I have learned that I made the injured young man cry, which distresses me.
I remember him. I stood behind him in the security line at Hobart Airport.
People often become flustered at security gates, patting pockets in a panicked way, but he managed to put his phone, wallet, and keys into a tray, all while being restricted to the use of one hand. I admired his dexterity, especially after my experience with my brooch that morning.
Then when he turned and I saw him in profile—the black-framed glasses, the strong handsome line of his jaw—I got such a surprise.
I thought: Henry!
It was not Henry, of course.
Henry worked at the Hornsby Picture Theatre in the sixties, selling tickets from inside a varnished wood booth. I only ever saw the top half of him behind a pane of glass with a cutout circle. My friend Ivy and I used to go to the Saturday matinee. Two movies, a cartoon, a serial, and a newsreel for sixpence. Very good value. “Oh, no, I only need one ticket,” I said kindly, the last time I bought a movie ticket, assuming the bored young man had made a mistake. “You only got one ticket,” he said. Not as polite as Henry.
Henry smiled warmly each time he saw Ivy and me and said, “Hello again, ladies!”
We weren’t ladies. We were very little. Eleven or twelve.
Ivy would say, “Hello again, Henry!” Too loudly, in my opinion.
I would whisper, “Hello.” I was too shy to say his name out loud. Every week I would think, This time I will say Henry’s name. I never once did, and I was ashamed of that.
One of my earliest memories is my mother unpeeling my fingers from her skirt. “She’s shy.”
I knew the injured boy could not logically be Henry and yet the resemblance startled me. I wondered, could it be Henry’s son? Or grandson?
I considered saying, Excuse me, this may sound silly, but was your father’s name Henry and did he work at the Hornsby Picture Theatre in Sydney?
But then as a uniformed man nodded and beckoned for me to take my turn stepping through the metal detector, I saw a couple in the departure lounge, lining up to buy coffee, and my heart leaped with joy because I thought, There’s Bert and Jill, I haven’t seen them for so long!
I wanted to run to them, to throw my arms around them both, but again, I knew it could not possibly be them, any more than that boy could have been Henry, and yet they looked so similar I froze and stared and stared.
The man had white hair and a blue polo shirt and he looked like a big polar bear next to his wife, who was small and dark-haired, and even from a distance I could see she had the same sparkly, always-moving energy as Jill. She was doing some kind of exercise as she waited in line, standing on one leg and bobbing up and down. An ankle- or knee-strengthening exercise, perhaps, and I thought, Didn’t Jill do that exact same exercise? I watched as she wobbled and the man who looked like Bert steadied her with one tender hand, just the way Bert would have, and I knew it wasn’t Bert, it wasn’t Jill, but it was, it was, I felt that it was them.
I didn’t move until a woman behind me said impatiently, “You can go!” at the same time as the uniformed man barked, “Come on through, madam!”
It kept happening when I went to my gate. Every single person felt in some way significant to me. It began to feel eerie, as if I were part of an elaborate prank or a reality show where I was the star but didn’t know it.
It wasn’t just resemblances. There were symbols and signs. Everything meant something.
The man at the table next to me wore a patterned shirt, and when I looked closer, I saw that they were kangaroos. Gray kangaroos. I heard a man with a strong Scottish accent say to him, “Is that seat taken?”
Gray kangaroos and a Scottish accent. Those two things in tandem were only of significance to me.
An elderly couple tottered by wearing silver Apple Watches, followed by a beautiful serious-faced woman who could have been Korean and could have been in her forties.
A woman in a leopard-print jumpsuit sat on a high stool at the bar and I wasn’t close enough to see for sure but her drink could easily have been a Brandy Alexander.
An incredibly tall young man loped by on long legs, followed immediately by a little boy carrying a backpack in gray and green military camouflage.
Then everyone stopped to stare because a beautiful young bride and groom came through the security gates. Still in their wedding finery, they were pulling along small wheeled bags that looked brand new.
Some people applauded and whistled.
The bride and groom weren’t familiar, but I recognized her dress.
Because it was mine.
It was my wedding dress.
I told myself, It’s just a similar style. But then, as I kept looking, I thought, No, it’s identical. High neck, empire waist, bishop sleeves. Chiffon and lace. Everything about it was the same.
They walked directly past my table and that’s when I saw the hem of her dress. I know I did not imagine it, because I was hoping I would not see it, but I did.
Six pale yellow dots forming the shape of a circle.
They were yellow pollen stains. My yellow pollen stains. Put there by my bridesmaid, my childhood friend, Ivy, who felt terrible about it. She was shaking her bouquet over her head to be charming for the photographer.
My mother said, “Those stains will never come out.” Then she said, in a lower voice, to Auntie Pat, “I tried to tell her that lilies are funeral flowers.”
Ivy said, “It looks like a little sunshine. I think it’s good luck.”
The photographer said, “I’m sure you’re right,” and lifted his camera and took her photo.
(It was good luck for Ivy and the photographer. They got married two years later. A high percentage of my wedding photos featured close-ups of Ivy.)
The bride and groom headed off to the bar and I looked away, and saw Ivy herself!
She was emerging from the bookshop, a paperback in hand, talking animatedly on her mobile phone, forty years too young to be Ivy, it wasn’t Ivy, Ivy moved to America and she never had a daughter or granddaughter, but here’s the thing: the woman who looked like Ivy wore an artificial lily in her hair.
