I stopped walking.

Up ahead, in the wide bright terminal, Willa had gotten the girls to the rental counter and was loading their suitcases onto a cart, laughing at something Poppy said, the three of them a small warm unit that did not require anything from him at all.

I watched them for a moment.

Then I took a breath — that first real breath of coast air, salt in it, the whole enormous ocean somewhere close — and I found that I was not angry.

I’d expected to be angry.