__________________________________
Permission to Land
By Stephanie Kemp
Permission to Land
By Stephanie Kemp
I turned this into fiction, except for the Mother Daughter and the Italians (plus the hand and scalp details).
This is what would’ve happened if I’d gotten married (to him).
___________________
We are flying from New York to Chicago. It is Christmas time.
We go Every Single Year, in case you were wondering.
I no longer wonder.
My husband just turned 51. I am 50 and a half. He is the only one who adds the half. He loves to joke about his Older Woman. His Hot Mama. “Or at least Formerly Hot, but Still Totally Warm Wife.” (Wink, wink.)
The winks are justified for a reason he doesn’t intend or even seem to notice:
I am no longer warm, either.
We met in Chicago when he was a theatre actor and I was a theatre go-er. He stopped acting when he didn’t like the way he looked in a cookie commercial playing “an adorable father with an even more adorable daughter!” Ironically, he’s now in magazine sales, selling ads for Light Cuisine. My husband is a jocular Willy Loman. And yes, I am afraid of Virginia Woolf.
His family is from Chicago. All 56 of them.
We don’t have children.
This is why we go “home” every single year.
And why we live in New York.
That said, my husband comes from the best kind of happy family. Close. Irish. Often drunk, but only the good kind. The kind you see in movies about Irish Families where there are hard knocks and tough times, but everyone comes out in the end having Learned the Life Lesson. Even the Funeral in the Final Scene is Soul Fueling because Uncle Fergus was ready to go, as it was His Time.
I have always hated this kind of movie, but only because I wasn’t born into this kind of family.
The kind of family I was so excited to marry into, until that family blamed me for the fact that their now Prodigal Son moved “across the world” to the mysterious land known as Isle of Manhattan.
The kind of family that made fun of everything and everyone, including me and my pre-marital hand (and ear) modeling day job (I know how this sounds on all fronts.)
“.....and just what’s wrong with the rest a ya?” Ha Ha Ha!
The kind of family who has no idea how much I have come to hate their son.
And his family.
_____________
I always seem to be seated on planes next to screaming babies and armrest hogs.
Now that my husband has become the latter, I hope for the best in the category of the former.
But I am glad the flight attendants are allowed to be older now. The young ones were so often (forced to be) overdone: sprayed hair, ridiculous shoes, perfect nails, veinless hands. I could always spot the fake nails. I convinced myself that this is what bugged me most about the young people taking care of me in the sky: the fake nails, not the young hands. Not the fact that they didn’t yet know where they would steer themselves to or land in life.
Always on planes I am forced to confront my own hands. Still recognizable at take off (and/or sea level), they puff into an elder alias once they reach altitude. This is where we are headed, I think to myself, watching them rise like enviable croissants.
The blue vein on my left hand seems to be supplying air to my fingers like an air hose to a bike tire. I particularly hate the way my ring finger bulges. My wedding band is being devoured by my own flesh much like the armrest is being eaten by my husband’s over belted girth. At least I can’t see his shoes. His travel shoes make me so stressed. The thick waffle soles get to relax but the exhausted leather can’t let down its guard trying to contain his bursting bunions. He finds it hilarious that only he and my mom have bunions “out of everyone in our whole 59 person family!”
“The flight is full,” announces the comforting flight attendant before adding that “it is 22 below zero in Chicago.”
Nestled in front of us is a family of three. Italian parents with crazy hair (the beautiful kind, because they are Italian) and an infant, bundled up in footie pajamas for “his first trip on an airplane!” (Even this terrible news sounds beautiful to me, but only because they are Italian.)
The Italians make immediate friends with the two women across the aisle on the left. I had noticed the women at our gate before boarding. A Mother and Daughter, I could see by shared eyes and style, comfort and ease. It made me miss my mom, even though (or because) we no longer had any of these things.
I tried not to stare at the Daughter who had gone to the counter to arrange for a wheelchair to help her Mother board the plane and confirm that one would be waiting upon their arrival in Chicago. Her Mother was the tiniest woman I had ever seen. Her feet didn’t touch the floor and her narrow body took up so little space in the plastic seat that two more people could have joined her and turned her into a human sandwich. She sat straight up and held her purse in her lap. She watched a brother and sister trade candy.
