⸻
A gentle ripple of applause moved through the cabin, several passengers turning to smile at the young woman still standing near the front, clearly overwhelmed.
⸻
I sat frozen in my seat, working through eleven years of marriage suddenly needing to absorb an entirely new, considerably more complicated shape than the one I’d woken up with that morning.
⸻
“Mom,” Milo said, “is that my sister?”
⸻
I looked at my son, his small face working through the same impossible math I was struggling with myself.
⸻
“I think she might be,” I said.
⸻
The flight to Cedarport took just under two hours, though I don’t think I fully processed a single minute of it, my mind circling the same handful of questions over and over — how long had he known, why hadn’t he told me, what did it mean that he’d invited her onto this specific flight without ever once mentioning any of it at home.
