I’ve never been good at packing. Piles of clothes and accessories are strewn about the floor surrounding an overflowing suitcase and my kneeling posture. I fumble around before I pick out a few last minute things from the haystacks of items: my father’s old camera and a leather bound journal. I shove the items into the suitcase and fight to smother the top closed.

“Mama,” my daughter joyfully calls out to me as she skips into the room, “ Are we really going to fly today?!?”

“Yes, Vivi,” The light she brings into the room morphs the haste of packing into anticipation of our adventure. Although she carries my middle name, Viviana Camille looks nothing like me. Her eyes green to my deep brown her straight blond hair to my curly brown hair. She is a spitting image of him. He was the better of us - more organized, the one who could walk into any room and make a friend, and the one who always knew the right answer our daughter’s incessant questions.

My thoughts are abruptly stopped as my daughter’s curiosity cuts in, “Where are we going , Mama?”

“Well, my love,” I welcome the girl into my lap, quelling her unknown curiosities and hidden fears. “We are going to see clouds of all shapes and sizes. We are going to become like birds.”

I don’t know where we are actually going.

The mysterious letter that appeared on my doorstep a month ago - an elegant pearl envelope with a delicate wax seal of a bluebird. The inside revealing a single line of messy - somewhat familiar- scrawl:

Come fly!

800 Maple Way

I couldn’t quite pick out the reason for recognizing the handwriting. And in my grief, I followed the cryptic instructions written on the crumpled coffee-stained paper despite the fact that no one had every flown before.

So that early that spring morning with the winter air nipping our shoulders and the buildings creating a looming darkness, we head out to the eeirley quiet streets of London. I load my daughter and the bags into a the nearest carriage and politely smile as I instruct to head to the address. We were quite the pair as we ordered the carriage - her stuffed bear Mosley dangling from her hands and me lugging a suitcase. Yet, I grab Vivi’s hand to help her in the seats and we were on our way.

Hours give way to warming light that fades away the cool air. Looming buildings give way to smaller homes, to little townships, and eventually nothing but herds of sheep and endless fields is left.

The carriage screeches to a halt, “Your stop, Ma’am.” The driver grumbles. I step off the carriage and let my daughter sling herself into my arms dragging out luggage behind us. I eye the red mailbox’s inscription 800 Maple Way. We are at the right place.

“Let’s go on adventure, love!” I whisper excitedly in Viviana’s ear. The sound or the birds gets louder as my daughter excitedly drags me down a converging dirt driveway leading into a cluster of oak trees. Just in front of the trees the buzzing is unbearable, leaving us fighting to cover our ears.

The trees arch into an empty field. Then it appears. My daughter is un - characteristically still, her head turned up to the clear celestial sky.

A strange vehicle - cloth covering wood beams spread out lengthwise and the buzzing emulating from a barely visible shape on the front. Hovering in the air, making circles and loops in a strange dance flying like a bird. Puffy white clouds do nothing to hold this flight back; they simply allow the bird to disappear and reappear. This strange bird was utterly free of the weight that pulls me down: my grief for my lost husband, the fear that holds me from writing, the social routines of London life.

I scoop Viviana up and we begin running towards the strange bird. Her braids bounce as the grasses scratch my legs; the suitcase lays abbandoned at the tree line. Yet I cease to care. We will fly today.