The bellman chatters away as I stand next to my bags. “Going home?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have a nice stay?”

“Yes.”

“Where do you live?”

“Seattle.”

“Beautiful place. My sister and her kids live there. I go see them every couple of years.”

I nod, hold my breath as we take the elevator down together, hold my breath to keep from making a sound.

No one ever said that life would be fair, but I honestly didn’t think it’d hurt this much at my age. I thought once I left my teen years behind, once I grew up and got a job and started a family, all the bad stuff would be behind me. No more zits, no more baby fat, no more uncertainty. Somehow I’d thought that growing up meant life would get easier.

The flight leaves Honolulu at eleven. We’re to land in San Francisco at five in the morning—three o’clock Hawaii time—then I change planes, catch the flight to Portland and then on to Seattle.

I can’t sleep.

I tried to call Daniel for updates, but he’s not answering his phone and not returning my calls.

He’d call me if it were serious, I remind myself. He’d call if she were in danger.

The knowledge is small comfort. I’m her mom. I’m in agony not knowing all the facts, the details. I can see Jessica in my mind, and she’s so small still, all feisty blue eyes and indifferent blond curls. She’s a monster and a beauty, a joy and a terror, and she and her brother own my heart, own it in ways no man will ever know. It’s not the love of a lover, but the love of a warrior. My children must come first. My children must be safe. My children are everything to me. And yet where are they? Not with me.

My eyes burn, but they don’t water. They just burn and burn like my guilty conscience and conflicted heart. Here I’ve been in paradise, playing, flirting, making love, while my children are thousands of miles away… with one now hurt.

Hurt. Jessica hurt. And a little voice inside my head tortures me, asking if this accident is somehow my fault.

Daniel is the first person I see when I reach the hospital. He’s standing in the hallway outside Jessica’s room, pacing and talking on his cell phone, despite cell phones not being permitted in the hospital. He looks up as I approach and abruptly ends his call, pocketing his phone.

“I thought you were jumping on the next plane,” he says by way of greeting.

“I did.”

He makes a point of glancing at his watch. It’s almost noon.

“I took a red-eye into SFO—”

“She’s been asking for you constantly.”