He squeezed my hand, trying to make light of it. But I was still jumpy. I was suddenly too jumpy.

“What do you want to know?” he said.

“Tell me about Olivia,” I said.

“I’ve told you a lot about Olivia,” he said.

“Not really. I feel like I know only the basics. College sweetheart, teacher. Georgia born and bred.”

I didn’t add the rest… that he lost her in a car accident. That he hadn’t been involved, seriously, with anyone since.

“Now that I’m going to be in Bailey’s life, in a serious way, I want to know more about her mother.”

He tilted his head, like he was considering where to start.

“When Bailey was a baby? We all took a trip to Los Angeles. It was the weekend that a tiger escaped from the Los Angeles Zoo. A young tiger, who had been at the zoo for only a year or so. He didn’t just escape his cage, but the entire premises. And he ended up in a family’s backyard in Los Feliz. When he got there, he didn’t hurt anyone. He curled up under a tree and took a nap. Olivia was consumed with this story, which is probably how she found out the other part.”

I smiled. “What’s that?”

“The family whose backyard the tiger had curled up in had gone to the zoo only a few weeks before and one of their two young boys had been obsessed with the tiger. The boy had cried when he had to leave the tiger, not understanding why he couldn’t take the tiger home with him. How do you explain that the tiger ended up at this boy’s home? A coincidence? That was what the zoologists decided. The family lived pretty close to the zoo. But Olivia thought it served as proof. That sometimes you find your way to the place that wants you most.”

“I love that story.”

“You would have loved her,” he said. Then he smiled, looked out the airplane window. “There was no way… not to love her.”

I squeezed his shoulder. “Thank you.”

He turned back toward me. “Do you feel better?”

“Not really,” I said.

He laughed. “What else do you want to know?”

I tried to think of what I was asking for—it wasn’t about Olivia. It wasn’t even about Bailey. Not exactly, at least.

“I think… I think I need you to say it out loud,” I said.

“Say what?”

“That we’re doing the right thing.”