By the time we reached cruising altitude, the woman beside Rose had already declared that “people her age shouldn’t be traveling,” as if my grandmother’s presence on that aisle seat was some kind of offense against nature instead of a long-delayed promise finally kept. Rose’s fingers tightened around mine, not in fear, but in decision. Five minutes later, her small paper cup of orange juice—ordered “for my sugar,” she told the flight attendant—had mysteriously relocated from her tray to the other woman’s lap. The splash was spectacularly precise: sleeve, blouse, a dark spreading patch across expensive-looking pants. Rose blinked, serene, and said, “I had juice, and then I didn’t. You know how turbulence can be.” There had been no turbulence. The flight attendant hesitated, the woman sputtered and raged, and my grandmother simply opened a packet of crackers like a queen breaking bread, announcing to no one in particular that she was on her very first flight and she would not let one rude person ruin it. And somehow, impossibly, the cab… Continues…