wife has nodded off watching a film; baby Lachlan is quiet at last, wide awake in his father’s arms. I walk the few steps toward them, pasting a smile on my face.
“I don’t suppose you’d take him for a sec while I use the loo?” Paul says. “Every time I put him down, he starts crying.”
I stare at them for a second, unable to compute that life is continuing as normal, that nobody knows I hold their lives in my hands. Lachlan opens his mouth—the gummy wind-not-grin of the newborn baby—and liquid guilt seeps through my body. Sophia has her whole life ahead of her. But so does this baby.
I swallow. “No problem.” Lachlan curls into the nape of my neck, and my heart squeezes.
It was raining the day Adam and I met Sophia. We arrived at the foster family’s house in a flurry of umbrellas and coats, nerves making me talk too much and Adam too little.
“Sophia’s just through here.”
She was lying on a play mat, an arch of farm animals above her. My daughter, I thought, wondering if I’d ever be able to say that without feeling like a fraud.
“She’s so lovely. Isn’t she lovely, Adam? Hello, Sophia, aren’t you lovely?” I willed Adam to say something, worried our social worker might take his silence as a lack of commitment. But when I looked at her, she was smiling, looking in turn at Adam, who had tears in his eyes.
“She’s perfect,” he said.
Lachlan has the biscuity scent of newborn babies, warm and sleepy. The woman in the seat across the aisle from the Talbots scowls at him—or me. Her long, gray hair is in a ponytail now. If she has children of her own, they’ll be grown up. She’ll have forgotten what it’s like to travel with a baby.
Anxiety grows big as a tennis ball in my throat, each swallow forced around it. Someone on this plane is watching me. Someone wrote that letter; someone knows exactly how I’m feeling right now—and why.
I walk past Alice Davanti, typing furiously on a miniature keyboard, and Lady Barrow, her eyes closed and her fingers tapping to the music playing through her headphones. I scan every passenger, paranoia making every nerve ending tingle: invisible spiders crawling down my spine, along my arms.
Who are you?
Jamie Crawford and his wife are still in the bar. They’ve been joined by a handful of others, including Jason Poke, who is drinking champagne and regaling a small audience with tales from filming.
“…complete sense-of-humor failure and lamped the cameraman!”
Everyone roars with laughter, and Lachlan startles, flinging back his head and crying out.
“The little man’s obviously not a fan, Jason!”
Could this whole thing be a setup? A Poke’s Joke? I look up, searching the ceiling for signs of hidden cameras. Lachlan follows my gaze, and his eyes widen at the scattering of twinkling stars. How many night skies has he seen in his short life? My throat closes, the fear inside me rising and swelling like the tide. No one—not even Jason Poke—makes jokes about terrorism. Not on a plane. Decades ago, maybe, but not now, not after all the terrible things that have happened.
There’s another burst of laughter. The other journalist, Derek Trespass, has a notebook in one hand. Maybe he came into the bar to work or in search of a story. There’s no sign of such dedication now as he tries to shoehorn his own stories into the gaps between Poke’s.
“The deputy PM was the same—no sense of humor at all. I remember an interview back in 2014…”
On the other side, three other passengers have moved on to coffee. They’re picking at the cakes laid out on the bar, Hassan putting out side plates and folded napkins. I hear snatches of their conversation as I carry Lachlan back through to the business-class cabin.
“We’ve been meaning to visit Sydney for years, but the journey always put me off. As soon as I knew we could go nonstop, I booked, didn’t I, love?”
“It makes such a difference, doesn’t it? Mind you, we’re paying a premium for it.”
“First nonstop flight—it’s a privilege. We’ll be all over the papers tomorrow!”
I have a sudden, sharp image of our plane on the news. Dropping from the sky, bursting into flames. Headlines scroll at the foot of the screen. NO SURVIVORS FROM WORLD AIRLINES FLIGHT 79.
I shouldn’t even be here.
Adam and I have always taken time off work in the last full week before Christmas. Last-minute present shopping, a mooch around the