Josie wished the woman would leave her alone now, and she was thankful when the little girl across the aisle tugged on her mother’s blouse. The woman gave the little girl a cookie, and Josie watched her eat it, watched her nibble around the exterior in a circle just as Tyler did. She thought about changing seats. The more Josie watched her, the more she felt crushed by the leaded weight of what she had almost done. She could feel it coat the inside of her body like an internal shell, heavy and oppressive. She wondered if Tyler thought she was going to give him what he deserved. Once he had asked her if his daddy would come back if he stopped measuring everything. She had looked at him and sadly shaken her head, and he had nodded and gone back to playing with his measuring tape. “Ty,” she said, “it’s not your fault.” He kept his eyes on the tape in his hand and told her he knew that, but she had already sensed his guilt, knew he was carrying it like a lump of coal jammed tightly in his throat.

Now she wondered if he had linked the two together—his crime with her punishment. The thought made her nauseated, and she was glad of her body’s reaction. You’re the kind of person who would beat a child, she told herself, and yet she couldn’t help thinking that Devesh should also be held responsible. He had promised her that what they did was just play, but these were not games they were playing at.

When the flight attendant came around with the drink cart, Josie ordered a vodka tonic. She drank it, then ordered and downed a second, and finally felt the sharp edges of the world filed away.

They landed at 10 P.M., and Josie waved goodbye to the little girl and let the girl’s mother give her a hug. Her father was meeting her outside the baggage carousel, and she walked as slowly as possible. He had sounded bad on the phone, skipping from one thought to the next, crying, hiccuping. She had seen him like this only once before, when Matthew died.

Now, Josie came down the terminal escalator and saw him immediately. He pulled her to him and buried his face in her hair. She had not been this close to him in over a year, but his shape and smell were so familiar and the alcohol made her so fuzzy that she had to shake her head to remember she was a grown-up.

“Jojo,” he said. When he hugged her, he had knocked his baseball cap to the floor, and she bent to pick it up. Without it, she could see where his hair had become thinner, and she forced herself to look down at the cap. He was old. It had been hard to see before, but now she could see the age spots on his forehead, his already thin hair now brittle and gray. He held her by the arms and looked at her. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he said. “You have no idea how much I missed you.” Unlike her mother, he had held tightly to her when Matthew died, and for a long, long time she had tried to cling to that.