Two years after that night, Irene quit her job at USCIS. She remembered that as a child she dreamt of being a flight attendant. Now her life is simple and happy, and she lives it on planes. And because she knows airplanes can be lonely places and because she knows how desperate loneliness can be, she pays extra attention to her passengers. She takes care of them with an earnestness that no other attendant does. She comforts those flying home alone for funerals, sadness seeping from every pore. She holds hands with the acrophobic and the agoraphobic. Irene thinks of herself as a guardian angel with metallic wings.
And so it is now that she’s making her final checks before takeoff, looking for passengers who are going to need a little extra help. The young man in 7A is writing in a little black notebook. He’s Asian, with short black hair and kind but serious eyes. He chews the top of his pen, thinks, writes, and then chews some more. Irene admires his unselfconsciousness. He acts like he’s alone in the world.
Her eyes travel on and flit across the young black woman in 8C. She’s wearing earbuds and has a big, curly Afro that’s been dyed pink at the ends. Irene freezes. She knows that face. The warmth of the woman’s skin. The long eyelashes. The full pink lips. The intensity. Surely this can’t be the same girl. The one who saved her life? The one she’s wanted to thank for ten years now?
The captain announces takeoff, and Irene’s forced to sit. From her jumpseat, she stares at the woman until there’s no doubt in her mind.
As soon as the plane reaches cruising altitude, she goes over to the woman and kneels in the aisle next to her.
“Miss,” she says, and can’t prevent her voice from shaking.
The woman takes out her earbuds and gives her a hesitant smile.
“This is going to sound so strange,” Irene begins. She tells the woman about that day in New York—the gray bin, the Nirvana phone case, how she’d seen her every day.
The woman watches her warily, not saying anything. Something like pain flits across her face. There’s a history there.
Nevertheless, Irene carries on. “You saved my life.”
“But I don’t understand,” the woman says. She has an accent, Caribbean and something else.
Irene takes the woman’s hand. The woman tenses but lets her take it. Curious eyes watch them from all around.
“You left a message for me saying thank you. I don’t even know what you were thanking me for.”
The young man in 7A peers between the seats. Irene catches his eye and frowns. He pulls away. She turns her attention back to the woman.
“Do you remember me?” Irene asks. Suddenly it’s very important to her that this girl, now woman, remember her. The question leaves her mouth and she becomes the old Irene—alone and afraid. Affected but not affecting.
Time hiccups and Irene feels herself torn between two universes. She imagines that the plane disintegrates, first the floor and then the seats and then the metallic shell. She and the passengers are suspended in midair with nothing to hold them except possibility. Next, the passengers themselves shimmer and dematerialize. One by one they flicker and vanish, phantoms of a different history.
All that remains now is Irene and this woman.
“I remember you,” the woman says. “My name is Natasha, and I remember you.”
The young man in 7A peers over the top of the seat.
“Natasha,” he says. His face is wide open and his world is full of love.
Natasha looks up.
Time stumbles back into place. The plane and the seats re-form. The passengers solidify into flesh. And blood. And bone. And heart.
“Daniel,” she says. And again, “Daniel.”
THE END