Grounded

Margo stares out her plane window as a bitter storm scatters snow around the runways like dry sand across a desert plain. Just my luck, Margo groans as she looks out at the weather knowing it won't let up soon. The weatherman really got it wrong this time, she thinks to herself while imagining the starry night that was supposed to illuminate the sky that night. Her flight boarded just before the storm rolled in, stopping the plane—and her plans—dead in their tracks. Everyone on-board the plane has been complaining and calling the flight attendants for updates non-stop for the past hour. The flight was scheduled for departure out of The Portland International Airport at 3:45 p.m., it’s now almost 6 p.m., and they’re stuck on the airstrip.

The animosity towards the plane's crew can be heard in the voices of the men and women in the first class section by Margo, even though, she is almost at the back of the plane in row 42. The people upfront are not pleased with this delay either, apparently, even though they have legroom—⁠Margo thought as her legs were about to fall asleep. Time to get up, walk off this static leg, and see what these people could possibly be mad about with such nice amenities at their disposal. She gets up from her seat, excuses herself to the bathroom crossing the man sitting next to her, and heads straight to the first class section to see some rich people drama. Limping up to the skimpy blue curtain that 'separates' the middle class people from the 1%, Margo starts to hear exactly what she was looking for...

“Why can’t we at least get some liquor?!” an older woman from the front of the plane berates the poor flight attendant.

The young lady begrudgingly walks down the tiny pathway from the pilots area towards the woman in row 5, “Ma’am I’m sorry, but we’re not allowed to serve liquor on this flight.” 

Her husband says playfully, “Probably for the best, she gets louder when she drinks.”

Oh man, the beat down he’s going to get is something Margo definitely wants to see. She’s been pretending to wait for the bathroom closer to the couple just to get some entertainment: She forgot her book and the guy next to her only had some crappy ‘rom-com’ movie. This is much more interesting, Margo chuckles to herself.

“Lenard if you have any last words before I smack you into next Tuesday, you better say them now.”

Damn, this seventy-something year old woman is really about to turn this plane into a live show of WWE Smackdown, Margo grins and looks to the dirty airplane carpet so she doesn't get whooped too. When she looks up though, she sees the all to real terror of Lenard's soon demise by his wife’s hands in the old man’s eyes. 

The man manages to choke out, “I’m sorry June, I love you…” 

June, still staring him down like a piece of meat that needs to be pulverized quiets down and shoos the stewardess away. As Margo turns to walk back to her seat she and the flight attendant exchange a few customer service horror stories to lighten the mood a little as they laugh at their own pain. Man, that confrontation was much better than what the book she was going to bring had written, and that book was a murder mystery, Margo laughs to herself.

Margo returns to her row at the back of the plane to find the guy who was sitting next to her, in her seat. Annoyed with the fact he had stolen her prime window seat she stands, arms crossed as if she’s his mother about to reprimand him. She's waiting for him to realize she’s there, but after a minute of watching him, she realizes he is fully entranced by the snow that had fallen. He must have been from somewhere out of town if he’s this excited about snow, Margo rolls her eyes at the thought. She’s tired of the relentless winter they had been having, so, if this guy likes the view so much let him have it. She sits down next to him, now in his spot.

“Hey, you’re in my spot.”

“Uh, yeah because you’re in mine.”

“Oh yeah, oops…” he says awkwardly as he shrinks into the chair, “you weren’t here and I just wanted to see if the storm was letting up.” “We can swap now, sorry.”

“Dude, it’s fine, there’s no need to hide your excitement for the snow.”

“What do you mean by that?” the man responds defensively, but his eyes already gave him away.

“I can gather that you don’t often see snowfall by the way you were plastered to the window until I sat down.”

“Okay, you caught me…” he looks at her with the hope of keeping the seat of course.

“Just keep the seat man. Where are you from?”

Their conversation is interrupted by the pilot finally telling them the plane has been cleared for take off.

“I’m from Phoenix, and thank you for the seat.” He cracks a smile at her and glues his face to the window once again while the plane speeds down the runway.  

Margo leans back in her seat and gets ready for what she calls ‘the flight from hell’. The flight from her home in Gorham, an old town in Maine, to Medical Lake all the way out in Washington, is not a pleasant one. The plane stops twice—once in Philadelphia and once in Phoenix—both with layovers around an hour long. I can’t believe I forgot to bring the one thing I needed to survive this twelve hour flight, Margo thinks to herself as she grabs one of the shitty magazines from the seat in front of her. Upon reading the first page of vomit gossip, Margo puts the magazine back and picks up some ear plugs, “Since I gave you my seat, will you wake me up when we get to Philly?”

“Yes, yes, I can do that, no problem” the guy chuckles shyly.

“Perfect” Margo sighs and puts her seat back.

Just like a little puppy when it’s owner comes home for the day, the guy next to Margo wakes her up all jittery as they land. All that’s going through Margo’s head: Thank god, now I can at least get a book to read⁠ – even if it is overpriced for no reason other than it being sold at an airport. She settles into one of those hard seats for her connecting flight at the next gate. The boyish puppy man comes walking up to her and asks “Is it okay I sit and wait with you?”

“Free country my guy” Margo says as she moves her carry-on bag off of the seat.

The guy chuckles at her smart aleck remark and says, “Good one.” He sits quietly for maybe three minutes and then almost like he couldn’t hold the words in any more, “My name is Benjamin… ” he bursts out “What’s your name?”

