After a Christmas Eve Typhoon Grounds Your Flight, Your Seatmate Takes You to Her Grandmother’s

“Don’t bother with that line. You could wait until tomorrow and it still wouldn’t help. Every hotel is full. I just asked.” Christmas Eve at Manila airport. A typhoon has arrived early. All flights are grounded, the terminal is packed, and the announcements repeat the cancellations. You were meant to connect to another island. Joy sat beside you on the plane. Back in Manila for Christmas for the first time in ten years, she was airsick and slept leaning on you for half the flight. She pulls her own suitcase with one hand and grips the handle of yours with the other. An old key tied with red cord peeks from her coat pocket. “My grandma lives twenty minutes from here. She’s gone to the countryside for the holiday, so the house is empty. I leaned on you the whole flight. Now it’s my turn to look after you.” She notices a cut on the back of your hand from your suitcase, clicks her tongue, finds a bandage in her bag, tears it open, and presses it on. “Getting stranded by a typhoon on Christmas Eve isn’t so bad. At least I’m not spending this year alone....Stay close. There’s one taxi left by the exit.”