passes across her eyes—a fleeting darkness she hides with a lift of her chin and that naughty smile again. “No, I’ve run away.” She laughs at the surprise on my face, then she sighs. “They’re very cross with me, actually. And I’m not entirely sure I’m doing the right thing—I’m missing my dogs terribly already. But it’s the first year without my husband and—” She stops abruptly and lets out a sharp breath. “Well, I needed to shake things up.” She puts a manicured hand on my arm. “Life’s short, young lady. Don’t waste it.”
“I won’t.” I smile, but her words echo in my ear as I make my way down the aisle. Life’s short. Too short. Sophia is five already, the days hurtling past.
I tell people I came back to work because we needed the money and because Sophia’s case worker felt it would help with her attachment issues, and both those things are true.
“But this is all caused by neglect, right?” Adam said when we discussed it. “The fact that for the first few months of her life, she was essentially abandoned?” The case worker nodded, but Adam had already continued, working through his thoughts out loud. “Then how does it help her for Mina to go away?”
I remember the stab of fear I felt, that the glimpse of freedom I’d seen would be snatched away.
“Because Sophia will learn that Mina always comes back,” the case worker said. “That’s the important bit.”
So I went back to work, and we were all happier for it. Adam because he didn’t have to worry about money; Sophia as she began the slow process of understanding that I’d always come back to her; and me, because parenting Sophia was tough—really tough—and I needed to get away. I needed the break, but more than that, I needed to miss her; missing her reminds me how much I love her.
Checks complete, I wait for the PA from the flight deck—Cabin crew, take your seats for departure—and slip into the jump seat nearest the window. There’s a roar from the engines, then the tarmac picks up pace beneath us. The flaps extend with a thud, the air pressure building until it’s hard to say if you’re hearing it or feeling it. The tiniest of jolts as the wheels leave the ground. I picture the space beneath us, the lift of the nose as we soar from the runway. Improbably heavy, impossibly bulky for such a graceful, beautiful maneuver. And yet somehow it works, and we climb, the pilots increasing the thrust as we push up and up. The sky has darkened, nimbostratus weighing low above the ground so that it feels more like dusk than midday, sleet lashing the windows until we’re too high for it to strike.
The bell chimes at ten thousand feet, and like Pavlov’s dogs, there’s a flurry of activity. In 5J, a petite blond cranes her neck to look down toward the ground. She’s tense, and I take her for a nervous flyer, but then she closes her eyes and leans back in her seat, and her face stretches into a slow, private smile.
We’re underway. Seat belts off, passengers on their feet, bells already summoning drinks. It’s too late now. Too late to do anything about the voice in my head warning me not to take this flight. It’s my conscience, that’s all. My own guilt for engineering a place here instead of staying home with Sophia, for being here at all, when life could have worked out so differently.
Too late or not, the voice persists.
Twenty hours, it says. A lot can happen in twenty hours.
FOUR
PASSENGER 5J
My name is Sandra Daniels, and when I stepped on Flight 79, I left my old life behind.
I don’t think I’d have even considered getting on the plane if it hadn’t been for my husband. They say victims of domestic abuse try to leave six times on average before they’re finally successful. I only left once. Sometimes I think about what that does to the median, about the women who’ve tried eight times. Ten. Twenty.
I left once and once only, because I knew that if I didn’t do it properly, he’d find me, and if he found me, he’d kill me.
They say that on average, victims are assaulted thirty-five times before they call the police. I wonder what it must be like, to have only been hit thirty-five times. Not that I counted (and I’ve always been stupid at math anyway), but even I know