On April 12, Taylor refused to leave her bedroom. She had been awake most of the night reading comments on a friend’s phone before James discovered what she was doing. The messages were an endless series of strangers claiming to understand a girl they had never met. Some mocked her appearance, others accused her father of corruption, and a few warned her that people who challenged powerful companies paid for it. When James knocked, she told him to go away. He sat on the floor outside her door because he could not think of anywhere more useful to be.
He tried again after an hour. "Taylor, you don't have to talk about the case. Tell me what you want for lunch." No answer came. The house creaked softly as the heating system switched on. Eventually her voice emerged, muffled by the door. "I wanted to go to Grandma's birthday. That's all." James closed his eyes. Of all the things he had imagined fatherhood might require, this was among the cruelest: explaining that a child could do everything right and still be treated terribly, then punished again for naming the harm.
"I know," he answered. "You should have had your birthday weekend. You should have gotten off the plane and argued with Grandma about whether she was allowed a second slice of cake. I can't give you that exact day back." The lock clicked. Taylor stood in the doorway wearing sweatpants and an old sweatshirt of Monica's. Her eyes were swollen, and she looked younger than sixteen. "What if they win?" she asked. James opened his arms. "Then we'll still know what happened. And you'll still be my daughter. No court decides that."
They sat on her bedroom floor surrounded by textbooks and a heap of clothes she had stopped putting away. Taylor talked about the moment Jennifer threatened to call police, about the way she wondered whether moving her body differently might have prevented the slap, about the guilt she felt for wanting Diane to suffer consequences. James listened without correcting every thought. Some of them were not meant to be corrected immediately. They needed room to be spoken before Taylor could let them go. When she finally leaned against him, he remembered holding her on the night Monica died, when neither of them knew what morning would look like.
His phone vibrated against the floorboards. An email had arrived from someone whose name he did not recognize: Claire Bennett. The subject line read, I'm sorry I didn't speak sooner. James opened it without expectation, then sat straighter as he read. Claire identified herself as the lead flight attendant aboard Flight 1583. She admitted that she had heard reports of the slap, knew the crew's first account was incomplete, and had remained silent while colleagues altered the narrative. She said she possessed internal communications and records suggesting the incident was not isolated.