The Mother and Daughter were spitting images of each other, with only a few decades of life keeping them from being identical. Both wore long wool coats in earth tones and neither had a lick of jewelry, save for a thin gold wedding band on the Mother’s bony hand. I was jealous of that hand and envious of the Daughter for getting to travel with her Mother. I was envious of the Mother for having the security of a long marriage (or at least the simple ring that would suggest it) without the burden of having the husband.
I knew this was unfair but kept thinking it anyway.
The Italians and the Mother Daughter all ordered red wine. They passed the baby back and forth like popcorn at a movie. I was surprised and slightly annoyed that he didn’t cry. I was surprised and totally annoyed that the Mother Daughter also spoke Italian. I didn’t like this double whammy of feeling jealous while also being unable to eavesdrop on their conversation.
My husband ordered the first beer of his beer beer scotch scotch in-flight plan and settled in. He was looking forward to the feature, a comedy with his favorite martial arts star playing a cowboy. I ordered nothing because I wanted to avoid the ordeal of trying to wake him up when I would eventually have to use the ladies room. Not worth it, I always said to myself, knowing that I didn’t (want to) mean it.
The flight settled and eventually everyone quieted down. The Italians and the Mother Daughter had finished passing the baby and swapping unintelligible (to me) stories. The only thing I learned before they excluded me was that the baby was going to meet his cousins for the first time and the Daughter was taking the Mother back to have Christmas with her sister who just turned 101.
The cabin lights were off now. I’d been staring at the tiny squares of Earth racing by below for sometime before I realized that my forehead was frozen. I traded in my glass headrest for the warmth of my husband’s shoulder. He smelled good to me. Boozy. Warm. He was dozing but not snoring yet. I was angry to be excluded from this slumber. As if it somehow sensed this, my husband’s hand covered mine and unconsciously squeezed it. I wanted to stay like that. I knew it would be the only part of what felt like (my) Christmas.
I dozed off. Happy.
I woke to the sound of the Italians talking quietly, only to each other now.
Half of the baby’s smushed little sleeping face was visible through the crack in the seats.
I could see the top of the Italians’ crazy haired heads above their seats. Her left hand stroked his hair from root to end, slowly, rhythmically, putting him in a trance and me in a state of judgment as I took in what was left of my own husband’s head of hair. Her fingers were long and her nails were short and bare. She wore no rings, I noticed, before also noticing that her hands were not at all puffy despite the fact that we were now flying at full altitude.
The rhythm was broken by something she discovered in his scalp. She dug around his part and came out with a flap of skin that she held between her fingers like magic dust or an artifact from the world’s most important archaeological dig. As I watched from my perch on my husband’s shoulder, she flicked the skin behind the headrest and it floated down like a kite, landing in the last of my husband’s second scotch. Outraged, I had every intention of removing the flesh from the cup. I had every intention of confronting the Italians over their selfishness. I had every intention of defending my husband’s honor and integrity.
I really do love him, I realized, as I fell asleep.
I woke sometime later to the sound of whispers. The plane was dark except for a reading light over the Mother Daughter. The comforting flight attendant who had warned about the weather in Chicago was bent down in the the aisle next to the Daughter. A man in a suit who had been seated in front of the plane sat in the Daughter’s seat and appeared to be whispering to the Mother. The Daughter was silent. Her back was straight as she crouched down in an impossible for mortal humans position, still wearing her wool coat. She was staring at my husband’s tray. Two mini bottles of empty scotch and two empty glasses. I thought she was judging us before I realized that the speck of skin was gone and started wondering what my husband ever did to deserve this, and/or me.
As I started to doze off again, I heard the flight attendant ask the Daughter if she’d like to move to another seat. The Daughter said no, but thanked her anyway and for being so kind.
The cabin came to life again as we began our descent into Chicago. Coffees were being doled out and the captain was happy to report that we would be landing early and that “the current temperature in Chicago had “kindly risen closer to zero degrees.”
