The Seat She Took From My Grandmother

I crouched down by 14A, as best I could with the woman’s knees in the way.

“Grandma.”

“Hello, sweetheart. You ought to be in your seat.”

“Thirty-one years?”

“Thirty-one and a little.” She smoothed the hem of her cardigan where the shopping bag had been. “It was Mid-Plains Airlines then. These people bought it up in the nineties and painted everything blue.”

“You never said.”

“You never asked, honey.” She said it without any edge at all. She patted my cheek. “And you were so pleased to be showing me the airport. I didn’t have the heart.”

I thought about the highlighter. I thought about telling her not to be scared of the wheels.

I wanted to crawl under the seat with the loose baggage.

There was movement up front. The door to the flight deck was open, and a man was coming down the aisle behind Patty, tall, gray at the temples, with four stripes on his shoulders. He had his hat tucked under his arm. He had actually stopped to get his hat.

Conversations dropped off one row at a time as he came.

He stopped at 14B, and since there was no way to reach the window with any dignity, he said, “Ma’am, would you mind stepping out for just a moment?”

The woman in the pink tracksuit stepped out. She stood in the aisle beside me holding her coffee, and for the first time she looked uncertain.

The captain went down on one knee in the space where her feet had been.

“Mrs. Kline,” he said. “I’m Mike Larson. I’m told I have you to thank for my whole career.”

“Oh, I doubt that very much,” Grandma said.

“My mother was Jeanne Larson. She was Jeanne Pruitt when she flew.”

Grandma’s hand came up to her mouth.

“Jeannie Pruitt,” she said. “Class of sixty-eight. She was scared of the galley ovens.”

“She was scared of everything, according to her. She said she was going to quit the second week and you sat with her on a crew bus in Denver and talked her out of it. She flew eleven years. She met my dad on a layover in Sioux City.” He smiled. “So, strictly speaking, ma’am, no you, no me.”

“Well,” Grandma said. “I’d like to see your landing before I take any credit.”

He laughed out loud. So did the man in the seed cap. So did about six rows.

The captain held out his hand, and my grandmother shook it, and then he covered her hand with his other one and held it for a second.

“It’s an honor to have you aboard,” he said. “I mean that. Would it embarrass you terribly if I said something to the cabin?”

“Yes,” Grandma said.

“I’m going to do it anyway.”

“I expect you are. Your mother didn’t listen either.”

He stood, put his hat on, and nodded to the woman in the aisle. “Thank you, ma’am. You can have your seat back.”

She sat. She sat very straight, with her elbows pulled in.

I went back to seventeen because Patty pointed at me, kindly, and I know that point from the other side of it. Kim had Eli asleep on her chest. She whispered, “Is that your grandma? What did she do?”

“I’m finding out,” I whispered back.

The speaker crackled.

“Folks, this is your captain. We’re going to be about three minutes late pushing back this morning, and that’s my fault, and I’m not sorry. I want to tell you who’s flying with us today.”