The Seat She Took From My Grandmother

The cabin went still.

“In 1962, a twenty-two-year-old farm girl from Burt County, Nebraska, went to work for a little outfit called Mid-Plains Airlines, which is the company this airline grew out of. She flew for thirty-one years. For the last half of her career she ran the training school in Omaha, and every flight attendant who came through it for fifteen years learned the job from her. Those women trained the women who trained the crew taking care of you today.”

Up front I could see Patty standing in the galley doorway with a tissue pressed under one eye.

“Her photograph hangs in our crew room. I’ve had coffee under it for nineteen years and I never thought I’d get to meet her. She’s on her way to Texas this morning to hold her great-granddaughter for the first time. Her name is Rose Kline, she’s in 14A, and she would very much prefer that I had kept quiet. Mrs. Kline, welcome back.”

I think it was the man in the seed cap who started clapping.

It went through that airplane front to back. Kim clapped with one hand against her own collarbone so she would not wake the baby.

I could see the top of Grandma’s white head. She had ducked it. Her hand came up over the seat and gave one small wave, the kind the Queen of England used to give, and went back down.

Beside her, the woman in 14B looked straight ahead at the seat back, at the laminated safety card.

Patty came down the aisle again when it quieted.

“Miss Kessler. Mrs. Kline. We’ve got one seat open up front. 1A. It’s by itself at the window, lots of legroom, and I’m going to bring you a real breakfast on a real plate. Captain’s orders, and mine. Let me carry your purse.”

I was already picturing it, my grandmother in first class with a cloth napkin, and the pink tracksuit left behind to think about her life.

“That’s very kind,” Grandma said. “No, thank you.”

Patty blinked. “Ma’am?”

“I rode up front for thirty-one years, dear. I did it standing up, but I’ve seen it.” She was getting her cane out from under the seat, slowly, and she used it to point, politely, back toward me. “There’s a young mother in seventeen who’s been holding that baby since before the gate. She was carrying him and a bag and a car seat all on her own. I watched her come down the jet bridge.”

Kim went rigid beside me.

“She hasn’t sat back once,” Grandma said. “Give it to her. She can lay him down across her lap up there and have her eggs with two hands.”

“Mrs. Kline, it’s for you.”

“Then it’s mine to give. Isn’t that how it works?”

Patty looked at her for a long moment. Then she shook her head, smiling, and said, mostly to herself, “She taught us how.”

She came back to row seventeen and bent down.

“Honey,” she said to Kim, “get your things. You’re moving up.”

Kim’s chin started to shake. “I can’t. I didn’t pay for that. I got the cheapest ticket they had, I’m going to see my husband at Fort Cavazos, he hasn’t met…” and she could not finish it.

“He hasn’t met the baby,” I said.

Kim shook her head.

Well. I had not known that. I do not believe Grandma had known it either. She only knew what a tired girl looks like.

“Then you’re going to get off this airplane rested,” Patty said firmly. “Come on. I’ve got the diaper bag.”