Read Some Things About Flying for Free Online Page B

undigested observations that create unexpected, unintended fears and desires and patterns in their children. “I know you’re important,” Lila would like to say, “but lighten up. Not everything has to do with the benign or passionate intentions of parents.”
    â€œI know,” he would answer. But his heart would still not be in it.
    What would Lila’s grandmother think of her now? Would she be disappointed, or disapproving, or would she still love Lila without reserve?
    Wouldn’t it be nice if love remained pure.
    â€œSorry I was so long.” Tom, slipping back into his seat, startles her. “I got stuck in the aisle behind the flight attendant. She’ll be here in a minute. You want another drink?”
    Nice of him to ask. “Sure. Scotch again?” To clear her head; return her to here from there, switch her back to present from past. Tom may often feel this, flipping through the scripts of his various lives: matinées as Hamlet, evening performances as Lear. Which lines belong where? Lila can sympathize.
    Taking their glasses from Sheila, he asks, “Do you know where we are?” He must mean what they’re flying over, not actually where they are, which is inside a narrow, flying, magic silver bullet that is carrying him and Lila towards two weeks of wonders.
    Sheila checks her watch. “Just heading out over the ocean, I expect.”
    Lila wishes he hadn’t asked. It makes no sense, but water feels more menacing than land, even though they’re thirty thousand feet above anything at all. Still, there are strangely textured, unrecognizable shapes lurking in an ocean, however far below it is. On land, creatures are at least identifiable.
    â€œGood.” Tom nods happily; so he doesn’t feel what she does. “We’re getting there.”
    â€œI can’t wait.” Lila thinks everyone on this plane must be looking towards some special outcome, but she and Tom are particularly blessed in that regard, never mind anything below them, or ahead in two unthinkable weeks.

three
    Across the aisle a little girl is getting increasingly whiny, a petulant five-year-old version of the trim woman beside her, with their mutually turned-up noses; almond eyes; shining, short, dark, curly hair. Attractive, except for the annoying little voice: “I want to do something. What’s there to do ?”
    â€œLet’s read your book,” the woman says brightly.
    â€œNo. I did that before.”
    â€œThen how about a game? How about I Spy? You go first. I spy with my little eye—come on, Susie, you spy something.”
    â€œNo. I don’t want to.”
    Good god, all the way to England? Why do people do this to children? Or more to the point, to themselves? Or most to the point, to other passengers, taking the edge off their communal good mood? Tom makes his own contribution to Lila’s irritation. “Poor kid,” he murmurs. “It’s tough for them, sitting still for so long.”
    â€œYes, I was just thinking how stupid it is, trying to do this sort of thing with them. Annoying.”
    Tom frowns. “They do have rights, you know.”
    â€œPerhaps they’d prefer the right not to spend hours in a little seat, in a little space, with a lot of complete strangers who may not entirely appreciate them.” It’s not that Lila dislikes children. Really. She loves the ones she knows. It’s Tom’s automatically sentimental defence of them that gets up her nose. Either he forgets how personally she takes his reverence for families, or recollected fatherhood simply overwhelms him.
    Lila does wish she loved not just him, but everything about him; although she’s been around far too long to imagine such a thing is possible.
    â€œI want to see out the window ,” the child is demanding.
    â€œWell I’m sorry, we’re not sitting by a window, we’re sitting here so we can get to the