A stranger beside me on a flight asked, “Could you pretend you fell asleep on my shoulder?” I almost said no. I had just left Chicago with my five-year-old daughter, two suitcases, and a marriage that had fallen apart three days earlier. But I agreed. Two hours later, I woke up still leaning against him—and discovered the quiet man beside me was one of the country’s best-known billionaires. Then my phone reconnected, and a message from my ex-husband appeared: I KNOW YOU TOOK FIONA TO NEW YORK.

“Blaire, don’t make a scene.”

I remember looking down at Fiona.

She was drawing circles on the sidewalk with the toe of her sneaker.

“I’m standing outside my own front door with our daughter.”

“You can stay somewhere else tonight.”

“Where?”

“You have friends.”

I said nothing.

David sighed as though I were inconveniencing him.

Then he said, “Your suitcases are in the garage.”

They were not in the garage.

They were beside the garage.

Two of them.

My clothes had been stuffed inside without being folded.

One of Fiona’s sweaters was hanging from the zipper.