"She arrived at J.F.K. just past midnight after a four-hour flight delay. Her mind was blurry and her heart felt like a deep crater with something lurking at the bottom of it. It was her first trip to New York in more than a decade. She had come back to attend a memorial for a formerly close friend, Carley, with whom she had shared a life that was now alien to her."
"He was a big man who looked to be about sixty, comfortably rooted in his station of muscle and fat. His sloped shoulders suggested bodily power that was sleepy and sly; his large head and dark, badly cut hair amplified the weight and solidity of him, but his lips were sensitive and a little slack, as if yearning for something he'd been long deprived of."
She arrives at J.F.K. past midnight after a four-hour flight delay, mentally blurry and carrying a profound, hollow grief. She returns to New York after more than a decade to attend a memorial for Carley, a formerly close friend. The airport is maintained yet ragged, with weary workers and stalled baggage. She prefers old-school taxis and takes a short line. Her driver is a large, older Queens man with a heavy, solid presence, sensitive lips, a St. Christopher medal, and an aversion to GPS. Her practiced habit of detailed observation continues, used to assess safety.
Read at The New Yorker
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