I was right here, sweetie, she said, which was not quite true and was the truest thing she knew.

Everything’s okay now.

We landed.

We’re on the ground.

He accepted this with the total trust of a child who had slept through the only part that mattered, and asked if they were in Spain, and she laughed, a cracked helpless sound, and said not quite, buddy, but close, and held him tighter.

The woman across the aisle was watching them with her own eyes full.

He slept the whole way, she said softly.