"I think I am," she answered. "I've spent enough time trying to make that one flight useful. I want to remember that there's a life outside it." He sat beside her and listened to the distant sound of an aircraft crossing above the clouds. They both understood that no reform could erase what had happened. But perhaps, Alana thought, their marriage did not need every painful experience to become the center of their lives in order for the experience to matter.
The next morning, Daniel placed two fresh boarding passes on the breakfast table. Alana looked at the names, the flight number, and the familiar destination printed beneath them. Paris. She reached for his hand before she said anything. He told her the restaurant had confirmed their reservation for the first Saturday after arrival, and the hotel had promised a room where they could see a small stretch of the river from the balcony.
"Did you check the booking three times?" she asked. Daniel pretended to consider the question.
"Four. But only because the first three weren't accompanied by tea." She laughed, the easy laugh he had feared the incident might take away from them for a long time. For the first time since leaving Flight 112, their anniversary trip felt like a real future rather than a memory of something stolen.
Six months after they had been removed from Flight 112, Daniel and Alana returned to George Bush Intercontinental Airport with two suitcases and a reservation on a different airline. They arrived earlier than necessary, partly because Daniel disliked rushing and partly because neither of them wanted to admit how tense they felt about boarding again.
The terminal was busy with the same mixture of beginnings and endings that had filled it on the evening of their failed trip. Travelers hurried toward connections, children stared at aircraft through enormous windows, and announcements rose above the rolling sound of luggage wheels. The airport itself had changed very little, which made the difference in their own feelings harder to ignore.
Alana wore a cream blouse, dark trousers, and the silver bracelet Daniel had given her in the hotel after the incident. She had taken the midnight-blue dress in her suitcase, carefully wrapped because she intended to wear it beside the Seine at last. Daniel carried the same leather passport holder and the same habit of checking their travel documents twice. He had promised himself not to turn the journey into another inspection, but the promise did not stop him from confirming their seat numbers while they stood near the gate. Alana watched him and said nothing until he looked up.
"We have the seats," she told him. "I know," Daniel replied. She waited. He looked down at the boarding passes again and gave a small, embarrassed laugh. "I know we have the seats," he repeated, folding the papers away. "It just feels different when the last time somebody didn't believe what the paper said."