Tuesday, May 20, 2003:
I’m out early to Heathrow to meet that 6:55 flight. At 8:45 I commence to get worried. How will I find them, or they me? An information lady points out that there’s a same airline, similar flight-numbered craft coming down at 8:55. There’s much more waiting, and not much to be done.
Finally, when I was about to embrace stoicism and resignation, I catch sight of a noble leonine head, which turns out to be attached to my youngest son. There’s Sharon, looking drawn but cheerful. There are all these lovely, cheerfully interacting kids. There’s Claire, still new to us, as it turns out, and therefore especially precious in her novelty and our reuniting. She remembers me. I’m told that she’d thrown up during the bumpy descent. “I’m choking!”
As it turns out, Claire has acquired a number of other helpful coping phrases. “Go away!” “Mine!” It’s suggested that this newly assertive behaviour actually began with my departure. Doubtless the advent of some more assertive developmental stage has something to do with it as well. There’s sure to be something steely in her character. It turns out that the consistent goading of her eldest sister has a lot to do with the shift. “Go away Caitlin” is the most common of the imperious phrases.
Well, changes and wrinkles aside (or not), I’m very relieved and happy about everyone’s arrival. The train and the cabs go very straightforwardly. Oh—Spencer’s haircut! He looks like a very beautiful convict. Sarah somehow looks long and tall, and certainly tough and toned. Of course she shrinks back down when she actually stands by someone. They’re excited to come back to their familiar flat. Less than three minutes after our arrival, Matt comes in crying. He’d climbed to the top bunk, slipped off, bounced his bum off of the lower berth, and deflected head first into the dresser. There we are.