A toddler is whimpering a few rows in front of me, the cries familiar but blessedly not emitting from one of my own children. Crystals form at the edge of the triple-paned window, a patchwork of tan fields replacing snow-capped mountains below.

I relish the window seat as we cross the country, no one chatting at me, no requirement to interact. The three women traveling alone in my row are not interested in conversing. We pull out our novels, our iPads, our Bluetooth headphones to mutually ignore via podcast. It feels luxurious, this solitude in flight, this lack of responsibility.

I do wonder about the strangers that fill the narrow seats behind me, that line the rows in front. What are they doing? Where are they going? Where are they from? Are they heading home or on vacation or on business? Are the cramped quarters with scant sustenance and stale recycled air an annoyance or a reprieve from daily monotony, the chores of home life?

I’m most curious about my seat mate but I don’t make small talk until we’ve almost landed. I saw her credit card when she bought a Tom Douglas chicken curry bowl deceptively wrapped in aluminum foil, reminiscent of a TV dinner. Block letters eked out “Fred Hutch,” indicating the large cancer research institute famous in the Northwest. I wonder, is she a MD, a PhD? Is she a researcher or a clinician? Does she have children?

Throughout the flight she studied a sheet of paper with neat type and mumbled quietly to herself. She must be giving a talk. I bet she’s a mom, no time to practice her lecture until she’s suspended 10,000 feet in the sky, away from the demands of making dinner and wiping noses, of sticky fingers and work reports and piles of laundry and school paperwork. I want to know her all of a sudden, understand who she is and where she’s going. I venture a question as the landing gear deploys below.