I jostled through the airplane aisle, unintentionally elbowing others and tripping over their toes. My mom and I reached the second to last row in the plane and found our seats. A hooded figure of slim frame sat in the window seat with a hunched back, turned away from us. My mom and I looked at one another, at the figure, and then down at our tickets to see who sat in what seat. I was assigned to sit in the middle. I began to shuffle in sideways into my seat before my mother stopped me. 

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My mom peered at the hooded woman and whispered to me, “Do you want me to sit in the middle?” I declined, knowing that she valued the extra space of the aisle seat much more than I did. Besides, I was grown up now and in my teens. Sitting next to strangers didn’t scare me as it used to. I shoved my backpack under the middle seat and moved back into the aisle to help my mom cram the luggage into the remaining space of the overhead bins. 

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I scooted back to the middle seat. The hooded woman next to me did not stir. I shot a glance at her, and a weary, sleeping face greeted my own. 

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I didn’t pay much attention to her, expecting that she would bother me if she needed to use the restroom. In that case, I would politely nod, nudge my mom to get up, and leave the seat so she could shuffle out. She’d come back, a few minutes later, and my mom and I would get up from our seats again to let her in. So, I ignored her, expecting nothing more, as I began to binge-watch the most recent movies that the airline had to offer. 

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Sometime later, after the plane had taken off and seat belt sign was turned off, the woman next to me shifted in her seat. My curiosity piqued, and I pulled my eyes away from the screen to catch a clearer view of her. The shadows under her eyes echoed the weariness that I had seen before and seemed to deepen as the light from my movie screen flitted across her face. She looked old and exhausted. But the wrinkles of her face had barely formed. She was young.  

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I turned away from her to the more vibrant, colorful, and comforting scenes emanating from my screen, and I fell into an illusion of happiness. I lost myself in a meaningless world as I waited for time to fly by. 

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In the middle of the movie, I felt a soft touch on my left arm, the arm between me and the lady. The touch broke me out of my reverie, and I turned toward her, expecting that this would be one of the few times we would need to communicate. I prepared to get out of my seat to let her out to use the restroom. But I was so wrong. 

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Halfway up from my seat, I looked at her and saw that she had not budged. I sat down again, looking at her intently. I expected her to strike up a conversation and thus settled myself more comfortably into my seat. 

 

But the woman only cast her eyes down. 

 

Then she whimpered a few words so softly that I almost didn’t catch them. She whispered, “I lost my mom.” 

 

My whole body seized up, then relaxed, as I scrambled for something to say. I didn’t know how to comfort her or how to reply to such an unexpected statement. So, I merely offered my condolences awkwardly and replied, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”           

My mom at this point realized the lady and I were talking, and she shifted in her seat to listen to our conversation. 

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The lady continued, not indicating that she had heard my meager attempt to console her. “She’s in Texas right now. I haven’t seen her in years,” she whispered. 

 

Her voice faltered as she looked up to me and my mother. I think she realized we were mother and daughter, and her thin frame shrank into her seat even further. 

 

Once more, I was at a loss for words. Even with close friends I’d stumble over my words in heavy conversations, and with a stranger, I could only manage to mumble something unintelligible that sounded like, “Oh.” 

 

My mom somewhat saved the situation, affording a lighter conversation as she replied comfortingly, “Texas is beautiful.” Then, a pause. “We’re going for a flight transfer.” 

 

But the conversation stopped there as the lady stared into the dark screen. I resumed my movie, and a few minutes in, I saw out of the corner of my eye that the woman fiddled with her screen half-heartedly as she scrolled through the movie selection. 

 

Sometime during the movie, my head began to nod, and the world faded around me. My mind wandered back to the citrus orchard my mom and I had visited a few days ago. 

 

I stood within a maze of citrus trees, leaning on one of them as the wind ruffled through my hair. I breathed in the smell of the damp dirt that permeated the air with a hazy citrus odor. The sun struck the droplets of dew and rain that coated the trees, scattering a glowing aura all around. 

 

I watched the sky as the last of the dark clouds floated away and as patches of blue appeared among the retreating clouds. Down the row of trees, my mother approached me. She smiled and led me through the orchard.  

 

As we neared the end of the row, she picked a single clementine from the end of a

branch and held it to the sun. 

 

This,” she said, “creates a feeling of peace. Its smell cleanses you of your worries, and its tangy sweetness brings you to the present.” 

