Grant called Vanessa from the curb while waiting for the rideshare that would take him to the station managers' meeting first and, if the meeting ran short, to Eli's school.
"You're on the ground," Vanessa said. Not a question.
"I'm on the ground."
"Eli's fine. He's at aftercare until four if you need it. How was the flight?"
He watched a line of taxis. He thought about saying fine. He thought about saying a woman decided I was a gate error. He thought about the way Vanessa's face would change, the way she would carry it for him even when he asked her not to. Marriage was full of loads you tried not to hand over and handed over anyway.
"There was a passenger who thought I was in the wrong cabin," he said. "Crew handled the door. Weather held. I'm okay."
Silence on the line, the listening kind. "Did you report her?"
"She may report herself. Felicia offered. I didn't ask for a spectacle."
Vanessa exhaled. "You don't have to be the bigger person every time, Grant."
"I'm not being the bigger person," he said, and heard the weariness in his own voice. "I'm being a man who still has a meeting and a kid to pick up. If I spend the afternoon turning her into a project, she gets to live in my head rent-free. I'd rather she live in her own."
Vanessa was quiet again. Then: "Eli wants pizza. He also wants you to watch him launch the rocket in the backyard if it isn't raining."
"Tell him I'm coming," Grant said, and realized he had said the same words to Felicia on the airplane. Tell them I'm coming. Different doors. Same need to move toward the thing that required him.