We were on the plane when my daughter whispered, “Dad, I think my period started!” I handed her the emergency pad I always carry, and she rushed to the bathroom. Five minutes later, the flight attendant came over and said, “Sir, your daughter is refusing to come out. She asked me to get you immediately.”
A knot formed in my stomach. Lily was fifteen, fiercely independent, and rarely caused a scene. I unbuckled my seatbelt and hurried down the narrow aisle to the cramped lavatory at the back of the aircraft.
“Lily?” I knocked softly on the folding door. “Honey, it’s Dad. Are you okay?”
The “Occupied” sign clicked to green, and a pale hand shot out, pulling me inside before snapping the lock shut behind me. It was a tight squeeze. Lily wasn’t crying, but she was trembling violently, her face drained of color.
“Dad,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the jet engines. “I didn’t start my period. I just needed an excuse to get away from our row.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, completely bewildered.
She reached into her oversized hoodie pocket and pulled out a crumpled, heavy stock boarding pass. “When I dropped my phone under the seat earlier, I found this wedged under the metal track of the seat in front of us. Seat 14B.”
I took the boarding pass. The name printed on it was Evelyn Vance.
My blood ran cold. Evelyn Vance was my wife. Lily’s mother. She had died in a hit-and-run accident three years ago. We had buried her.
“Lily, this has to be a bizarre coincidence or… or some kind of sick prank,” I stammered, flipping the ticket over.
“Look at the date, Dad,” she urged, tears finally brimming in her eyes.
The flight was this exact flight. Today’s date. From Seattle to London. And the seat assignment—14B—was the woman sitting directly in front of Lily, who had been wearing a wide-brimmed hat and oversized sunglasses since she boarded.
Suddenly, a sharp, rhythmic knock echoed on the lavatory door.
“Sir?” a muffled, feminine voice called from the aisle. It wasn’t the flight attendant. The voice was achingly, impossibly familiar. “Is everything alright in there? You dropped something in the aisle.”
