Chapter 2

I photographed the cancellation record on the agent’s monitor. My phone trembled slightly, but Graham Bennett and the 2:11 timestamp remained clear.

“Restore my ticket.”

The agent checked the seat map and called a supervisor. A cracked Christmas snow globe sat beside her keyboard. Each time she typed, the silver glitter trapped at the bottom shifted without rising.

“I’m sorry. Seat 31C was released when Ms. Cross moved to 7A, and it has already been assigned to the first standby passenger. The flight is full.”

Graham reached for the passenger record. I folded it and slipped it into my purse before he could touch it.

“Stay here while the travel adviser looks for another flight,” he said. “I need to get my parents and Emily’s family boarded.”

He spoke as if the airline had lost my reservation, not as if he had waited until I cleared security before deleting it.

Sabrina approached with a pale face. She looked at me once, then wrapped her fingers around Graham’s arm. Her nails pressed into the wool of his suit.

“I can stay behind. I don’t want to ruin your family’s Christmas.”

Her new boarding pass was already inside her passport. The gold 7A showed above the edge.

I had paid extra for that seat because it offered more room. At thirty-two weeks, my ankles often swelled until my shoes barely fit.

Graham immediately turned toward Sabrina. He shifted his body between her and the boarding line, asked whether she could breathe, and handed her the oat-milk coffee.

She closed her eyes and leaned toward his shoulder.

A band of pressure tightened across my lower back and pulled around my stomach. I gripped the suitcase handle until the contraction eased, leaving moisture from my palm on the metal.

“Graham, I’m having a contraction.”

He glanced at my face before checking his watch. Boarding would close in twenty-five minutes.

“You’re upset. Sit down and drink some water.”

He did not come closer or ask how long the pain had lasted.

Diane stood at the entrance to the boarding lane, waving for him to hurry. Sabrina’s breathing had already become even again, but her hand remained around his arm.

I told myself it might be a Braxton Hicks contraction. My doctor had warned me that my body could rehearse before labor.

This one hurt more than the others.

I lowered myself into a plastic chair beside the gate. The vinyl felt cold through my dress. Graham moved the family’s carry-ons toward the boarding lane while Sabrina walked beside him, still holding his sleeve.

Robert stopped beside me long enough to lift two suitcases off the floor. For one second, I thought he was clearing space so I could stretch out. Instead, he set them on the empty chair beside mine and told Emily to take her son through before the line grew longer.

Emily had an unopened bottle of water in her hand. She looked at my fingers struggling with the cap, then at Diane waving from the boarding lane. Her son asked whether Aunt Audrey was coming with them.

“Keep walking, honey,” she said, and slipped the bottle back into his backpack.

I bent to take a bottle of water from my bag. The baby, active only moments earlier, had become still.

My fingers closed around the bottle, but I could not twist the cap.

Inside the nearby restroom, the lights were so white that my reflection looked colorless. I braced both hands against the sink until the floor stopped shifting beneath me.

Then I slowly lifted the hem of my coat.

A dark-red stain had appeared on my blue-gray maternity dress.