“Coffee, please,” Mom says, which going by how jittery she already is seems like a terrible idea. Sam orders a Coke and I take a seltzer, though I’m tempted to ask for a large glass of hard liquor—anything to tamp down my brain from all the hectic rapid-firing it’s still doing. The flight attendant hands out some cheese twists and Mom and I pass ours down to Sam.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, not quite looking up. The way he’s trying not to look at Mom right now reminds me of me driving past the fertility clinic, desperately trying to avoid eye contact and the feelings I didn’t want to feel.

I watch Sam carefully sanitizing his hands, and feel again that flicker of concern about this whole expedition. It’s all going to be pretty intense, and I hope it won’t throw him off balance. But he fiercely wanted to come, and I have to take him at his word that he’s ready for this.

I watch him tapping at the in-flight entertainment screen, which is pay-per-view. I see his glance flick towards me when he realizes, but he doesn’t want to ask.

“Here.” I swipe my card through the slot on screen. “Knock yourself out.”

He does knock himself out: within twenty minutes, he’s out cold with his cheek against the headrest, mouth ajar.

“Poor lamb,” Mom says. “This is all so much to take in.”

I look at her.

“No kidding.”

I’ve been operating on some kind of autopilot: on the surface moving forward in this new reality…but below the surface, most of me is floating in an ocean of dreamy disbelief. My brain flickers between two worlds—the world that I woke up to this morning, and the one I’m in now—without yet realizing that one of those worlds is dead. Adrenalin’s been keeping me going for the past few hours. Now at cruising altitude it’s finally starting to leak away, and like Sam, if I closed my eyes for a moment I’d no doubt be out cold. But I don’t want to fall asleep, because then when I wake up I’ll have to do all the work of reacquainting my brain with reality all over again.

“Mom…” I don’t even know where to start my questions. There are so many things I’ve been thinking about since this morning. Some things that make more sense than before; others that make less. Pieces fitting together into a new, different jigsaw.

“Why was it always so bad between you?” I blurt out. “Between you and Abigail?”

Mom looks at me.

“You were always fighting,” I say. I’ve always blamed Abigail more so than Mom for that—but now I’m wondering if I was right to.

Mom sighs.