Airplane to New York
She sits by the window on the thirteenth floor of the apartment on 96 th Street and Central Park West gazing out. She turns to me and says, “I have been watching people go up and down these stairs for months. What is this hole for?” I walk to the window to see what she is seeing. It is the access to the subway station. There is a hole in the ground and people climb the stairs down into it and others climb up. “There are trains that run underground that go all over the city, and people go downstairs to take them. And when they want to get off here, they climb the stairs out of the station.” She nods. “In Baghdad there were no trains underground.” My great-grandmother and I have arrived in New York within a year of each other, and we are both finding our way. I can go out and explore, but my great-grandmother, of unknown age but old, stays at home, too frail to go out unless necessary. Her world has narrowed to the windows overlooking Central Park and 96