She unclasped her seatbelt, and the small click of it was absurdly loud in the hushed cabin, and the faces nearest her turned toward her with an expression she remembered and had not missed, the look people give someone they have decided, out of pure need, to believe in.

She bent over her sleeping son.

His lips were parted, his breath even, a plastic dinosaur still clutched loosely in one hand from before he fell asleep.

“Mommy will be right back, sweetie,” she said, very quietly, and the ordinary words cost her something she did not let show on her face.

It was the exact thing she had sworn never to have to say again in a voice that was not sure of itself, the small lie every parent tells at the edge of a danger the child cannot see.

She pressed her lips to his hair and straightened before the wanting to stay could get its hands on her.