“Lily, sit down, sweetheart.”
But Lily didn’t move. Her eyes tracked from the empty cushion down to the coat still bunched at the woman’s feet, and I watched something click behind them.
I pictured the ring gone forever.
“You reached down,” she said quietly. “Right after. I was still bent over next to Mom. I thought you were fixing your coat, but you put your hand in the pocket. I saw it.”
“Kids imagine all sorts of things,” the woman said to the passengers around her, spreading her hands as if inviting sympathy. “Honestly, some parents.”
A few people looked away. My throat burned. I pictured the ring gone forever and having to tell my husband I’d lost the one thing he’d slipped onto my finger eleven years ago.
Airport police will be asked to meet the aircraft.
I started walking up the aisle. The flight attendant was already moving too, past me before I could reach Lily, her mouth pressed into a line I hadn’t seen before.
