"Mrs. Reed. Your usual chair is ready."
"Is it?"
"By the window. The same view you like."
"Then I may be tempted to stay too long."
Marisol laughed. "Would you like your usual tea?"
"Chamomile, please."
"On the house," Marisol replied with a wink.
Constance passed the reception desk, where a new employee was checking an old card for a passenger wearing a faded work jacket. The employee entered the number, found the record, and thanked the passenger for waiting. No one laughed. No one suggested the food court. The interaction took less than a minute and would never appear in the news.
Constance watched it with a satisfaction much deeper than the day the board had called her chairwoman. The traveler went to a seat, opened a newspaper, and settled into the quiet with no idea how much effort had gone into making the ordinary moment possible. That was how it should be. Good service was meant to make people comfortable, not to demand that they appreciate the machinery behind it.
She sat beside the windows and opened a small notebook Walter had given her years ago. On the first page was his familiar handwriting: PEOPLE REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL WHILE THEY WERE AFRAID. He had written the sentence after a terrible day of delayed flights, and she had carried the notebook long after the ink faded. She ran a fingertip over the words, remembering the man whose stubborn optimism had brought them both so far.
Marisol returned with the tea and paused beside her chair. "Everything all right, Mrs. Reed?"
"Quite all right, dear. I was just remembering somebody."
"Would you like me to leave you alone?"
"For a little while, yes. And thank you for asking."
The manager nodded and went back to work. Constance watched a ground crew preparing an aircraft for departure, the little vehicles moving around it like pieces in a carefully arranged game. Walter had loved that view. He used to say every successful takeoff was a collaboration among people the passengers would never meet. Pilots, mechanics, gate agents, cleaners, caterers, and the person who offered a frightened traveler a cup of tea all belonged to the same enterprise.
Her phone rang a few minutes later. Daniel was calling to confirm the arrangements for her flight to Savannah. He had learned that his grandmother preferred a conversation to an entourage, and he had stopped trying to surprise her with special transportation whenever she moved through an airport.
"Flight 1312 is on schedule," he told her. "Gate 12. I checked twice."
"Your grandfather would be proud of your thoroughness. He'd also tell you to find something more interesting to do than check my gate twice."
"I'm afraid that advice would not improve our family anxiety."
Constance smiled. "No, perhaps not."
She finished the tea, thanked the staff member who collected the cup, and stood. Marisol met her near the door with the same courtesy she offered other travelers, no special performance and no nervous display. Constance touched the brass edge of her membership card before placing it back into her handbag.