 

She continued to hold the clementine in the air, observing the sun’s light striking it at different angles as she rotated it around in her fingers. Then she tossed it to me, and I caught it single-handedly. The clementine rested in my palm, its small size fitting perfectly within my hand. I wrapped my fingers around it, and a sense of solace washed over me. 

 

Suddenly, I woke up. My head had dropped to the side and hit my mom’s shoulder. But instead of lifting my head from her shoulder, I kept my head resting there. My mom looked over at me and then tilted her head to rest it on top of mine. 

In that moment, I didn’t try to fall back asleep. I stared into the dark seat in front of me, perceiving a lingering smell of clementines and enjoying the comfort of my mother. We silently leaned on each other like that for a few moments as the mother-daughter bond strengthened beyond words. 

 

But that moment was short-lived as my mom lifted her head and shrugged my head off her shoulder. I looked at her, confused. She looked beyond me, toward the lady as she leaned in and whispered, “Do you think we’re making it more difficult for her?” 

 

I whispered back, “What do you mean?” 

 

“I mean we’re only reminding her of what she lost,” she said. 

 

I lapsed into thought and looked over toward the woman. She seemed aloof and intent on staring at the pitch-black night sky.

I didn’t reply to my mother’s comment. 

 

For the rest of the flight, I avoided resting my head on my mom’s shoulder. Discomfort met my every attempt to sleep. 

 

The flight attendant pushed a cart with drinks through the aisle toward us. She arrived at our row and asked the woman first, “What would you like to drink today?” 

 

The woman replied in a low, gravelly voice, “Rum.” 

 

The attendant tilted forward to hear her better. “I’m sorry?” she asked. 

 

“Rum,” she repeated louder, in a similar voice. 

 

The attendant looked uncomfortable for a moment and then offered good-naturedly, “I’m sorry, we don’t have rum. But we do have some white wine available.”             

 

The woman nodded and fumbled through her purse for her credit card. She surrendered it to the flight attendant, hand lightly trembling in the space in front of me. The flight attendant returned with a miniature bottle of wine, and a clear plastic cup containing ice. 

 

As we all sipped our drinks, my mom brought out some snacks from her purse that we had brought onto the plane with us. I happily eyed the three clementines that she set onto her tray. We had picked those from the orchard that I had just dreamed about.  

 

My mom handed me one and took one for herself. I stared at the third one, wondering what to do with it, and my mom answered my question when she handed the clementine to me. 

 

“For her,” she said, gesturing to the woman. 

 

I took the clementine hesitantly and lightly tapped the woman on the shoulder. I extended it out to her. She looked at me, and I blurted out, “Would you like a clementine?” 

 

She gave an imperceptible nod, and a brief hint of a smile appeared across her face. She took it gingerly from my hands and placed it on her tray. The woman took a swig of wine directly from the bottle. 

 

There really wasn’t much to say between the three of us, all sitting in the back of the plane and lost in our thoughts. I tried not to pay any more attention to the woman, but less than an hour later, I saw her bending down and groping for something beneath her seat. When she sat upright once more, she caught me staring. 

 

She avoided my eyes and mumbled, “I lost the clementine.” 

 

The previous vitality on her face had disappeared completely. Her face was blank once more, and her eyes vacant. She turned away, twiddling the neck of the wine bottle between her fingers. A barrier solidified itself between us once more. 

 

I slept intermittently, still avoiding my mom’s comfort. Finally, the seatbelt sign turned on, and one of the flight attendants announced that we would be landing soon. I rubbed my eyes and peered toward the window that showed an endless expanse of clouds, illuminated by a single streak of sunlight.

 

The woman beside me stirred and blinked at a rising sun that scattered the burgeoning soft shades of red and orange. She looked at her tray and her body froze. I noticed that the bottle of wine had disappeared. The woman bent down, groping under her seat for what I presumed to be the empty bottle. 

 

I paid her scant attention as the mesmerizing palette of colors blended before me. But the woman sat up, her dark silhouette blocking the view and breaking my trance. She played with something in her hands. All the lines from her face had receded. She looked almost angelic as the light of dawn from the window formed a halo around her head. 

 

She settled back into her chair, the strong light of a concluding dawn illuminating the profile of her face. The woman looked intently into the expanse of pure light and clouds and lost herself within them. 

 

She lightly held the clementine in her hands.