“I’m not letting you sit alone.”
“Yes, you are.”
She squeezed my arm.
“Please, Sam.”
My grandmother almost never asked me for anything.
She would rather clear snow from her sidewalk at seventy-eight than call for help.
If she was asking for this, there had to be a reason.
“Okay,” I said.
She smiled.
“Thank you.”
First class was every bit as luxurious as advertised.
Wide gray seats.
Actual glassware.Thick pillows.
A flight attendant offered me orange juice before departure.
I felt miserable.
Seat 3A stayed empty until almost the last passenger boarded.
Then a businessman in a gray suit dropped into it while talking on his phone.
He never looked out the window.
I kept twisting around, trying to see into economy.
A curtain blocked everything.
As we climbed above Boston, I imagined Grandma all the way back in row 34.
I began wondering about something I should probably have asked years earlier.
Why had she stopped flying?
I knew only pieces of the story about my grandfather.
His name was Frank Walsh.
He had worked as an aircraft mechanic at Logan for thirty-four years.According to Mom, he could listen to an engine and know something was wrong before anyone else found the problem.
He died the week I was born.
I arrived on March thirteenth, 1999.
He died March fourteenth.
Everyone told me it was a heart attack.
That was basically all I knew.
Whenever I asked questions as a child, Grandma became quiet.
Mom usually changed the subject.
There was only one photograph of him in Grandma’s house.
He was young in it, wearing a sailor’s uniform and laughing at something outside the frame.
And then there were the silver wings.
A small tarnished aviation pin had always been attached to Grandma’s purse.
When I was little, I used to run my thumb over it while sitting beside her in church.
One day I asked where it came from.
“Your grandfather gave it to me.”
“Why?”
She thought for a moment.
“Because I was frightened, and he wanted me to remember that I could be brave.”
I was six.
I accepted that answer and forgot about it.
Until Flight 212.
—
About two hours after takeoff, I finally got out of my seat.I walked through business class and into economy.
It felt like entering a different airplane.
The seats were tighter.
The aisle narrower.
