Three days of everything going sideways. A trip I'd planned for months, unraveling in baggage claims and wrong turns.
I stood on the ferry deck in a sideways rain, gripping the rail, suitcase wedged between my knees. The airport luggage tag was still dangling from the handle, flapping like it was mocking me. SEA→BHM→SEA. Three flights to end up forty minutes from where I started.
The deck pitched and a wave broke over the bow. A woman next to me lost her hat to the wind and just roared laughing, this big full-body laugh, soaking wet.
I laughed too. Couldn't help it. Hadn't laughed in days.
When we docked, I dragged my suitcase past my neighbor's house and saw her kid's car in the driveway. He'd moved to Portland two years ago. Now he was home, hauling groceries through the rain like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Somehow that finished it. The laughing, the rain, the kid back where he started. The whole rotten trip became just a trip, and I went inside and made tea.