I was catching my plane - there was not long now, and for whatever reason I was leaving though she would be dying.
I had been off almost buying a postcard amongst the fast food stores.
It was all so public.
I wanted to hold her, now that she was going, but the wheelchair was empty now, and peripheral, and just a bundle of clothes, and all there was to hold was the bottle of bleach.
It was a big bottle, the size of a small child in my arms and it was semi-opaque, semi-clear, and inside the bleach was green and I held it and it did not feel so terrible, and it even grew a little warm from my warmth, and loss was something I felt around me, and my sister standing by - and she'd had her own rapprochment.
I was holding the bottle crying thinking I didn't want it to be like this, my cheek pressing on the big lid, when
And the nearby horse paddock, the polo players and the runaway rabbit and the hatchling chick and the airflight check-in.
I had to hold the bottle because somehow she was no longer there in person, or if she was there she was very small.
And then she was there again suddenly - like springing me there with the bottle- but she was very small, or not present in her presence, or perhaps just a quarter size, or she was mostly just a voice.
And she said in that cruel hurt hurting tone, "when you've finished doing whatever important thing you're doing you might want to say good bye or something because I'm going to be dead soon and you'll have plenty of time to do whatever it is then. Be the happiest day of your life." So so sarcastic.
And I wanted to scream, I was crying out "It won't be the happiest day of my life, it won't--!" and I heard my voice all stupid whining choked and ineffectual in rebuttal, and she just said something else, something so hard sarcastic hiding hurt and grim conviction. Something about having a big smile on my face then?
Maybe she was dead after that.
But why the riding school in the fountain dale in the airport? All those kids from Yale university, on their Druid quest.
And I think also she missed her own plane that she would have boarded as a corpse, and that was what it looked like seeing someone die: standing with my aunt and family, and to see someone die they were already gone, you were just standing on the tarmac watching between the faraway pylons the wheeling away by the doctor and nurse or the air hostess of that empty wheelchair.