The woman looked up.
Her eyesmoved briefly toward Oliver, who was still sleeping against my chest.
Then, instead of checking her ticket or asking which seat
I meant, she put her headphones back on.
“I’m already settled,” she said.
That answer caught me off guard because it wasn’t an explanation.
It sounded more like she believed being comfortable had somehow made the seat hers.
I pulled out our boarding passes and showed them to her.
“I paid extra to reserve both of these seats,” I said.
She removed one side of her headphones and stared at me.
The irritation on her face seemed completely out of proportion to what I had asked.
“Women traveling with babies always expect everyone else to change their plans,” she said loudly. “You chose to bring two children onto this flight. That isn’t my problem.”
