Curtis opened his mouth. Closed it.
"I run in airports," said Whitfield. "I carry my mother's purse when she goes to the restroom. Nobody's ever put me into a window." She put the phone away. "Here's where we are. The captain says he's going to file a report. If he does, given what's on this video, the city attorney is very likely to charge you with third-degree assault. That's a misdemeanor in Colorado. It's not nothing. It can mean jail time, though for a first offense it usually doesn't. It usually means a fine, probation, classes, and a permanent record that comes up every time somebody runs your name. You're not under arrest right now. I'm not taking you off your flight. You'll get a summons in the mail. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Do you have any questions?"
He had a hundred. He had the Ridgeline account and Pete Dunleavy and Toby Fisk and a twelve percent discount and the HR policy at Halvorsen about criminal charges, which he had once, in a different life, helped to write. He had the word permanent ringing in his head like a dropped pan.
"No," he said.
"Then go get on your airplane."
* * *
Gate B42 was full and restless. The departure board over the podium said SEATTLE 2216 7:55 and next to it, in amber letters that had replaced the green ones while Curtis was standing at the window, DELAYED. Every seat was taken. People were standing along the windows, leaning against pillars, sitting on carry-ons. A man in a Seahawks jersey was on the phone saying, loudly, "No, they haven't said anything, they never say anything."
His mother was in a wheelchair by the window at the end of the gate area, parked beside a power outlet and a potted ficus, with the blue velvet bag in her lap and both arms wrapped around it.
He stood for a moment at the edge of the crowd and looked at her before she saw him. She looked very small. She had been a big woman when he was a boy, not fat, just large in the room, a voice that carried across a whole soccer field, a laugh that made strangers in restaurants turn around and smile. Over the past four years, since the first of his father's strokes, she had grown smaller in a way that was not only physical, as though she were folding herself up a little at a time to fit into whatever space was left over.
He had not noticed that until right now. He noticed that he had not noticed it, and he did not like the feeling, and he stepped over it.
"Mom."
"Curtis." She looked up, and her whole face rose. "Oh, Curtis, there you are. I called you."