
I nod, even though she can't see me. "Yeah."
I should probably let her go. I know that. There's nothing else we need to work out right now, and dragging the conversation out isn't going to change anything. But I don't hang up. I want to hear her voice again.
Instead, I find myself asking, "Are you okay?"
"Rafe," she sighs. "I'm not doing this."
I exhale. "Sorry"
Quietly, she says, "I just need some space."
"I know."
"And I need you to let me have it."
"Okay," I say. "I won't call unless it's about Wheezie."
"We can talk about Wheezie, Rafe, but you can't use her as an excuse to keep calling me."
"I won't."
"Good. Bye, Rafe."
I say, "Bye, baby," but the call ends halfway through the word. It stings a little.
I set my phone in the cup holder and keep driving. Four hours to figure out what exactly I'm going to tell Wheezie and how. How do you tell your baby sister that you relapsed on drugs? Do you even tell her in the first place? Do you call her and pretend that you're just going to your dead mom's lakehouse to fix things up?
Sofia would know the right thing to do. She probably does. But she asked me not to call, so I won't. Yet.
The first airport isn't too busy. Most people flying in or out from Raleigh are going on or leaving from vacation, end-of-summer trips to the Carolinas. I board the flight early since I'm seated in business class, and I only take my headphones off when a flight attendant passes to ask if I'd like something to drink. I tell her no.
The flight is only an hour and a half, but I try sleeping anyway. I can't. I can't close my eyes without seeing Sofia's face or hearing what Sarah said this morning. Everything just keeps replaying in my head like a fucking nightmare. It takes everything in me not to order a glass of whiskey.
There's a layover in Atlanta, and this time, the airport is packed. There are people everywhere, running to gates, looking for luggage, taking naps along the bench seating. My eyes fall on a young girl, no older than ten years old, standing scared next to a vending machine. She looks lost.
I almost turn and walk away, but she reminds me so much of Sofia's youngest sister that I can't let myself leave her like this. I walk up to her.
"Hey, uh—" I'm trying my best not to come off intimidating. "Are you okay? Are you lost?"
She looks confused. "Um... mi mama?" she tries to explain in Spanish. "Estoy perdido."
I shake my head. "Do you speak english?"
Obviously not, Rafe. Are you fucking stupid?
Her face just scrunches up even more. "Estoy perdido," she repeats.
"Okay." I nod like I understand. I absolutely do not understand. "Okay," I say again, mostly to myself.
She looks like she's about to cry, and suddenly I feel like the biggest asshole in the Atlanta airport.
"No, no, hey." I crouch down a little so I'm not towering over her. "You're okay."
She looks at me. I point around us. "Your mom?"
She nods quickly.
"Yeah?"
Another nod.
"Okay."
I point toward the terminal around us. "Where is she?"
Nothing. Of course. I rub a hand over my face.
Brilliant, Rafe.
I look around. There are people everywhere. Families, airline employees, security. Nobody seems to notice the kid standing alone beside the vending machine.
I pull out my phone. Google Translate. I type in English. Are you lost? I turn the screen toward her.
She reads it. Then her whole face changes. She nods.
I let out a breath. "Okay. Great. We have one thing."
I type again. What is your name?
She looks at the screen, then points to herself. "Lucía."
"Lucía."
She nods.
"Okay, Lucía."
I type. Where is your mom?
She stares at it for a second. Then starts typing on my phone with one finger. Lost.
She says something in Spanish too quickly for me to catch.
I hold up a hand. "Okay. Sorry. I don't—" I stop. She looks scared again. I lower my voice. "I'm not going anywhere." I don't know why I say it. She doesn't understand it anyway.
Maybe because for the first time in a long time, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, and there isn't a person I can blame for that.
I glance around again. An airport employee is walking past, uniform heels click-clacking across the luggage-scuffed tile.
I stand. "Excuse me."
She stops. "Yeah?"
"I think she's lost. She doesn't speak any English."
The employee immediately comes over. She kneels beside Lucía and starts speaking Spanish. Lucía answers quickly.
I watch the employee's expression change. "She says her mother's name is Carmen," the woman tells me. "They were traveling together. She got separated from her mother near the gate."
"Okay."
The employee asks Lucía another question. Lucía points toward the terminal.
"Her mother went to find their gate," the woman explains. "Lucía thought she was following her, but she got turned around."
