My face went hot. I assumed, immediately, that he’d somehow seen my name on the passenger manifest and my whole surprise was already ruined before we’d even left the ground. At the same time, my heart stuttered at the thought of being called out as “someone special” in front of an entire plane full of strangers. I started to rise slightly in my seat, already bracing for him to say my name.
I started to rise slightly in my seat, already bracing for him to say my name.
But then he said the next words, and I froze completely, still half out of my seat.
“His name is Walter Simms,” Terrence said. “He’s sitting in seat 3A tonight, and he’s the reason I ever learned to fly a plane at all.”
I sat back down slowly, my whole body suddenly cold in a way that had nothing to do with the cabin’s air conditioning.
Walter.
Walter.
I hadn’t heard that name spoken out loud in nearly six years. Terrence had made it very clear, the last time I’d asked, that the subject was closed, that whatever had happened between them was buried deep enough that he had no interest in digging it back up, not even for me.
Now his voice was breaking, slightly, over an intercom in front of two hundred strangers, saying that same name like it had never once stopped mattering to him.
I want to explain, before I tell you what happened over the rest of that flight, exactly what I believed sitting frozen in seat 14C.