The Italians woke up and took a family trip to the restroom.
My husband woke up with goop in his eyes and greeted the day with with, “Wow. I didn’t need to finish that second scotch!” I thought about the scalp making its way through his digestive system, wondering if it somehow still held the grace of a kite.
The Mother and Daughter were covered in blankets. The Daughter alternately stared out the window and whispered to her Mother, adjusting the blankets from time to time and holding her hand.
The Italians came back and the baby, at last, began its rightful infant screams. The parents seemed not to notice as they took their seats again and began the baby passing ritual. This time the Daughter smiled and put up her hand in decline of their offer to take part. Again, she adjusted her Mother’s blankets.
As the plane made its way down, the baby’s screaming escalated. I wanted to tell the Italians that it was his ears. That the baby’s ears were popping. That the pressure made it unbearable to fly. That he needed something to suck on. I wanted desperately to be able to tell the Italians something they didn’t already know. Instead, I finished my husband’s coffee and stared again at the back of their heads.
When we arrived at the gate, the flight attendant returned to the Daughter and instructed her to stay on the plane until it was completely de-boarded. “We’ve notified your family. You’ll be met by medical and airport personnel who will take you to them. I am so sorry for your loss.”
My husband was the first person up and out of his seat, not because he wanted to rush off the plane, but because he liked to help anyone who might have some trouble with the overhead bin. The Italians accepted.
He wished them a Merry Christmas or whatever you have in Italy and asked the Mother Daughter if they needed any help with their bags. The Daughter politely declined.
I watched my husband. I saw his crinkled pants meet the top of his struggling shoes. I saw a ring on his meaty hand that matched the more ornate version of the same ring on my own finger. I saw the lines on his tired but still handsome face from where his cheek rubbed against the seat back on the right side of the plane. I saw him pull down the plastic bag full of presents for his family that he had picked out and wrapped himself. I watched him hold the baby, now in fresh footie pajamas, while the Italians cleared out their seats.
And I thought to myself, as I did every Christmas and every day, that he would have been a really good father, and that I was, still, so very sorry.
This is what would’ve happened if I’d gotten married (to him).
___________________
We are flying from New York to Chicago. It is Christmas time.
We go Every Single Year, in case you were wondering.
I no longer wonder.
My husband just turned 51. I am 50 and a half. He is the only one who adds the half. He loves to joke about his Older Woman. His Hot Mama. “Or at least Formerly Hot, but Still Totally Warm Wife.” (Wink, wink.)
The winks are justified for a reason he doesn’t intend or even seem to notice:
I am no longer warm, either.
We met in Chicago when he was a theatre actor and I was a theatre go-er. He stopped acting when he didn’t like the way he looked in a cookie commercial playing “an adorable father with an even more adorable daughter!” Ironically, he’s now in magazine sales, selling ads for Light Cuisine. My husband is a jocular Willy Loman. And yes, I am afraid of Virginia Woolf.
His family is from Chicago. All 56 of them.
We don’t have children.
This is why we go “home” every single year.
And why we live in New York.
That said, my husband comes from the best kind of happy family. Close. Irish. Often drunk, but only the good kind. The kind you see in movies about Irish Families where there are hard knocks and tough times, but everyone comes out in the end having Learned the Life Lesson. Even the Funeral in the Final Scene is Soul Fueling because Uncle Fergus was ready to go, as it was His Time.
I have always hated this kind of movie, but only because I wasn’t born into this kind of family.
The kind of family I was so excited to marry into, until that family blamed me for the fact that their now Prodigal Son moved “across the world” to the mysterious land known as Isle of Manhattan.
The kind of family that made fun of everything and everyone, including me and my pre-marital hand (and ear) modeling day job (I know how this sounds on all fronts.)
“.....and just what’s wrong with the rest a ya?” Ha Ha Ha!
The kind of family who has no idea how much I have come to hate their son.
And his family.
_____________
I always seem to be seated on planes next to screaming babies and armrest hogs.
