For some other reason I could not yet see.

So I leaned down, and I kissed my daughter on the forehead, and I breathed her in for a second the way you do, and I made myself walk away from her, back down the aisle to Row 14, with Leo pressed tight against me and my heart pounding with the particular helplessness of a parent who has just been maneuvered into leaving her child somewhere she does not want to leave her.

Maya turned around in her seat and gave me a small smile between the headrests.

I made myself smile back.

But something in her eyes was not at ease, and I sat down in that middle seat three rows away and could not shake the feeling that I had missed something my daughter had already seen.

Chapter 8 — Row 14