Early the following Saturday morning, the first weekend in January, with overnight bags packed and shuttle tickets in hand, Gayle, Fran, and I met at the airport and boarded the eight-thirty flight to New York.

Since the plane was practically empty, Fran sat up front in her own double row of seats (her three, and the three across the aisle; she liked to stretch out); I sat, as usual, wherever destiny called (this time: 32A-B-C); and Gayle sat right behind me. It wasn’t long before she was scratching at the upholstery and poking at me with her finger in between the seats.

I turned around, peered past her finger.

“Look!” she said, pointing to a huge pile of magazines on her lap that practically dwarfed her. “They’re free!”

“Yes. I know.”

“It’s absolutely amazing! One could really sort of make a habit of this—getting so many free magazines—all for the price of a taxi ride to the airport and back.”

I laughed, put my sunglasses on, popped half a Xanax. Was there anyone else in the world like Gayle? “You have to buy a shuttle ticket to get the free magazines. You can’t just walk in off the street, pilfer the racks, and leave.”

Silence for an instant, then the poking resumed. “But that rather defeats the purpose, does it not?”

I didn’t bother to answer. Instead, I closed my eyes and, once the cabin door was shut and the plane taxied down the runway and took off, I settled into my rigid position for the duration of the flight.

When we were airborne, and the Xanax had taken effect, I moved slightly to open the window shade; looked into the clouds. I thought of Donald and how he was still sleeping when I’d left that morning, so early. Maybe it was my fear of death brought about by air travel (I quickly shut the shade: as we gained altitude, our near-vertical climbing angle into the clouds was too frightening to watch); or the realization that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d told him I loved him, what with the pall of Adrienne’s move hanging over us; or the sense of nostalgia that overcame me when I remembered that this was how he and I had met, almost two years ago exactly—flying together, on the shuttle—or the memory of his handsome, sleeping face, but I was suddenly overcome by the urge to call him, hear his voice, apologize for my bad behavior the past few months.