Lauren saw the paper too. Her voice dropped, fast and bright. “Mason, put that away.”
Derek took it. The sheet was warm from the boy’s body. He had time to see the boxes, the outbound column and the return, the small printed arithmetic of bodies the airline believed it was moving. A fold hid the names. Wind pushed at the page. His own voice came out quieter than he meant, which was how his anger had always announced itself, by arriving early and sitting down.
“Three going out. Two coming back. Who’s the extra seat?”
Lauren’s hand stopped in the air between them. Behind her the doors opened on a gust of heated air and closed again. Mason looked at the concrete. No one answered.
A skycap slowed, saw three faces that were not about luggage, and found somewhere else to be. Derek did not look down at the fold yet. He held the page where it was and watched his wife decide what her mouth was for. She had always been quick. It was one of the first things he had loved, the speed with which she could put a room back on its feet. Now the quickness looked like a door being shut with the hand still on the knob.
“Derek,” she said. Only his name. The wind took the rest of whatever she might have added and she did not chase it.
“I asked you a question.”