To leave, after all, was not the same as being left.

And then she moved from shock to grief the way she might enter another room.

Among other things, Kathryn knew, grief was physically exhausting.

The difficulty lay with the mind accommodating itself to the notion of the plane, with all its weight, defying gravity, staying aloft. She understood the aerodynamics of flight, could comprehend the laws of physics that made flight possible, but her heart, at the moment, would have none of it. Her heart knew the plane could fall out of the sky.