Catherine sat on the bench in the terminal at JFK with her eyes closed and the phone held in both hands against her ear, and for a long moment she did not say anything at all.
"I'll tell you at lunch," she said finally. "I'd like to tell you both. If that's all right. I think I need to tell you both."
Another silence.
"Okay, Mum," Olivia said quietly. "Okay. We'll see you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," Catherine said.
She hung up. She sat on the bench with her coat in her lap and the British Airways boarding pass in her hand, and through the window in front of her, far down the concourse, she could just see the dark blue tail of a Meridian jet, still sitting at its gate.
* * *
When the forward door had closed behind Catherine Ashworth's camel coat, nobody in the Signature cabin said anything for a while.
Naomi stood in the aisle beside row 2 and looked at the empty window seat. The hardcover novel and the inflight magazine still lay on the floor between the footrest and the seat in front, where they had fallen. The small silk sleep mask was still on the ledge by the window. On the headrest, if she looked closely, she could see a faint shallow dent in the cream leather where the woman's head had pressed back against it.
She bent and picked up the book and the magazine. The magazine had fallen open at the last page. Her own face looked up at her from the corner of it, a photograph taken two years ago in a studio in Midtown, with her hair pressed smooth and a navy suit and a smile that the photographer had asked her to hold for so long that her cheeks had begun to ache. She looked at it for a moment. Then she closed the magazine and handed it, with the book and the sleep mask, to Tessa, who had come forward again without being asked.
"Would you see that these get to the gate?" Naomi said. "They're hers."
"Yes, ma'am." Tessa took them. She hesitated. "Ms. Morgan, I..."
"Not yet," Naomi said gently. "In a few minutes. I want to talk to you and Graham together. And the captain, if he has time." She turned to Whitaker, who was still standing beside the galley. "Captain, how long to get her bag off?"
"Twenty minutes, maybe twenty-five. It's in the forward hold, Sovereign tag, so it'll be near the door. They have to match it and pull it."
"Then we have twenty minutes," Naomi said. "I'd like to use them, if you'll let me. I'm not going to hold your airplane a minute longer than it takes to get that bag off."
Whitaker studied her for a second. Then he nodded. "I'll tell the station and Marcus. Rosa can finish the before-start on her own. Where do you want to do this?"
Naomi looked at the forward galley, which was small and narrow and full of carts, and then at the cabin, which was full of people pretending not to listen.
"The jet bridge," she said.
* * *
But first she turned to the cabin.
She had not planned to. She had not planned any of it. But they were all there, the eleven of them in the Signature cabin and, beyond the curtain, two hundred and fifty more who had no idea what had happened and were wondering why their airplane was not moving. And the people in the Signature cabin had seen it, every second of it, and some of them were frightened and some of them were embarrassed and at least one of them had it on his phone. She could not leave them sitting in silence.
"I'm sorry," she said.
She did not say it loudly. She said it to the cabin, the way she would have said it to a small meeting. Heads turned toward her. The old man in 3A. His wife in 3C. The woman with the hardcover book in 3F, who had taken off her reading glasses and was holding them in her lap. The family in row 4, the father with his arm around the little boy. The young man in the hoodie in 4D, phone still in his hand. The man in 1A with his headphones around his neck. The man in the tracksuit in 1F.
"I'm sorry for the delay," Naomi said. "And I'm sorry for what you had to watch. You paid for a quiet morning and a comfortable flight and you didn't get either one, and that's on us. My name is Naomi Morgan. I run this airline. I'm flying with you today as a passenger, the same as you. We'll be on our way shortly. The captain will make an announcement with a time. In the meantime, if anybody needs anything, please ask the crew. And if any of you want to talk to me about what happened, before or after we land, I'll be in 2A."
She paused.