Pieces of a Life

Leila had been in the San Francisco airport plenty of times. This time she went by herself into the airport in the earliest hours of the morning, an expensive trunk and duffle bag in tow. She did lots of things by herself anymore. The sky was still a dark blue-black when Leila was there waiting for her flight to board. The stars were out, the air was crisp. There was no visible promise of the sun coming up soon, but it was only a matter of hours. Her body was used to having a wreck of a sleep schedule. Late nights and early mornings didn’t bother her, and she had youth on her side to recover from sleep deprivation when she had the time. Her body was used to it, but this time was different.

Physically, emotionally, mentally: Leila was tired. She had never felt more tired in her life than when she was sitting there at the San Francisco airport, in a comfy cardigan and leggings that really shouldn’t be pants, slumped over on herself in a chair. She looked like an old woman who had fallen asleep on the couch while watching a soap opera. She wanted to close her eyes, but she fought it. She’d sleep on the plane, she told herself, even though she knew she wouldn’t. She was tired, tired, tired but still somehow restless. Maybe the need for sleep was her body’s way of shutting down against the stress, because Lord knows, she was stressed. The thought of going back, God, it made her sick.

She opened her heavy eyelids to stare at her lap, an unkempt mess of hair creating a curtain around her bowed head. Everything was all wrong. She shouldn’t be here now, she shouldn’t have this boarding pass in her lap. She shouldn’t be going back. Everything was telling her not to go back. Granted, she was looking for reasons not to go back, but she knew this time she couldn’t back out. It was for her father. Leila sighed and slumped further into her chair, the boarding pass glaring white in her lap. It was the destination on it that stared back at her, a challenge in flat black print. That bold type that throbbed against the paper was the problem. Baltimore-Washington International. Oh no, oh Baltimore-Washington, oh BWI. Oh shit. She clenched her jaw so tight it hurt. Fucking Baltimore. She was going back.

She took her phone out of her carry-on bag and thoughtlessly scrolled through her contacts list. How many of these people were in Baltimore? How many had she not spoken to in years? She frowned and curled up even more in her chair. This was karma, this was her punishment for what she had done. She was going back. She didn’t want to go back—she couldn’t, she couldn’t! It was such a terrible idea to go back! But she had to. She couldn’t hide forever. It’ll be fine, she told herself. It’ll be fine. Eventually—whether it was hours or minutes, maybe somewhere in between, she couldn’t tell—boarding for her flight was announced. Leila shuffled down to the plane, trying to make herself invisible. It was only a matter of hours in the clouds separating her from this ultimatum now, and she knew she wouldn’t be ready when the plane touched down in that God-forsaken city on the East coast.

The length of her flight was enough for her to have two options: thinking miserably or sleeping uncomfortably. She fluctuated between the two. There were too many memories she didn’t want in her head, memories of parties and sleepovers and friends, real, actual friends; friends who drove her places and who let her sleep at their houses and cry on their shoulders and who made her waffles with peanut butter and chocolate chips in them even though she wasn’t supposed to be eating that stuff. Leila curled up again in her spacious luxury class seat. Oh, Baltimore. Parties and classes at school and pizza nights at each other’s houses; movie nights and Saturday morning cartoons and dubbing your own words over the Spanish soap operas that were the only thing on during the day. Driving around at night aimlessly just because they had their license and she had luxurious cars and they felt free. Now things were getting personal. She wasn’t thinking of the generalization friends anymore, it was one person, one specific person, and Leila was not ready for her flight to land. She’d never be ready.



It was bleak when the flight touched down in Baltimore. The sky was bleached colorless and textured with the indifferent grey fluff of heavy clouds, the life of the city washed black and white. Of course it would be, then. Of course, when she’d come back, it would be just as lifeless as she was. Welcome home, Leila. We’ve missed you. Leila rubbed her eyes and peeled herself away from the airport window, on to baggage claim. Knots of nausea tugged at her stomach and begged her to turn around and go back, but she knew that wasn’t an option. She hated feeling that way—she shouldn’t feel like a soldier entering battle when she was returning to her hometown—but she couldn’t shake the feeling. The worst was yet to come, she knew, and she didn’t have the option of hiding in San Francisco like she was used to. Oh, Baltimore.

Leila hadn’t booked a hotel when she made the plan to go to Baltimore. She didn’t know how long she’d be staying and didn’t want to lengthen or shorten her trip any more than was necessary, so she was planning on staying at her father’s house—what had once been her house, too. But she hadn’t counted on the number of people that were already at that house. So many cars with so many occupants they couldn’t possibly all be family or even friends, just greedy vultures circling over George Willows’ death, waiting for a scrap. Leila scowled at the cars parked along the street. They parked there because they couldn’t get through the gate, no doubt. Well, she’d show them. Leila gathered her luggage and approached the gate to her driveway, entering the unlock code without having to try terribly hard to remember it.

There were fewer cars in the driveway, of course, because most didn’t know the gate code and the few who parked inside had probably demanded to be buzzed in by the staff. Leila huffed and stumbled along with her suitcase. She could probably stay at the house and no one would ever know. But she’d make sure they knew. She’d be dramatic because this was her father, it was her house and she was not going to let them stomp all over the Willows name. Leila mumbled and grumbled and built herself up while she trudged her way up to the front door, building up her dramatic ideas that she’d act out. But of course she was just a paper tiger, all bark and no bite, really. The house was overpowering—it wasn’t even a house, honestly, it was a fucking castle and she’d always hated it. When she got up to the front door she saw how small she really was and the house stood over her, dangling memories in front of her face, and Leila shrunk down again.

That house, that giant castle, was a present from Leila’s father to her mother. A desperate attempt to save a dying woman. Give her a house, cure her disease. Of course it didn’t work. It was just a house. And that huge house became her mother’s deathbed. Her father’s, now, too. Leila fumbled around for her keychain to find the old house key that had been unused for years. The last time she used that key was to lock the door behind her when she left for the last time. She flinched at the thought, this stupid house with all its memories, and unlocked the door to let herself inside. It looked exactly the same, glamorous and pristine and entirely too big. Now there were people though, lots of people, standing or sitting in their expensive clothes and waiting around for something or other. Probably the wake. Leila slipped past them unseen because she was small in size and in importance and her face was still unfamiliar to them. She put her luggage in her old room, which looked just like she left it. She couldn’t hear the people in her house; she could never hear anything going on in this house because it was so damn big, except noises she imagined when she’d have to spend nights alone. Which she’d probably be doing quite soon.

Leila sat on her bed, in the very middle of her neatly made comforter, and looked down at the blanket underneath her folded legs. Her father’s wake would be in a few hours. She had no idea what time it was in San Francisco and she didn’t want to know. She’d have to get ready, all dolled up and brave faced, and go see her father wearing a handsome suit with his face made up and his eyes closed forever and laying in a padded wooden box. Ready to be put in the ground beside her mother. In a stupid wooden box! He deserved so much better. Leila angrily wiped tears off her face with shaking fingers. As hard as it was to get that phone call, to go to the airport, to board that flight and to come to this house, as hard as it was to just swallow her pride and come back, it would get harder. She exhaled a long, shaking breath and raised her eyes up to try and avoid the tears. It would just get harder from here. All she wanted was to go home. But she had no idea where that was anymore.