Then I booked myself into 3B beside her.
The total made my stomach hurt.
I put it on my credit card anyway.
And now, at the gate, she had traded that expensive seat for 34A without hesitation.
“You’re upset,” Grandma said while we waited to board.
“I’m not upset.”
“You’re a little upset.”
“I’m confused.”
She held my arm while we moved with the boarding line.
She carried a wooden cane now, one with an old brass handle that had belonged to her mother.
“That seat was comfortable,” I said. “You’d have room. You could rest. Now you’re going to spend six hours squeezed into economy.”
“I’ll survive.”
“The seats barely recline.”
“I don’t need them to.”
“Grandma.”
She patted my wrist.
“Sam, what you did for me was incredibly generous. I know how hard you worked for those tickets. I know every extra shift represented another piece of this trip.”
Her clear blue eyes met mine.
“I’m grateful.”
“Then why move?”
She hesitated.
“Because sometimes comfort isn’t the most important thing.”
First class began boarding.
I looked at my ticket for 3B.
“Then I’ll move too.”
“No.”
She said it with surprising firmness.
“I want you to keep your seat.”
“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.
