I boarded that plane expecting the hardest part of my journey to be traveling without my late husband. At sixty-one, I was flying to meet my first granddaughter, Rose, carrying excitement and grief in equal measure. I had imagined holding her for months, but I never expected the journey itself to become a memory I would tell my family for years.

The man beside me, Josh, seemed friendly at first. But twenty minutes after takeoff, he began pushing his knee against mine, stealing the shared armrest, and stretching his legs into my space. Whenever I politely asked him to move, he laughed and blamed his height. For nearly four hours, I squeezed against the window, my hip aching, until I finally decided I couldn’t take it anymore.