I stood there holding my daughter for about a minute.

Then I said, “I’m going to stay home today.”

“But your plane.”

“There’ll be another one.”

“Won’t you get in trouble?”

And I said, “No,” which was the first outright lie I told anybody that week, and by a wide margin the least consequential.

Then I took my phone into the pantry, which is the only room on that floor with a door that latches, and I sent two messages.

The first was to Devrim Aksoy, my partner of eleven years, and it said: Not making the flight.