I nod. "Can you help find her?"
"Absolutely."
Lucía looks at me. Then at the employee. Then back at me.
I give her a small smile. "You're good."
She doesn't understand the words, but she seems to understand the tone because she gives me a small smile and reaches for my hand. I hesitate for half a second before letting her take it. She holds on tightly.
We walk toward the help desk together. I don't know why I keep thinking about Sofia. Everything today seems to lead back to her. And the way Lucía grips my hand reminds me of Wheezie when she was little. The way she keeps looking up to make sure I'm still there reminds me of the way Sofia looks at me after I disappear somewhere I shouldn't have.
The employee stops at the desk. She speaks to another airport worker. Lucía is still holding my hand. A few minutes later, an announcement comes over the speakers.
The employee looks down at her. "That's her mother's name."
Lucía's head snaps up. She says something excitedly in Spanish.
The employee smiles. "She heard her mother's name."
A woman comes rushing around the corner. She looks terrified. "Lucía!"
The little girl lets go of my hand and runs. Her mother drops to her knees and catches her. They hug. I stand there awkwardly.
The mother looks over at me. "Thank you?" she says in broken English. "Thank you."
I shake my head. "Yeah. Of course."
The woman hugs her daughter tighter. I watch for another second, trying to imagine Sarah and Willa like this one day.
The employee smiles at me. "You did good."
I almost laugh. "Didn't really do anything."
She shrugs. "You did enough."
I nod. "Yeah." I walk away before she can say anything else.
Back towards my gate, towards my flight, towards the lake house.
I sit down in one of the chairs and pull my phone out. There are no new messages. Nothing from Sofia. I stare at the picture of her on my screen. She's sitting on a bench at the park, smiling wider than I've seen any other time, holding a butterfly carefully on her finger.
Her short hair is flipped to one side, messy but still so beautiful, and her sleeve is slipping slightly off of her shoulder.
It's one of my favorite pictures of her.
I lock my phone and lean my head back against the seat. My flight boards in forty minutes, and I have nothing to do. Everything I want to do, I can't.
I don't even want to go to the lake house. I don't know what kind of shape it'll be in, I don't know what I'll have to do when I get there. I don't want to be doing any of this.
But I dug myself into this hole, so I'm the one who has to climb out of it.

Fifty minutes and one rain delay later, I'm on the second plane. I shove my bag underneath the seat in front of me.
This plane is smaller than the last one, and the business class seating is so cramped that it may as well be economy. It's not bad, just not nice. I flag over a flight attendant to order something to eat, and she tells me she'll be out with it soon. I thank her.
There's a woman across the aisle with a paperback open on her lap. I laugh when I read the cover and realize it's a self-help book. Fitting.
A few rows ahead, there's a young boy pressing his forehead against the window and asking his dad five questions a minute. The dad reminds me of mine—button down and slacks, nice watch, sunglasses as if he's at some charity event, not a short plane ride.
"What is that?"
"What's that one?"
"Are we almost there?"
"Why is that one red?"
His dad answers every single time. I envy him a little, the boy. He asks questions, and his dad answers. Even when the questions are stupid, even when he explained the same thing thirty seconds ago, he answers with an unfamiliar patience.
He doesn't get annoyed or tell him to be quiet or look at his phone and pretend he didn't hear.
I turn toward my own window. The clouds stretch out beneath us, bright and white and endless.
I wonder how old I was when I stopped asking my dad questions. I'm not sure if I ever did, truly, but I think I got really good at knowing which questions to ask and when to ask them. At some point, it was all calculated.
The boy laughs at something outside. His dad smiles. I turn toward the window again.
The clouds have started to thin. There's a patch of land far below us, green and brown and cut through with roads. Somewhere down there, people are driving home from work, picking up their kids, stopping at grocery stores, making dinner.
Normal shit.
I wonder if the boy knows how lucky he is. Then I feel like an asshole for thinking it. He's just a kid, he shouldn't have to know.
The plane dips slightly, and the seat belt sign flicks on above us. A flight attendant walks down the aisle, reminding everyone to remain seated. The boy's dad reaches over and helps him pull his belt snug. I watch for a second longer than I mean to, then I put my headphones in.
I don't turn my music up, but I need something between me and the sound of my own thoughts.