Chương 2
"Mom knows."
"Yes," Claire said.
Ethan looked at her.
She felt that look like pressure against her chest.
Noah turned toward her. "Do you?"
Claire had imagined this conversation dozens of times.
Never here.
Never with eighty strangers listening beneath plastic holly and Christmas lights somewhere over Pennsylvania.
She had imagined Noah older. Twelve, perhaps. Or fifteen. Old enough to understand that adults could do terrible things for reasons that felt reasonable at the time.
She had imagined choosing the words.
She had imagined Ethan absent.
"Claire," Ethan said.
"Go back to your seat."
"Answer him."
Maria stood. "Sir."
Ethan looked at the flight attendant.
"Your seat. Now."
His jaw moved once.
Then he nodded.
He stood and walked forward.
Claire watched the long black coat disappear behind the curtain dividing the cabins.
Only then did she notice her hand hurt.
She looked at her palm.
It was pink.
"Mom," Noah said.
Claire lowered her hand.
People around them had begun pretending not to look. A man across the aisle put his headphones back on without turning them on. An elderly woman returned to a paperback she wasn't reading. Somewhere behind Claire, a phone chimed.
Lily tugged her cardigan.
"Mommy."
"Yeah, baby."
"Why'd you hit that man?"
Claire looked at her daughter.
Lily's brown ponytail had loosened during the flight. A strand of hair was stuck to her cheek.
"Because I got scared."
"Of him?"
Claire hesitated.
"No."
That was the first lie she told after Ethan found them.
It would not be the last.
Maria remained beside the row.
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to document what happened."
"I understand."
"We're about forty minutes from landing."
Claire nodded.
"Is there anything I should know before we land?"
Claire looked toward the curtain.
There were a hundred answers.
She chose none of them.
"No."
Maria watched her for another moment.
Then she said, "I'll bring the children some water."
"Thank you."
When she left, Noah picked up his red pencil.
He stared at the drawing.
"Is he?"
Claire touched his hair.
He pulled away.
It was a tiny movement.
It hurt more than it should have.
"Noah."
"Is he my dad?"
Claire looked at the faceless figure on the paper.
"Yes."
Noah didn't speak.
Lily did.
"That man?"
Claire nodded.
Lily hugged her rabbit.
"I don't like him."
Noah looked at his sister. "You don't know him."
"He made Mommy scared."
"You make Mom scared when you climb the bookshelf."
"I don't climb it anymore."
"You did yesterday."
"That wasn't climbing."
Under different circumstances, Claire might have laughed.
Instead, she covered her mouth.
Noah stared at her.
"You said he didn't know."
"He didn't."
"You said he lived far away."
"He does."
"You said—"
"I know what I said."
Noah's face tightened.
Claire immediately regretted the sharpness.
She reached toward him.
He moved closer to the window.
"Sweetheart."
He looked outside.
There was nothing to see but darkness and his own reflection.
Claire sat back.
Across the aisle, the man with the silent headphones suddenly became extremely interested in the seat-back safety card.
Claire almost told him he could stop pretending.
She didn't have the energy.
Twenty-three years earlier, Ethan's mother had once told Claire that the Cole family survived scandal because they understood one principle other people didn't: panic was expensive.
At nineteen, Claire had thought Margaret Cole was talking about business.
At twenty-eight, pregnant and terrified, Claire had understood she had been talking about everything.
Claire looked toward business class.
Ethan was somewhere beyond the curtain with a red handprint on his face and six years of his son's life collapsing around him.
For the first time since Noah's birth, Claire wondered whether hiding had actually kept anyone safe.
Ethan sat in 3C and stared at nothing.
The man beside him had introduced himself earlier as Gerald and spent most of the flight talking about commercial real estate in northern Virginia. Gerald now displayed the rare social intelligence to say absolutely nothing.
Ethan appreciated him for it.
His cheek burned.
He touched it once.
Gerald looked out the window.
Ethan dropped his hand.
"My mother's eyes."
He had said it without thinking.
That bothered him.
What bothered him more was that he could still see Noah's face.
Not generally.
Specifically.
The slight downward angle at the outside corner of his eyes. The pale ring around the iris. Margaret had called them Cole eyes even though they had come from her side of the family.
Ethan had them.
His sister had them.
His mother had had them until pancreatic cancer hollowed her out at sixty-one.
The boy had them.
Ethan bent forward, elbows on his knees.
Gerald finally said, "You all right?"
"No."
"Okay."
Another silence.
Then Gerald added, "For whatever it's worth, that's probably the correct answer."
Ethan almost laughed.
Nothing came out.
His phone was in airplane mode.
He took it from his pocket anyway.
There were photographs of his mother stored on it. Hundreds.
He opened one from eleven years earlier.
Margaret stood beside a Christmas tree in the Cole family home in Connecticut, wearing a dark blue dress and holding a champagne glass. Her smile was small because she disliked photographs.
Ethan zoomed in on her face.
The eyes.
His stomach turned.
He locked the phone.
Claire's words returned.
Your family wanted him dead.
Not didn't want him.
Not wanted me gone.
Wanted him dead.
Ethan stood.
Gerald looked up.
"Bathroom."
"Sure."
Maria intercepted Ethan before he reached the curtain.
"Mr. Cole."
He stopped.
He had given her his name after returning to his seat.
"I need to speak to Claire."
"No."
"My son is back there."
"We don't know that."
"I do."
"You suspect it."
He looked at her.
Maria didn't move.
"You are not going back there until we land."
"She just told me my family threatened my child."
"And she also struck you."
"I don't care about that."
"The airline does."
May you like
He lowered his voice. "I'm not asking the airline."
"You're standing on the airline."
