Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

23
Exactly ten days later, Will’s father disgorged us from the car at Gatwick
Airport, Nathan wrestling our luggage on to a trolley, and me checking and
checking again that Will was comfortable – until even he became irritated.
‘Take care of yourselves. And have a good trip,’ Mr Traynor said, placing a
hand on Will’s shoulder. ‘Don’t get up to too much mischief.’ He actually
winked at me when he said this.
Mrs Traynor hadn’t been able to leave work to come too. I suspected that
actually meant she hadn’t wanted to spend two hours in a car with her husband.
Will nodded but said nothing. He had been disarmingly quiet in the car, gazing
out of the window with his impenetrable stare, ignoring Nathan and me as we
chatted about traffic and what we already knew we had forgotten.
Even as we walked across the concourse I wasn’t sure we were doing the right
thing. Mrs Traynor had not wanted him to go at all. But from the day he agreed
to my revised plan, I knew she had been afraid to tell him he shouldn’t. She
seemed to be afraid of talking to us at all that last week. She sat with Will in
silence, talking only to the medical professionals. Or busied herself in her
garden, cutting things down with frightening efficiency.
‘The airline is meant to meet us. They’re meant to come and meet us,’ I said,
as we made our way to the check-in desk, flicking through my paperwork.
‘Chill out. They’re hardly going to post someone at the doors,’ Nathan said.
‘But the chair has to travel as a “fragile medical device”. I checked with the
woman on the phone three times. And we need to make sure they’re not going to
get funny about Will’s on-board medical equipment.’
The online quad community had given me reams of information, warnings,
legal rights and checklists. I had subsequently triple-checked with the airline that
we would be given bulkhead seats, and that Will would be boarded first, and not