“Margo,” she says as she puts her hand out to shake his.

He blurts out “My friends call me Benny, though,”

“Oh like Bennie and the Jets?” 

When Margo sees the confusion in his eyes she knows this ‘man’ is barely old enough to be called that and her face goes red as the American Airlines sign behind her. She’s giggling though, because now she knows why this guy is so squirrelly and why he was so excited to see the snow storm at the Portland Airport: He is basically a kid!

“How old are you exactly?” Margo asks, still giggling about the fact he didn’t know who Elton John is.

“I’m twenty-one.” he says, puffing his chest out a little attempting to seem the slightest more like a grown man. “How old are you anyways?” this time he’s a little snarky with his question.

Margo, being the grammar stickler she is, can’t help but correct him, “It’s ‘anyway’ ‘anyways’ is not a word,” the redness is fading from her face, “but if you must know my age I’m twenty-seven.” “I’m going to go out on a whim here and say that you probably just took your first solo trip to visit someone or something like that…”

Benny rebukes, “Actually, no. I’ve been on airplanes before, but I’ve lived and traveled in the south my whole life.”

Margo, now curious, asks rhetorically, “So, that was your first time seeing snowfall like that huh?”

“Yeah, you caught me.” Benny admits while laughing, and asks, “What’s your favorite thing about the snow and winter and everything?”

 Margo responds, “Winter is a bitter bitch, but the best thing about snow is the way that it smothers the outside noise.” Once again, their conversation is cut short.

Over the speakers, through the airport, a woman reports the storm Margo and Benny were stuck in while still in Maine has caught and trapped them for the night. “All flights coming in and out of the Philadelphia International Airport have been grounded and will not be cleared for flight until the winter weather advisories are lifted...” the woman continues on in a monotonous voice probably knowing how many pissed off people she’ll have to help tonight. Margo starts to pack up her stuff and stands up, “Well Benny, it was nice to meet you. I hope you get home okay.”

Benny jolts up, “It was really nice to meet you too, Margo, but where are you going?”

“Nowhere important” Margo says, as she leaves the young man behind he yells “Thank you!” from a distance. Margo assumes he’s thanking her for the window seat and keeps walking.

I should be thanking him, Margo thinks as she hops into a bright yellow cab.

“Where to sweetheart?” the driver asks.

“Medford Lakes, please.”

The drive was smooth and quiet for once. Like Margo had said the snow silences the outside noise. It’s almost peaceful.

"Hey darlin' why you so quiet back their?" the driver asks in a heavy New Jersey accent.

"I just got off of a flight that was stalled for an hour and a half. The wailing babies and the horrid attitudes of the people on that plane would be enough, even for someone living next to a rail road, to go crazy," she responds wryly. Still groggy from the flight Margo leans her head against the window and watches the trees and streetlights pass on the desolate highway.

Margo arrives at her mom’s old log cabin near Crater Lake; everything else was booked before she even touched down in Philly. She pays the cabbie and starts walking toward the once cozy, but now dark and dusty cabin. The logs have been eaten away from the weather and bugs over the years. The snow storm still raging on as powerful as a lion’s roar, Margo is shivering like a chihuahua. The key is exactly where her mom had left it, taped under the third log up from the ground. Her mother was never very good at hiding things, but the cabin was so far from everyone else it didn't matter.

Margo finally makes it into the cabin, hands shaking from the cold metal keys that were begging to be found, as they were starting to rust. She sets down her stuff for tomorrow morning, preparing the old twin bed she used to sleep in. She looks out at the smaller lake the cabin resides next to: The lake is frozen solid, it looks like. Margo looks for her mom’s old pair of ice skates, hoping her mother's stuff isn't in ruins like the outside of the cabin. She finds the skates boxed up in the shed with the rest of her mother’s old stuff, all dry thanks to her father's good craftsmanship. Her mom would take her skating when she was a kid, but when she passed away she had to quit. She had to step up and focus on school and work to help support her father and younger brother. Winter was once her favorite season, but since, it has become a terrible reminder of all she loved about her mother. When she looks out she sees death on land—⁠the snow and ice in her heart burying her emotions. 

She sits down and laces up her mom’s old skates, thinking only about Benny now. His excitement for the season and the weather has brought long forgotten memories of her mother back to her. Margo waddles out of the cabin, surprised her mom’s skates even fit her, all the way to the lake. She stops, just short of the ice. Wondering what her mother would have said about the weather, and if she should step out onto the ice given the storm conditions. To ‘test’ the ice Margo grabs a large rock and chucks it straight at the ice on the lake. It slides out of sight and Margo looks out one more time at the lake, it’s pitch black outside and you can barely see further than ten feet in front of you. Well, it is comforting to know no one will see if I fall flat on my butt at least, Margo says to herself with a little tremble in her voice.

Almost like a dream she closes her eyes and imagines the memories she and her mom had made on this lake: She takes a shaky step forward. She can feel her mother in the air, in the ice, in the snow. Margo feels a slight push and stumbles onto the ice, startled she looks around and realizes it was the wind. Getting back up on her skates, Margo takes her first stride forward onto the ice in thirteen years. She glides forward and takes what feels like her first breath of life again. She looks around and feels her mother’s soul powering this storm. The snow is dancing across the ice like her and her mother used to; there's no need for the starry night the weatherman falsely reported. Disappearing into the falling snow, she says thank you to Benny for his curiosity and to her mother for the perfect weather.