Uncontacted

Chapter 7--Peter returns to Brazil

Somehow, I keep forgetting to post chapters as I finish them. Oops! Here's another one. I'm still playing around with the flashbacks. I'm not sure if I want them as full chapters or if I want them in snippets as the characters remember. This is a chapter with a flashback. 

           I was jittery as I boarded my flight to Sao Paolo and it wasn’t entirely due to being unprepared. I wanted to make a detailed, itemized list of all possible scenarios and the items I would need for each. Even if I had more time to grab my forest gear and clean underwear, it would not have been enough.

            I was looking for her. I might actually see her. I was terrified I would find her.

            This was more than thinking I saw her in the cereal aisle at the grocery store or pulling into a gas station. I remembered the time when just knew I’d seen her sitting inside a bar.

            It turned out that was Carmen. She will never know the depth of my disappointment when she turned to me for the first time and smiled.

            Every time, I knew I was crazy. She couldn’t be here. Hope and fear took my mouth hostage, leaving dryness.

            Still, every time, my heart leaped into my mouth and I had to swallow a flood of bittersweet memories. There was a reason I had not returned to Brazil in eight years. The thought of it siphoned the air from my lungs.

            I had to stop telling myself the mantra I’d been leaning on: It was better this way.

            Today, though, I was going to look for her. If all went well and I was able to sift through the millions of Brazilian citizens to find her before she was hit by a bus, pressed into prostitution, put in jail, left to starve, or caught a cold, I would see her.

            I would be face-to-face with her and I didn’t know what I would say. There was nothing to say, except maybe the truth. I could only think of one reason she would have left the forest and I would have to tell her the truth, then take her home. It was so unfortunate that this option was the least appalling of my options.

Dread made my feet stick to the ground. I struggled to move them one after the other as I shuffled toward my seat among the horde of other passengers.

            If I told myself I was doing this, facing her, because it was the right thing to do, I would be a liar—well, more so than I already am. This was much more complicated than a moral high ground.

            My thoughts raced in circles around these ideas while I sat on the plane, counting the minutes until I could be moving, doing, distracting myself with my task. Sitting, stewing, reminiscing was driving my blood pressure up. I could not figure out what was taking so long. This plane needed to move already. We were late. We should all be hurtling through the air at several hundred miles per hour toward our destination. I drummed my fingers and jounced my knees until I thought the man sitting next to me would punch me in the face.

            A voice came over the intercom, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are experiencing a few delays and will need to change planes. Hopefully we’ll be ready to depart in one hour. Please take all your carry-ons and disembark. We will make an announcement when we are ready to board. Thank you.”

            Once again, I found myself sitting in the terminal stuffed in a vinyl seat between a large southern woman and a businessman wearing pinstripes.

            I found myself looking at my phone. I hadn’t turned it on since my failed conversation with my mom yesterday. There was still no explanation I could offer, so I didn’t think I could call back, but I was curious. Had she left any messages?