The Flight

Elsie met David on a cold winter’s night, Valentine’s Day 2003. She had recently moved to New York from San Francisco and still wasn’t accustomed to the freezing temperatures. The shared driveway leading up to her condominium had somehow become her responsibility to clear of snow and ice. She wasn’t the only one with a car—just the only one without four-wheel drive.

Elsie wasn’t dressed appropriately for winter—she had on a pair of beige UGG boots that could hardly keep the bitter cold at bay, never mind the ugly stains left behind by melting, dirty snow. She was wearing a pair of old Levi’s that an ex had left behind years ago and a thin sweater with a puffy vest over it to keep her torso warm. Shoveling snow was not her least favorite activity at the moment, however, because she hadn’t been to the gym in so long, it felt like the only cardiovascular activity she’d undertaken in months.

Chiseling away at the buildup, Elsie was careful not to fall on the ice. She’d done it once before, just after her move, chipping her tailbone and landing herself on a “donut” for weeks. Her colleagues at the small PR firm where she’d worked couldn’t help but rib her in meetings when Elsie, juggling coffee, a laptop and her donut would enter the room, always after the meeting had started and always dropping something before settling into her seat.

Now, gingerly moving the snow from the path that her jaunty Prius would take in the morning, she really gave it some oomph, when seemingly out of nowhere, a large border collie came bounding her way at full speed, swerving to avoid a fallen branch and then making a beeline again for Elsie’s small frame.

“Whoa!” David hollered from the edge of the wooded street. “Maya! Get back here!” he bellowed. But Maya moved with such conviction that she wouldn’t have stopped for a steak at that point. Elsie, frozen in place, felt the rush of the dog and then the two were in the snow, one large mass of tangled legs.

David caught up to the scene and pulled Maya off of Elsie. “Jeez, Maya! No, I said! Don’t you ever listen?” Elsie rolled over and started to push herself up off of the cold, solid ground. David reached for her and gently assisted her efforts to right herself. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “Maya has so much energy that I can’t stop her at times—she’s like a runaway train.”

Elsie just blinked at the stranger—truly one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. Almost blindingly good-looking, actually. “Not a problem,” she stammered. “I was just looking for an excuse to go inside and warm up with a glass of scotch anyway.”

“Scotch, eh? You’re my kind of girl.”
Elsie feigned surprise but tentatively pondered the idea of getting to know this man better. With courage that she didn’t always find, Elsie extended her hand and introduced herself. “I’m Elsie. I live here and find myself only too willing to shovel this driveway, much to everyone’s amusement—including Maya’s, it seems.”

David extended his hand in return, first pulling off his soft-looking suede glove. “I’m David. I just got a job here, and I’m still living in temporary housing until I can find a place. I love it over here, so I walk Maya this way to get a lay of the land.”

“I’d be happy to show you around, if you’re interested,” Elsie offered as nonchalantly as she could.

“I’d like that,” David murmured, now watching Maya chase what appeared to be a squirrel with enough nuts to feed a colony.

“Would you like to come in? For a drink or a bite?” Elsie propositioned.

“That sounds really good. I’m not accustomed to this cold,” said David as he shifted from one foot to the other to avoid frostbite.

“Me, either! Where are you from?” Elsie, needing more, explored.

“San Francisco originally, then Eugene, then Australia for a while, now the East Coast—Maryland, D.C., and New York,” said David.

“You’re from San Francisco? I grew up there!” Elsie couldn’t contain her excitement.

Without further ado, David followed Elsie up the short drive to her cozy condominium. David took in the fact that Elsie was a clear advocate of Pottery Barn and the magic its catalog inspires month after month. Maya followed dutifully—for once.

Comparing notes on favorite Bay Area restaurants, playing the “do you know” game, and sharing best San Francisco moments with one another bonded the two quickly, until it got so late that Elsie and David both wished they could skip work the next day. “I wish I could stay,” David admitted.

“Me, too,” sighed Elsie.

Then in unison, they said, “Well, why not?”

Elsie and David stayed the night together, and from that moment on were inseparable. There was no need for David to find housing—he moved in with Elsie within a matter of days.

Friends couldn’t believe how happy Elsie had become—virtually overnight. She spent all of her time with David, but no one resented her happiness. Weeks turned into months, which turned into a year, and exactly twelve months to the date that Elsie and David met, David proposed. Elsie chose to keep the spiritual ceremony simple, only including her mother as witness. Elsie and David honeymooned in Miami, and for once in her life, Elsie let herself truly relax, taking in the warm nights and cool drinks.

The first time Elsie felt something was different was just a few weeks after getting back from Miami. Her breasts felt tender and she felt…fuller. She assumed that pregnancy was out of the question, given that she religiously took the pill and had done so since she was sixteen, because it tamed her acne breakouts. But when her symptoms persisted, she made a quick trip to Duane Reade and bought a home pregnancy test. Two, actually. She didn’t have to test twice, however; the message was loud and clear. She was pregnant.

Exciting—but very unexpected, Elsie wasn’t sure if she should tell David before or after she scheduled a visit with her doctor. She opted for after—just to be certain it wasn’t a false alarm.

Dr. Vigner’s office was just far enough from Elsie’s condo that taking public transit to her appointment was out of the question, and since she’d been lax about keeping the driveway clear of the final snows of the season, she had to cross her fingers that the Prius could make the trip. And now that Maya was a permanent fixture in Elsie’s life, she had to take her everywhere. It made leaving the house a little harder, because she had to remember to bring things like waste bags (for the unexpected stop), a leash, some treats, and always a bottle of water. She figured it prepared her for being a mom and took some pride in the activities.

