“No, no, it’s just weather. It doesn’t even look that bad. I’m figuring it out, but I think I’m going to have to fly out tomorrow. I just need you to tell Mom because you know this is a hard day for her.”

“I’m not sure…” He pauses awkwardly, like he’s distracted. I wonder if I caught him making the noodles. Noodles are his Christmas thing. We have them every year. I painted them once, giant yellow sheets of dough, rolled paper thin over the dining room table. The rolling pin was my focal point.

Daniel coughs. “Maybe you should leave her a message. Have you texted her?”

I cringe. He can’t be serious. “Uh, no, I don’t want her to hear about this at work. What if you have her call me when she gets home?”

“Home?” This pause is different. He doesn’t move or sigh. When his voice comes back, it’s tight and sad. “Mira, I’m not living with your mother. Did she not mention this to you?”

I cover my free ear, sure I heard him wrong. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Your mother and I are getting a divorce. I moved out two weeks ago.”

His sentence feels like a terrible joke. Bits and pieces of questions swirl in the corners of my mind, but I can’t catch hold of anything. Someone pushes past me with a suitcase, and the bang into my knee kicks my words loose.

“What are—I don’t—a divorce?”

“I’m so sorry.” He sounds like he is. But it doesn’t matter.

My words vanish again. It’s too sudden and weird. Was there anything—any clue that this was coming? I’ve only lived with Dad in San Diego for eighteen months, and I was back for six weeks when Phoebe died. And I’ve visited! Nothing has seemed different. Nothing.

I start forward, suddenly desperate to be in motion. I march without direction, past Arrivals, the Information Desk, the suitcases, cots, and families. Daniel is telling me that he still cares about me and of course my mother, too, and he never meant to hurt anyone, and I’m down the escalator and halfway through the lower level, past baggage claim carousels and rows of plastic chairs in a random curving path to nowhere.

“Mira?” Daniel’s voice cuts through the fog of my brain. “Are you all right?”

Funny that he’d ask, but I don’t laugh. “I’m… I’ve got to call my mom.”

“I really am sorry. I’m surprised that she didn’t talk to you about this.”

“Yeah. That makes two of us.”