Rose smiled at her.
The smile of a woman who is very much enjoying a cup of juice and some crackers on her first airplane ride.
I went back to my seat.
I was vibrating with something that was not quite laughter and not quite awe and was probably some combination of both.
I thought about my grandmother.
Eighty-six years old.
Arthritis in both hips and her right shoulder.
On a plane for the first time.
Wearing the blue blouse.
Having been told that people her age shouldn’t be traveling.
Having watched me leave.
Having decided, in the five minutes after takeoff, exactly what she was going to do.
Not dramatic.
Not showy.
Not confrontational.
Just: juice.
Just: a small cup of juice and the acknowledgment that she had juice and then she didn’t.
Just: I’ve been flying for the very first time.
I thought about Edwin.
Edwin who had said he wanted to take her to see the ocean.
Edwin who would have been there beside her in the seat if the margins had materialized.
Edwin who was not here.
But Edwin who had raised her or helped raise her or loved her into the person who could sit in an airplane seat with arthritis in both hips, being told she was too old to travel, and come up with something that precise.
The flight landed two hours later.
We gathered our things.
The woman left without speaking.
She had been very quiet for the rest of the flight.
She had used a great many paper towels.
Rose and I walked off the plane together.
The Florida air hit us when we came through the airport doors and there was something in it, the quality of it, the humidity and the warmth and the specific smell of the south in a way that was not the same as North Carolina’s south.
Rose stopped.
She breathed.
She said: that’s different air.
I said: yes.
She said: is the ocean close?
I said: the hotel is twenty minutes.
She said: twenty minutes.
She said it the way you say something when you have been waiting for it for a long time and it is very close.
The hotel was everything I had worked for.
Not fancy.
Clean and well-positioned.
The rooms had views of the water.
I had specifically booked a room with a view of the water.
