The rest is a blur. Kendra and another flight attendant cleared the back rows and laid blankets on the floor of the galley. Noah held my hand so tight my fingers went numb. He was the color of skim milk. A teenage girl in row twenty-two held up a jacket for privacy. Somebody’s grandmother prayed out loud.
And Joaquin knelt on that galley floor and talked to me the whole time. Steady. Calm. Like he’d done it a hundred times.
At 2:47 p.m. Eastern time, at thirty-five thousand feet, my daughter came into the world screaming.
Joaquin caught her. He cleared her mouth with a gloved finger, rubbed her back until her cry got loud and angry and perfect, and laid her on my chest.
I looked up at him to say thank you.
He was crying. Not a little. Tears running down his weathered face, falling onto his flannel shirt. He didn’t wipe them away.