Now that my husband has become the latter, I hope for the best in the category of the former.
But I am glad the flight attendants are allowed to be older now. The young ones were so often (forced to be) overdone: sprayed hair, ridiculous shoes, perfect nails, veinless hands. I could always spot the fake nails. I convinced myself that this is what bugged me most about the young people taking care of me in the sky: the fake nails, not the young hands. Not the fact that they didn’t yet know where they would steer themselves to or land in life.
Always on planes I am forced to confront my own hands. Still recognizable at take off (and/or sea level), they puff into an elder alias once they reach altitude. This is where we are headed, I think to myself, watching them rise like enviable croissants.
The blue vein on my left hand seems to be supplying air to my fingers like an air hose to a bike tire. I particularly hate the way my ring finger bulges. My wedding band is being devoured by my own flesh much like the armrest is being eaten by my husband’s over belted girth. At least I can’t see his shoes. His travel shoes make me so stressed. The thick waffle soles get to relax but the exhausted leather can’t let down its guard trying to contain his bursting bunions. He finds it hilarious that only he and my mom have bunions “out of everyone in our whole 59 person family!”
“The flight is full,” announces the comforting flight attendant before adding that “it is 22 below zero in Chicago.”
Nestled in front of us is a family of three. Italian parents with crazy hair (the beautiful kind, because they are Italian) and an infant, bundled up in footie pajamas for “his first trip on an airplane!” (Even this terrible news sounds beautiful to me, but only because they are Italian.)
The Italians make immediate friends with the two women across the aisle on the left. I had noticed the women at our gate before boarding. A Mother and Daughter, I could see by shared eyes and style, comfort and ease. It made me miss my mom, even though (or because) we no longer had any of these things.
I tried not to stare at the Daughter who had gone to the counter to arrange for a wheelchair to help her Mother board the plane and confirm that one would be waiting upon their arrival in Chicago. Her Mother was the tiniest woman I had ever seen. Her feet didn’t touch the floor and her narrow body took up so little space in the plastic seat that two more people could have joined her and turned her into a human sandwich. She sat straight up and held her purse in her lap. She watched a brother and sister trade candy.
The Mother and Daughter were spitting images of each other, with only a few decades of life keeping them from being identical. Both wore long wool coats in earth tones and neither had a lick of jewelry, save for a thin gold wedding band on the Mother’s bony hand. I was jealous of that hand and envious of the Daughter for getting to travel with her Mother. I was envious of the Mother for having the security of a long marriage (or at least the simple ring that would suggest it) without the burden of having the husband.
I knew this was unfair but kept thinking it anyway.
The Italians and the Mother Daughter all ordered red wine. They passed the baby back and forth like popcorn at a movie. I was surprised and slightly annoyed that he didn’t cry. I was surprised and totally annoyed that the Mother Daughter also spoke Italian. I didn’t like this double whammy of feeling jealous while also being unable to eavesdrop on their conversation.
My husband ordered the first beer of his beer beer scotch scotch in-flight plan and settled in. He was looking forward to the feature, a comedy with his favorite martial arts star playing a cowboy. I ordered nothing because I wanted to avoid the ordeal of trying to wake him up when I would eventually have to use the ladies room. Not worth it, I always said to myself, knowing that I didn’t (want to) mean it.
The flight settled and eventually everyone quieted down. The Italians and the Mother Daughter had finished passing the baby and swapping unintelligible (to me) stories. The only thing I learned before they excluded me was that the baby was going to meet his cousins for the first time and the Daughter was taking the Mother back to have Christmas with her sister who just turned 101.
The cabin lights were off now. I’d been staring at the tiny squares of Earth racing by below for sometime before I realized that my forehead was frozen. I traded in my glass headrest for the warmth of my husband’s shoulder. He smelled good to me. Boozy. Warm. He was dozing but not snoring yet. I was angry to be excluded from this slumber. As if it somehow sensed this, my husband’s hand covered mine and unconsciously squeezed it. I wanted to stay like that. I knew it would be the only part of what felt like (my) Christmas.
I dozed off. Happy.
