To Caroline—Love, Auntie

“We will be landing in forty minutes. Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin.” The pilot's words could not have come any sooner.
Lauren was ecstatic. It was over. She quickly put her seat into the upright position, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. The eight-hour flight to Rome, Italy, had been unbearable. She couldn’t wait to get off the plane and breathe in fresh air. Stale oxygen from the overcrowded cabin was blowing on her face, and no matter how many times she’d turned the ventilation knob to the off position, the gust had persisted. She’d complained about it to the flight attendant, but she’d only gotten the standard response attendants were taught to say when they couldn’t comply with a customer’s demands.
“I’m sorry,” the attendant had said. “May I bring you an extra blanket or a beverage?”
“That’s wonderful,” Lauren muttered, biting her lips. “Do you mean to tell me that I paid a premium fare for a business-class seat, and there’s no one on this plane that can stop the air from blowing on me?”
The attendant clenched her jaw and politely said, “No one can fix the ventilation while we are in flight. It will be serviced after we land. If there was an empty seat on this flight, I could move you, but there aren’t any open seats. It’s a full flight. Maybe an extra blanket or a beverage would help?”
Lauren heaved a sigh. “A beverage is the last thing I need, but it beats getting an extra blanket. Bring me two glasses of wine, and I’ll take two extra snacks with that too.” At least she was going to be compensated for her inconvenience.
“I’ll be right back with your order,” said the attendant. She walked away shaking her head.
Lauren was ready to fight with anyone she came in contact with. She gulped down the glasses of wine, one right after the other, but the alcohol neither mellowed her temperament nor put her to sleep. It only made her more irritable. She was ready to scream at the person next to her in the window seat if he dared to get up to go to the restroom one more time. The flight had been a disaster from the moment she’d set foot on the plane. What had she expected? This wasn’t a business trip where she could plan her every move. This was a personal trip in which she couldn’t anticipate the feelings that would surface, let alone control them.
She looked out the window of the plane and saw nothing but thick, white clouds. It made her reflect on how young her father had been when he died. It hurt her to think that he hadn’t been able to experience the joy of being a grandfather, watching his only son's daughter, Jennifer, graduate college, marry, and give birth to two wonderful children, Matthew and Caroline. As the clouds slowly dissipated, the view of the sparsely scattered houses at the base of the Apennine Mountains distracted her. One of those houses belonged to her father, and her heart pounded as she thought of him sitting in the seat next to her, pointing to it, describing it, telling her how delighted he was that she’d decided to come with him.
The pilot’s voice echoed throughout the cabin and disrupted her thoughts. She found herself alone, in the middle seat, strangers on both sides, her father no longer enjoying the view with her. She had waited too long, and now he was gone.
Lauren’s father had been a major influence in her life. He had encouraged her to go to college and be independent, advising her to never depend on anyone for her livelihood, including her spouse. She was frustrated that she couldn’t understand why he had been so intent on her going to college and becoming self-sufficient when his peers had pressured him to concentrate on finding a husband for his only daughter. He’d ignored them and defied the Italian tradition in which men believed that women should neither work nor have a career and should rely on their husbands to support their families. Why had he separated himself from the others and disregarded the long-held values of his cultural heritage? Lauren suspected that the answer lay in his childhood, because no matter how many times she’d asked him about his boyhood years in Italy, he’d made a point of changing the subject. The only thing she knew was that he had been born in a small town called Panni and had come to America when he was fifteen years old.
Perhaps her father had intended on opening up to her when he’d invited her to visit Panni with him, but she had repeatedly declined his invitations because she was too busy at work to take the time off. Now she was going to Panni, alone, to unravel the mystery around her father’s childhood and uncover the events that had lured not only her father but also her down a path contrary to both cultural and social attitudes. She too had traveled that path, having worked over forty years in the science-and-engineering field, primarily dominated by men.
On Monday night, December 15, Robert reluctantly drove Lauren to the airport, worried about his wife. He firmly clutched the wheel of the car,while beads of sweat built up on his forehead. At the airport, Robert passionately kissed his wife good-bye and whispered in her ear, “I love you, and I will miss you.”
Lauren overpowered him with endless kisses and hugs before she whispered back, “I will miss you too, but I need to do this. I want us to have a life together in which I am totally comfortable with myself and know why I am who I am today. I’ll call you when I get to Panni.”
When she exited the terminal, she stood at the curb shocked. She pinched herself to make sure what she was seeing was real. This must be my lucky day, she thought. Only one cab was parked in the waiting area, and there was no one in line for it. “This can’t be normal for such an international airport,” she muttered to herself. “Something’s not right.”