These days it is almost more common than rare to have divorced parents. Constantly living in a suitcase when moving from mom to dad and vice versa is the everyday life for a lot of children. The children can feel a lot of pain and confusion, which is caused by the dilemma of splitting up a family and handling children and their understanding of relationships. Many children have a hard time understanding the reason for this divorce and often they blame themselves, or another adult like a new partner. When the parents then go on with their new, separate lives, the children can be left behind with a sense of disregard. The way parents’ split up affects children in a negative way is one of the issues portrayed in Jennifer Allott's short story Mid-air from 2014.
The short story Mid-air takes place in a car ride, where Alex’s family is driving from Robin Hood's Bay to York. The telling of the car ride is split in two pieces and the middle of the story is divided into flashbacks to earlier the same day or to the week before. The flashbacks are Alex's, and he is followed by a 3rd person narrator with insight to his thoughts. The story also has a reverse chronology; it starts in the present and then continues with events from earlier that day or the recent past and then it returns to the present moment, closing a circle. The author, Jennifer Allott, uses the flashbacks as a foundation for the relations between the characters as well as answers to questions that readers might have after reading the first part of the story. Mid-air is told from a child’s point of view, namely Alex’s point of view.
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