Jim circled back around to the gate and let himself drop into the seat next to Franny, which made her shift on her bottom, swiveling her hips slightly so that her crossed legs were pointing toward Sylvia. Franny was reading Don Quixote for her book club, a group of women she despised, and she made little clucking noises as she read, perhaps anticipating the mediocre discussion that would follow.

“Have you really not read it before?” Jim asked.

“When I was in college. Who remembers?” Franny flipped the page.

“It’s funny, I think,” Sylvia said. Her parents turned to look at her. “We read it in the fall. It’s funny and pathetic. Sort of like Waiting for Godot, you know?”

“Mm-hmm,” Franny said, looking back to the book.

Jim made eye contact with Sylvia over Franny’s head and rolled his eyes. The flight would board soon, and then they’d be suspended in air. Having a daughter whose company he actually enjoyed was one of Jim’s favorite accomplishments. The odds were against you, in all matters of family planning. You couldn’t choose to have a boy or a girl; you couldn’t choose to have a child who favored you over the other parent. You could only accept what came along naturally, and Sylvia had done just that, ten years after her brother. Bobby liked to use the word accident, but Jim and Franny preferred the word surprise, like a birthday party filled with balloons. They had been surprised, that much was true. The woman at the gate picked up her microphone and announced the pre-boarding call.

Franny closed her book and immediately began to gather her belongings—she liked to be among the first on board, as if she would have to elbow someone else for her assigned seat. It was the principle, Franny said. She wanted to get where she was going as quickly as possible, not like all these other lollygaggers who seemed like they’d be just as happy to stay in the airport forever, buying overpriced bottles of water and magazines they would eventually abandon in a seat pocket.

Jim and Franny sat side by side in reclining pods, seats that lowered almost completely flat, with Franny at the window and Jim on the aisle. Franny traveled enough to accrue the kind of frequent-flier miles that would make lesser women weep with envy, but she would have gladly paid for the larger seats regardless. Sylvia was thirty rows behind them, in coach. Teenagers and younger children did not need to sit in business class, let alone first—that was Franny’s philosophy. The extra room was for people who could appreciate it, truly appreciate it, and she did. Sylvia’s bones were still pliable—she could easily contort herself into a comfortable enough shape to fall asleep. Franny didn’t give it another thought.

The plane was somewhere over the ocean, and the dramatic sunset had already completed its pink-and-orange display. The world was dark, and Jim stared over Franny’s shoulder at the vast nothingness. Franny took sleeping pills, so that she could wake up feeling rested and have a leg up on the inevitable jet lag. She’d swallowed the Ambien earlier than usual, immediately following takeoff, and was now fast asleep, snoring with her parted lips toward the window, her padded silk eye mask tethered to her head with a taut elastic band.

Jim unbuckled his seat belt and stood up to stretch his legs. He walked to the back of the first-class cabin and pulled aside the curtain to peer at the rest of the plane. Sylvia was so far back that he couldn’t see her from where he stood, so he walked farther, and farther, until he could make her out. Hers was the only light on in the last several rows of the plane, and Jim found himself climbing over sleeping passengers’ socked feet as he made his way to his daughter.

“Hey,” he said, putting his hand on the seat in front of Sylvia’s. She had her earbuds in, and nodded to the music, creating a shadow on the open pages of her notebook. She was writing, and hadn’t noticed him approach.

Jim touched her on the shoulder. Startled, she looked up and yanked the white cord, pulling the headphones out. Tiny streams of music, unrecognizable to him, poured out of her lap. Sylvia hit an invisible button, and the music stopped. She folded her notebook closed and then crossed her wrists on top of it, further blocking her father’s vision of her most intimate inner thoughts.

“Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” Jim said, crouching down to an uncomfortable squat, his back braced against the seat across the aisle. Sylvia didn’t like seeing her father’s body in unusual positions. She didn’t like to think about the fact that her father had a body at all. Not for the first time in the last few months, Sylvia wished that her wonderful father, whom she loved very much, was in an iron lung and able to be moved only when someone else was nice enough to wheel him around.

“Mom asleep?”

“Of course.”

“Are we there yet?”

Jim smiled. “Few more hours. Not so bad. Maybe you should try to sleep a little.”

“Yeah,” Sylvia said. “You, too.”

Jim patted her again, his long, squared-off fingers cupping Sylvia’s shoulder, which made her flinch. He turned to walk back to his seat, but Sylvia called after him by way of apology, though she wasn’t quite sure if she was sorry.

“It’s going to be fine, Dad. We’ll have a good time.”

Jim nodded at her, and began the slow trip back to his seat.

When he was safely gone, Sylvia opened her notebook again and went back to the list she’d been making: Things to Do Before College. So far, there were only four entries: 1. Buy extra-long sheets. 2. Fridge? 3. Get a tan. (Fake?) (Ha, kill me first.) (No, kill my parents.) 4. Lose virginity. Sylvia underlined the last item on the list and then drew some squiggles in the margin. That about covered it.

Day Two

MOST OF THE OTHER PASSENGERS ON THE SMALL PLANE from Madrid to Mallorca were nattily dressed, white-haired Spaniards and Brits in frameless glasses headed to their vacation homes, along with a large clutch of noisy Germans who seemed to think they were headed for spring break. Across the aisle from Franny and Jim were two men in heavy black leather jackets, both of whom kept turning around to shout obscenity-laced slang at their leather-jacketed friend in the row behind. Their jackets were covered with sewn-on patches with acronyms for various associations that Franny gathered had to do with riding motorcycles—one with a picture of a wrench, one with a Triumph logo, several with pictures of Elvis. Franny narrowed her eyes at the men, trying to summon the look that said It Is Too Early for Your Voice to Be So Loud. The most boisterous of the three was sitting by the window, a moon-faced redhead with the complexion of a marathon runner in his twenty-fifth mile.

“Oi, Terry,” he said, reaching over the seatback to smack his dozing friend on the head. “Napping’s fer babies!”

“Yeah, well, you’d know all about it, then, wouldn’t ya?” The sleeping friend picked his face up off his hand, revealing a creased cheek. He turned toward Franny and glowered. “Morning,” he said. “Hope you’re enjoying your in-flight entertainment.”

“Are you an actual motorcycle gang?” Jim asked, leaning across the aisle. Younger editors at Gallant were always pitching features that had them test-driving expensive speed machines, but Jim had never ridden one himself.

“You could say that,” the sleepy one said.

“I always wanted to have a motorcycle. Never happened.”

“Not too late.” Then the sleepy one returned his face to his hand and began to snore.