I checked my boarding pass twice before sitting down.
Seat 2A.
Window.
First class.
My son had bought the ticket, and I had called him that morning to say it was far too expensive. Marcus only laughed.
“Let me do something nice for you, Mom.”
So I stopped arguing.
I folded my gray cardigan over my arms, tucked my black handbag against my side, and settled by the window. I could see rain moving across the airport glass. Somewhere beyond it, Marcus was preparing to fly us to Chicago.
I hadn’t seen him at work before.
When he was eight, he used to make paper airplanes at our kitchen table. He would stand on a chair, launch them across the room, and announce where each one was going.
Now he was a captain.
I wished his father could have seen it.
Passengers passed my seat with their coats and bags. A man across the aisle asked if this was my first flight. I told him no. I didn’t explain why I kept glancing toward the cockpit.
I wanted to see Marcus walk out in his uniform. I wanted to tell him I was proud of him without getting in his way.
A flight attendant stopped beside my seat.
Her name tag said Rachel.
“Ma’am,” she said, “you need to move.”
I thought she wanted access to the overhead bin.
I lifted my handbag. “Am I in your way?”
“This section is for first-class passengers.”
I looked at her, then at the number above my window.
“This is my seat.”
Rachel’s gaze traveled over my cardigan, my worn shoes, and the handbag I’d carried for nearly fifteen years.
“There must be a mistake,” she said. “Please gather your things.”
The man across the aisle looked up from his phone.
I felt my cheeks grow warm. I reached into my handbag and took out the boarding pass I had guarded all morning.
“Two A,” I said. “That’s where I am.”
Rachel glanced at the paper without taking it.
“Someone at the gate must have assigned it incorrectly.”
“Then please check.”
“There are people still boarding. I need you to move so we can sort it out.”
“To where?”
She nodded toward the back of the plane.
A woman behind Rachel stopped with her suitcase in the aisle. Several passengers turned toward us.
I had spent my working life at a school cafeteria. I knew what it felt like when someone looked at my uniform and spoke past me to the person standing behind the counter. I had learned to keep my voice calm.
“I paid for this seat,” I said.
Rachel crossed her arms. “Then someone made an error.”
I could hear the woman with the suitcase shift her weight. I didn’t want to hold up boarding. I also didn’t want to leave the seat printed on my pass because Rachel had decided I looked wrong in it.
“Call someone who can verify it,” I said.
Rachel let out a sharp breath.
“Ma’am, refusing instructions won’t help.”
“I’m asking you to check my ticket.”
The man across the aisle leaned forward.
“It says 2A,” he told her. “I can see it from here.”
Rachel looked at him briefly. “I’m handling it.”
I held my boarding pass in both hands. It had begun to bend along the middle.