Chapter 2

Two days earlier, I had still been stupid enough to hope.

Ethan was in the kitchen of his Tribeca condo, still in his pilot uniform, one hand wrapped around an espresso cup, the other scrolling through his phone.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan glittered like it belonged to him.

Maybe it did.

He owned the condo. He drove the Porsche. He wore a watch that cost more than my yearly salary. He had an AmEx Platinum, a wine fridge full of bottles I was afraid to touch, and a doorman who called him Captain Hayes.

I lived there too, technically.

But I paid for my own groceries.

My own subway pass.

My mother’s medicine.

My brother’s certification classes.

And every month, I still transferred Ethan money for utilities because I never wanted his parents, his friends, or Claire Whitman to say I was living off him.

That morning, my mother called from home.

“Maya,” she said softly, “are you sure I won’t be trouble?”

I smiled even though she could not see me. “Mom, you’re my mother. You’re not trouble.”

“I checked the route again. It says fifteen hours if I take the bus, then the train. I’ll bring snacks. I’ll be fine.”

The thought of her sitting alone through the night with her canvas bag in her lap made my chest hurt.

Aiyana Tallis had never left our Native community.

Not because she lacked courage.

Because life had kept her busy surviving.

She raised two children. She took care of my grandmother until the end. She made beadwork at the kitchen table until her fingers cramped, selling pieces at community fairs and school fundraisers so I could afford art supplies.

She deserved one comfortable flight.

Just one.

So I turned to Ethan.

“Your airline gives you family travel benefits, right?”

He did not look up. “Yeah.”

“Could you use one for my mom? Just one seat. I can pay you back if there are fees. She’s never flown before, and the train ride is really long.”

His thumb kept moving across the screen.

“No.”

The word came too fast.

I blinked. “No?”

“It’s complicated, Maya.” He sighed like I had asked him to hand me the plane keys. “Holiday travel is a mess. Standby rules. Blackout dates. Paperwork. You wouldn’t understand.”

On the phone, my mother went quiet.

A moment earlier, she had been asking whether she should bring Ethan blue corn bread or dried berry tea. She wanted to know if Manhattan people liked handmade gifts. She had even asked, shyly, whether wearing her ribbon skirt would be too much.

Now there was only silence.

Then she laughed a little.

The kind of laugh she used when she wanted to make herself smaller for someone else’s comfort.

“It’s okay, baby,” she said. “The train is good. I can watch the country go by.”

I opened my mouth, but Ethan’s phone lit up on the marble counter.

A notification flashed across the screen.

American Express Travel: Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea confirmed. Ocean-View Suite. Three nights.

Under it came another confirmation.

JFK to Honolulu. Four passengers. Lie-flat business class. Confirmed.

Claire Whitman.

Richard Whitman.

Margaret Whitman.

Lily Whitman.

Claire’s whole family.

Hawaii.

Ethan picked up the phone too quickly, but not quickly enough.

“I need to take this,” he said.

He walked into the study and closed the door.

Through the wall, I heard his voice soften.

“No, Mrs. Whitman, please. Don’t thank me. After everything Claire’s been through, you all deserve Maui.”

I stood in the kitchen with my mother still breathing quietly in my ear.

Beside Ethan’s leather flight bag sat the small beaded pouch she had mailed for him.

Blue, black, and silver.

A butterfly pattern.

“For safe travel,” she had said.

I looked at that pouch.

Then at the closed study door.

Then at the window, where Manhattan shone cold and untouchable.

My mother whispered, “Baby, you don’t have to fight with him over me.”

That hurt more than anything.

Because even from fifteen hours away, even without seeing the Four Seasons confirmation glowing on his phone, she already understood what I had spent three years trying not to see.

Ethan Hayes was not unable to help.

He simply did not believe my mother was worth helping.