“Yes. My wife called to ask if I would cut a business trip short. My wife is in love with a man she met on Facebook, and she wants me to come take care of the kid so she can drive up to Toronto to meet him.”

“Oh, my God. You’re not serious. Did you have any warning?”

“I thought she was spending too much time online, but to be fair, she thought I was spending too much time being drunk. I guess I’m an alcoholic. I guess I might have to do something about that now. I think I’ll start by finishing this.” And he swallows the last of his scotch.

Veronica has been divorced—twice—and has always been keenly aware that she herself was the primary agent of domestic ruin. When she thinks about how badly she behaved, how badly she used Robert and François, she feels ashamed and angry at herself, and so she is naturally glad to offer sympathy and solidarity to the wronged man beside her. Any opportunity to atone, no matter how small.

“I’m so sorry. What a terrible bomb to have dropped on you.”

“What did you say?” asks the girl across the aisle, leaning toward them again. The deep brown eyes behind those glasses never seem to blink. “Are we going to drop a nuclear bomb on them?”

She sounds more curious than afraid, but at this her mother exhales a sharp, panicked breath.

Gregg leans toward the child again, smiling in a way that is both kindly and wry, and Veronica suddenly wishes she were twenty years younger. She might’ve been good for a fellow like him. “I don’t know what the military options are, so I couldn’t say for sure. But—”

Before he can finish, the cabin fills with a nerve-shredding sonic howl.

An airplane slashes past, then two more flying in tandem. One is so near off the port wing that Veronica catches a glimpse of the man in the cockpit, helmeted, face cupped in some kind of breathing apparatus. These aircraft bear scant resemblance to the 777 carrying them east—these are immense iron falcons, the gray hue of bullet tips, of lead. The force of their passing causes the whole airliner to shudder. Passengers scream, grab each other. The punishing sound of the bombers crossing their path can be felt intestinally, in the bowels. Then they’re gone, having raked long contrails across the bright blue.

A shocked, shaken silence follows.

Veronica D’Arcy looks at Gregg Holder and sees he has smashed his plastic cup, made a fist, and broken it into flinders. He notices what he’s done at the same time and laughs and puts the wreckage on the armrest.

Then he turns back to the little girl and finishes his sentence as if there had been no interruption. “But I’d say all signs point to ‘yes.’”

SANDY SLATE IN COACH