Fishbowl

We entered the plane through a door about halfway down the fuselage, somewhat behind the wing, on the left-hand side. Do airplanes have port and starboard? If you stood facing the front of the plane, we came in from the left, well past the main passenger entrance near the nose.

It was a big plane. Not a 747, but wide enough that there were two aisles. Two seats against the windows, a wide row of six (or maybe eight) in the middle, then another two window seats on the opposite side. Immediately across from the door was a station for the flight attendants. It stretched across the middle of the plane (access to either aisle). When we first arrived, two flight attendants were busy putting away meals, flipping switches on a long row of coffee pots, assessing inventory for the flight ahead.

One peeled away to greet us. She wasn't sure whether or not to shake my hand, but welcomed all of us aboard. She smiled, said she'd been expecting us. Her nametag said "Emma." She extended her right arm outward, like Vanna White pointing to a phrase or a place or a proper name.

When we'd been told that there would be six seats just for me, I'd envisioned that I'd have an entire middle row all to myself. Push up the armrests, grab some pillows and a blanket, kick back and enjoy the flight. This wouldn't be the first time that reality didn't meet my expectations. Of course, it helped that I didn't have a clue what to expect in the first place.

Who knew that they could simply remove seats from the aircraft? Emma had pointed to where the three rows of window seats used to be. Looks like I'd be seating in the emergency exit row. In place of those six seats, a kind of temporary bed had been installed, a place for me to lay down, sure, but much more conspicuous than I was expecting. We also had four seats across the aisle from the bed, two and two, so if I felt like sitting down (sitting up?) I'd be able to take one of the seats next to mom.

None of the other passengers had boarded yet; we were given plenty of time to get settled in. I tried to figure out a way to get comfortable. I wasn't tired. I was excited. Thrilled, almost, that I was going to be going home. Six months in England -- the friendships, travel to Europe over Christmas break, pool tournaments, volleyball matches, hikes in the Lakes District, days and nights packed with great memories -- were drawing to a close.

That's on the one hand. On the other, well, that whole leukemia thing.

Lost in thought, I didn't pay much attention to the first passengers walking past our seats.

Correction: walking past my bed, and the three other completely normal looking passengers in the seats across from me. Not that many people would notice Mom, or my doctor, or my nurse. If they paid any attention to anything other than their shuffling feet, or the numbered seats, heads would invariably turn in my direction.

And why not?

It occurs to me only now, years later, that everybody else I'd met up to this point had been professional and courteous. It was their job to accept me at face value. Doctors and sisters from the hospitals, ambulance drivers, lab technicians, security guards, even the flight attendants didn't bat an eye at my situation. And it wasn't as if I was gaunt or stricken or oozing puss from my eyeballs or anything. It was probably just the opposite: I was looking fit and healthy yet found myself surrounded by all sorts of medical apparatus. If I was a passenger on our flight, and I needed to walk past myself to get to my seat, I'd probably be asking the same questions.

What on earth is wrong with him? Is he contagious? Why do I have to sit so close to him?

Or, less cynically, but something that probably made me feel even more self-conscious, more like I was a freak on display for the rest of the passengers, were the real comments -- not imagined questions in the faces of strangers -- shared more than once after we were airborne, when people felt compelled to talk with me: you poor, poor, dear.

Mom got this one, too, apparently, during conversations she had with strangers while I slept unawares. She looked a lot worse for wear than I did, stress and fatigue piling on.