Chapter 1 #2
I didn’t ask. I hung up instead, walked to my sleeping daughter and pressed my lips to her soft head, inhaling her scent, and I didn’t tremble, I felt stronger now than ever.
Now I’m boarding this plane, clutching my promise to her tighter than my bags: she will see the world. Not just bedrooms that aren’t hers. Not offices where someone decides her fate. She will see beauty. Joy. Places like Hawaii, where the ocean sings her to sleep.
I reach my row, juggling everything, whispering a rushed “sorry” as my hip clips the armrest. The woman in the middle seat looks up from her phone. Her braid is long and dark, her eyes quick and warm.
She smiles at Savannah first, not me. “Looks like I got the good seatmate,” she says, voice lilting with music I can’t place.
Something loosens in my chest. My lips twitch upward before I can stop them.
Savannah coos as if she agrees.
At three months old, I swear she’s a genius, thanks to her genetics.
Savannah coos, burrowing into my shirt, and the sound is a balm—a low, bubbling giggle that makes the woman in the middle seat reach instinctively for her, fingers fluttering like she’s about to tickle my daughter’s toes but then pulling back, respectful.
“How old?” she asks,
I answer before I think, to be cagey like I usually would be. Maybe it’s the exhaustion, or the remnants of salt air clinging to us both, but my defenses are softer than normal with her.
“Three and a half months,” I say, which is no time at all.
The woman, who looks younger than me, her face lights up like she’s genuinely delighted, “She’s such a pretty baby. You look just like your mommy.”
The way she says it, feels like it’s a badge of honor, makes me feel a pulse of pride.
“I’m Nalani,” she smiles and lifts her shoulder.
“Claudia.”
“Well, Claudia,” she says and shifts her eyes to her left, where a man is taking up his seat and the entire shared armrest, and has already put on a sleep mask.
“It’s going to be a long flight. If you need anything,” She pulls up her sleeve and looks at the spot where a watch might rest. “I’m free for the next several hours.
” She glances at the guy again, “basically caged.”
Smiling, I look at my daughter who yawns, “Well, we share, don’t we?”
I can read people for the most part, and the way she looks at Savannah and me, and not beyond us, seeking what they automatically decide is a missing piece to the puzzle that is our little family of two, makes me like her.
Nalani, the stunning, dark-haired woman, looks at us like we are enough.
Not that it’s needed, but God, how it’s appreciated.
She doesn’t see a cautionary tale, not a broken family, not even an oddity.
Just mother and daughter on an adventure, worthy of a smile. I let myself exhale.
The engines roar, and we surge down the runway.
I clutch Savannah close, waiting for her ears to pop.
I close my eyes and imagine telling Savannah years from now about her first flight—the thrill of takeoff, a stranger’s kindness, her mother’s arms wrapped around her like an unbreakable fortress, and me, the nervous flyer, before becoming a mother, is no longer.
As the plane tilts skyward, my thoughts pitch forward to Brooklyn and the echo of Kyle’s voice on the phone. I know what’s waiting for us, and it won’t be easy. Still, for this stretch of sky, I remind myself that everything is going to be just fine.
An hour later, I’m handing over my baby so I can use the bathroom, which she offered to do so. I don’t know what made me trust her — instinct, maybe, or exhaustion — but when I come back, she’s holding Savannah like she’s done it a thousand times.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
She smiles down at Savannah. “Go ahead and sleep a bit. I’ve got her.”
I almost protest, but the hum of the engines, the weight of the last few days, the ache of everything I’m flying toward, the fact that there’s no place for her to go, we’re on a plane.
It’s been a couple of weeks since anyone else has held her, and I know I need to accept her kindness because I may be fine now, but if it all catches up with me and I’m exhausted, I will not be at my best, and I need to be.
She points to the sling, “I could wear that if it makes her and you more comfortable. I might need some instruction.”
I blink awake, warm and disoriented. Then I see Nalani beside me, her head tipped toward the window and Savannah asleep against her chest, both of them wrapped in the sling.
Safe, she’s safe.
Nalani catches me watching and smiles. “You actually slept.”
“Miracle, right?” My voice is still rough with it. “How long?”
“Two hours, maybe a little more,” she says. “She’s been an angel. Not a peep.”
I stretch, my joints cracking. “Thank you for holding her.”
“Are you kidding? I’ve never been this relaxed on a flight. She’s better than a therapy dog.”
That earns a laugh out of me, low and real. “She does have that effect.”
Nalani looks down at Savannah, brushing a finger lightly over her cheek. “She’s beautiful, Claudia. Just like her mom.”
Having been in a sorority during undergrad and an advisor during grad school, I’ve learned to read women in a way I didn’t in the system.
It’s instinct now, almost clinical. Nalani is old-money polished but unpretentious.
The kind of woman who’s been taught to fit into any room but who doesn’t quite know where she belongs anymore.
She’s dressed for the shift in worlds — light, layers that will still make sense when the cold air hits us in New York.
She wears soft olive joggers that taper neatly at the ankle, white leather sneakers, and an airy cream button-down.
A tan cashmere wrap rests over her shoulders.
Her jewelry is quiet but intentional — gold hoops, a slim watch, a single ring that isn’t a wedding band.
Her hair is smooth and dark, braided low, and when the cabin lights catch her skin, it glows faintly, still kissed by the Maui sun.
She looks like someone who belongs in first class but chose not to sit there.
That choice says more than her outfit ever could.
She has dark brown eyes, that are warm and kind.
Trusting her wasn’t instinctual; it never would be, but all those things allow me to put trust in her.
When Savannah shifts, I instinctively reach for her. “I should feed her before we land. Otherwise, she’ll wake up starving when we hit baggage claim.”
Nalani passes her over carefully, the transfer smooth and practiced, as if she’s done it a hundred times.
“You wake her to eat?” she asks as I throw a blanket over my shoulder.
“If I don’t, she’ll end up waking hungry at the most inopportune time, like while I’m trying to keep her stroller at my side and pull two suitcases to haul to a cab,” I say as I take Savannah and situate her.
“You don’t have someone picking the two of you up?” She asks.
“This little one and I have it all under control.” I smile down at her.
“Where are you two heading?” she asks.
“Manhattan,” I answer, smiling softly down on her.
“Me, too, I have a car. We’ll drop you two wherever you’re going.”
“I have taken advantage of your kindness for this whole trip. I can’t—”
She shakes her head. “You have no idea what you’ve both done for me. And besides, it’s about dark. I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t know you two have gotten to your destination.”
Something in her tone, that mix of warmth and quiet heartbreak, makes me stop instead of arguing. I just nod, tucking the blanket tighter around Savannah and feed her.