The Flight

He threaded down the centre aisle on his way back from the bathroom, the adoption papers folded and tucked safely in his inner jacket pocket. The flight was nearly over—he'd spent the majority of airtime in a nervous frenzy, moving back and forth from the bathroom and planning what he'd say when he finally met his dad. As he maneuvered past a flight attendant, he knocked someone's coffee out of their hand. In the ruckus that ensued, he missed that the man's fingers were precisely like his own—the knuckles angled ever so slightly to the right, the fingernails a little too large for their tips, his watch face slipping under his narrow wrist. The flight attendant ushered him back to his seat as the seatbelt sign illuminated. He clutched the papers through his jacket and stared out the window at the approaching airstrip, suddenly filled with hope for a new future, unaware that this flight had brought him closer to his father than he'd ever be again.