She looked down at the floor, and her shoulders drew in a little, and she made herself smaller — the ancient reflex of a child who has just watched an adult be cruel and is trying to take up less space so the cruelty won’t turn toward her.

I hated it.

I hated watching my bright, funny, big-feelinged daughter fold herself down like that because a stranger had decided to be unkind in a metal tube at eight in the morning.

Leo stirred against my chest, and I rested my palm flat against his little back, the old automatic motion, willing him not to wake, because if he woke and started crying, the woman would have exactly the scene she seemed to want, and I would spend the next three hours as the mother whose baby ruined the flight.

A flight attendant appeared at my shoulder, drawn by the little clot of people my stopped body had created in the boarding line behind me.

Chapter 5 — Three Rows Back