The general rustling of reading material charges through the airplane. Everyone shifts in their seat, digs through the belongings that should be stowed under the seat. The whole middle section of passengers tries to make noise, if nothing else, to block their own ears from the sounds in aisle 16.

A beautifully made-up woman–pink floral headscarf and narrowly plucked eyebrows–spends the twenty minutes after take-off vomiting.  Flight attendants remain in their seats. Her mother is perched beside her. The old woman wraps her skirt over her once-young legs as she tucks those legs under her in the seat. One’s head fills with names of birds they resemble–pheasant, pigeon, egret–something formless, learned back in elementary school. The mother glares around to see if anyone is disturbed by her daughter’s evident distress, then consoles her embarrassed adult daughter by calling her my child, my darling, my little girl.

–Flight to Istanbul…

Mom’s…