For the first ten minutes of the flight, I concentrated on breathing.

Leo, mercifully, stayed asleep, his mouth slightly open, his tiny fists curled against my chest, entirely unbothered by the injustice his mother was seething over.

To my left, an older man had already fallen into a soft snore before we left the ground.

To my right, a young man in headphones had, without a word and without making it a thing, helped me wrestle the diaper bag under the seat in front of me — one of those small anonymous kindnesses that can hold a whole hard day together, and that I have thought about many times since, because he never knew he did it.

But I could not stop watching Row 11.

I could see the top of Maya’s head between the headrests, and I could see that she was sitting up very straight.