“Three passengers.”
“One crew member.”
He nodded gently toward Natalia.
“Fraternizing with a subordinate.”
“Fraternizing with guests.”
“Gifting guests while on duty.”
“Misrepresentation of marital status, in writing, to two of them.”
“We have the messages, ma’am.”
“They came to us in March.”
A silence fell that I will remember until I am eighty.
Dillon’s tan had gone the color of old paper.
“March,” he said.
“You knew in March?”
“We knew,” said my mother, “and we waited.”
Her eyes did not leave him.
“Because I wanted to see what you would do when you thought nobody was watching.”
“And now I have seen it.”
He looked around, wild, for any face that would take his side.
There was none.
So he did the only thing left to him.
He laughed.
It was a hard, thin laugh, the laugh of a man tipping over a table.
“Oh, come on,” he said.
