“Mason is going to wake up,” Derek said. “When he does, nobody is going to tell him he heard it wrong. Lauren, you are going to tell him the same sentence you told me, in words an eight-year-old can carry. Jonah, you can be there or you can be on the porch. He already met you in a kitchen that lied to him. If you’re in this one, you don’t get to be a riddle.”
“I’ll be here,” Jonah said.
“And the flight,” Lauren said. “Claire is expecting us. My father thinks Jonah is coming home tomorrow. He doesn’t know Mason was coming. He doesn’t know any of this reached you. If I don’t call, he’ll worry.”
“Call him,” Derek said. “Tell him Jonah is safe and nobody is arriving tomorrow. Tell him the truth or tell him a delay. I don’t care which, as long as you don’t build a new small lie to cover the afternoon. I’m going to sit with my son when he wakes up. Then I’m going downstairs. Then we are going to decide, in daylight, whether anyone gets on a plane this week. Not on a curb. Not with a backpack half-zipped. In this room, with the paper on the table.”
Lauren nodded. She looked emptied out and, for the first time since the trunk had refused to stay open, she did not look as if she were searching for an exit. Derek did not take that as a gift. He took it as the minimum condition for the next hour.
He went to the couch and sat on the floor beside it, his back against the cushion, so that when Mason opened his eyes the first thing he would see was his father’s shoulder and not a roomful of adults arranged like a verdict. Behind him he heard Lauren dial. He heard her say, “Daddy, it’s me. Don’t panic. We didn’t get on the plane.” He heard her voice go younger. He closed his eyes and kept his hand near the blue backpack, close enough that the boy would find it if he reached.