Running behind, Elsie was eager to get to Dr. Vigner’s on time or, as she’d experienced in the past, her appointment would be given to the woman who showed up before her. She took the back streets instead of the highway, assuming that with black ice on the roads, traffic would be slower than usual, and she could avoid it through the neighborhood. She had just turned on her driving lights when out of the corner of her eye, she saw something dart into the street. Elsie slammed on her brakes, but the car didn’t stop quickly enough, and whatever had come between her car and the road was now underneath it. She realized she was holding her breath and exhaled sharply, jumping out of the car.

She could hear a woman calling from the house adjacent to where she was standing. The calling quickly turned to shrieking as the scene unfolded, and both Elsie and the woman realized that what they were looking for was under the still-running Prius.

“Oh, my God,” said Elsie, turning to the now-frantic woman. “Are you looking for your dog?”

“No, my daughter!” the woman screamed. She bent down and shrieked in horror. There, on the cold, dark ground lay a small child, as still as the birds that remained unmoving on the deck after flying into Elsie’s windows.

“Oh, no. Oh, no! What should I do?” Elsie questioned aloud.

“Back up your car—quickly!” said the woman.

“But are you sure I should do that? What if I inflict more harm?”

“Just do it!” the woman screamed. “Hurry!”

With that, Elsie jumped back in the Prius, Maya was now pacing in the back, clearly feeding off the energy of what was happening around her. Elsie backed up slowly, and just as she’d suspected, she felt the tires roll over something that was either a limb or, God forbid, the child’s torso or head.

The woman just started howling—a cry unlike anything Elsie had ever heard before. She pulled her phone from her purse and dialed 911, reporting the intersection and what she suspected could be the worst-case scenario—a child badly injured and in need of an ambulance.

The ambulance arrived within moments and declared the two-year-old dead. The day began to blur, and Elsie lost track of time. She watched the moments unfold as if she were outside of her own body, looking in on a very private moment between mother and child. The young mother wouldn’t let go of the small, lifeless girl. She cried and cried until the tears were gone and only the contorted expression on her face reminded the world around her that she was suffering a horrible, visceral loss.

The police and those who witnessed the incident declared the scene an accident. But still, Elsie blamed herself. And with each week that passed, the small being growing inside of her created more and more guilt over the life she had taken from someone else. She couldn’t sleep at night, could hardly eat, and had to take a leave of absence from her job.

David tried to calm and soothe Elsie by telling her that it was just an accident and that she couldn’t blame herself for something so tragic. But Elsie knew better. She had been speeding. The streets were icy. Had she been driving more slowly, she might have been able to hit the brakes more effectively.

She began to resent the life growing inside of her. She wondered how she could be a mother and face the same fate that another young mother faced when she lost her only daughter. The worry, fear, and self-loathing changed Elsie. She became a shell of the woman she once had been, and David, while trying to remain supportive, grew more and more distant. He accepted a job in Florida, and they planned to have Elsie move out after the baby was born. She was grateful for the distance and embraced the space between them.

Elsie hadn’t grown much with the pregnancy, and by month seven, she was still able to wear her old clothes. She had never made it to Dr. Vigner’s office that fateful day, and she also never did go back. She just assumed that she would wait until she really had to go to the doctor, but that day never came. She felt normal enough physically—all of the signs pointed toward a healthy pregnancy.

But one morning, she woke up, and felt nothing. No movement, no presence inside of her. She then called Dr. Vigner for the long-awaited appointment and quickly learned that the baby was gone. But more—she had never been pregnant in the first place. She was told that sometimes symptoms of pregnancy can show even with no actual pregnancy and the condition is known as pseudocyesis. Apparently, she wasn’t alone, in the 1940s, one in every 250 pregnancies was “phantom.”

Elsie felt a loss—but nothing like the loss she still felt for the child’s life she’d taken.

She delivered the news to David, who was sympathetic and told her to come to Florida right away so that he could be with her. She said that she would but had no intention of going—at least, not right then.

The weeks passed, and Elsie didn’t leave the house. Friends called and family tried to come by, but Elsie pretended that she wasn’t home. David called and called, but eventually the calls slowed, and Elsie could feel her marriage ending.

Elsie questioned her existence and the existence of a God. When she finally worked up the energy to go to see David, to dissolve the now-defunct marriage she’d created, she did it spontaneously. She didn’t pack, she didn’t take Maya—she just drove for hours, clutching the address that she had for David in Miami printed on a small piece of paper.

She arrived, tired and angst-ridden, at the quaint development where David had leased a home, and as she drove up to the security booth, she felt a rush of trepidation. She calmly let security know who she was and that while David wasn’t exactly expecting her, he’d be pleased to see her. A small man wearing too many layers for the Miami heat and speaking with a heavy, unrecognizable accent checked his list and announced that David did not live there.

“Impossible,” Elsie mumbled. “My husband has been living here for five months, at least!”

“I’m sorry, madam. There’s no one here by that name. Do you have the right address?”

Elsie just blinked into the Florida sun, the man a silhouette against the big, cloudless sky, and felt her eyes fill with water. “I don’t know,” she mumbled again. And then, confused, she began backing up to turn her car around.

Sensing a woman in need of some help, the man in the security booth called after her. “Can I help you call someone, maybe?”

Elsie just shook her head and quietly pulled over to the side of the road.

Dialing the number she hadn’t memorized but had remembered to write down, she waited for David to pick up. The number had been disconnected. When was the last time she had called him? Had his number changed?

Instead of panic, an eerie calm set in. Elsie simply turned the car around and headed back home.

When she got there, she noticed a piece of her mail pinned to the door with a handwritten note on the back, addressed to her.

Elsie,

I’m worried about you. Your neighbor called me to pick up Maya. She’d been barking for days.

I thought the spiritual ceremony that we had last year would make you feel better about the death of your dad, but I have the feeling that you're not okay. Call me.

Mom