I woke to the sound of the Italians talking quietly, only to each other now.
Half of the baby’s smushed little sleeping face was visible through the crack in the seats.
I could see the top of the Italians’ crazy haired heads above their seats. Her left hand stroked his hair from root to end, slowly, rhythmically, putting him in a trance and me in a state of judgment as I took in what was left of my own husband’s head of hair. Her fingers were long and her nails were short and bare. She wore no rings, I noticed, before also noticing that her hands were not at all puffy despite the fact that we were now flying at full altitude.
The rhythm was broken by something she discovered in his scalp. She dug around his part and came out with a flap of skin that she held between her fingers like magic dust or an artifact from the world’s most important archaeological dig. As I watched from my perch on my husband’s shoulder, she flicked the skin behind the headrest and it floated down like a kite, landing in the last of my husband’s second scotch. Outraged, I had every intention of removing the flesh from the cup. I had every intention of confronting the Italians over their selfishness. I had every intention of defending my husband’s honor and integrity.
I really do love him, I realized, as I fell asleep.
I woke sometime later to the sound of whispers. The plane was dark except for a reading light over the Mother Daughter. The comforting flight attendant who had warned about the weather in Chicago was bent down in the the aisle next to the Daughter. A man in a suit who had been seated in front of the plane sat in the Daughter’s seat and appeared to be whispering to the Mother. The Daughter was silent. Her back was straight as she crouched down in an impossible for mortal humans position, still wearing her wool coat. She was staring at my husband’s tray. Two mini bottles of empty scotch and two empty glasses. I thought she was judging us before I realized that the speck of skin was gone and started wondering what my husband ever did to deserve this, and/or me.
As I started to doze off again, I heard the flight attendant ask the Daughter if she’d like to move to another seat. The Daughter said no, but thanked her anyway and for being so kind.
The cabin came to life again as we began our descent into Chicago. Coffees were being doled out and the captain was happy to report that we would be landing early and that “the current temperature in Chicago had “kindly risen closer to zero degrees.”
The Italians woke up and took a family trip to the restroom.
My husband woke up with goop in his eyes and greeted the day with with, “Wow. I didn’t need to finish that second scotch!” I thought about the scalp making its way through his digestive system, wondering if it somehow still held the grace of a kite.
The Mother and Daughter were covered in blankets. The Daughter alternately stared out the window and whispered to her Mother, adjusting the blankets from time to time and holding her hand.
The Italians came back and the baby, at last, began its rightful infant screams. The parents seemed not to notice as they took their seats again and began the baby passing ritual. This time the Daughter smiled and put up her hand in decline of their offer to take part. Again, she adjusted her Mother’s blankets.
As the plane made its way down, the baby’s screaming escalated. I wanted to tell the Italians that it was his ears. That the baby’s ears were popping. That the pressure made it unbearable to fly. That he needed something to suck on. I wanted desperately to be able to tell the Italians something they didn’t already know. Instead, I finished my husband’s coffee and stared again at the back of their heads.
When we arrived at the gate, the flight attendant returned to the Daughter and instructed her to stay on the plane until it was completely de-boarded. “We’ve notified your family. You’ll be met by medical and airport personnel who will take you to them. I am so sorry for your loss.”
My husband was the first person up and out of his seat, not because he wanted to rush off the plane, but because he liked to help anyone who might have some trouble with the overhead bin. The Italians accepted.
He wished them a Merry Christmas or whatever you have in Italy and asked the Mother Daughter if they needed any help with their bags. The Daughter politely declined.
I watched my husband. I saw his crinkled pants meet the top of his struggling shoes. I saw a ring on his meaty hand that matched the more ornate version of the same ring on my own finger. I saw the lines on his tired but still handsome face from where his cheek rubbed against the seat back on the right side of the plane. I saw him pull down the plastic bag full of presents for his family that he had picked out and wrapped himself. I watched him hold the baby, now in fresh footie pajamas, while the Italians cleared out their seats.
And I thought to myself, as I did every Christmas and every day, that he would have been a really good father, and that I was, still, so very sorry.