By the time the redeye from Chicago to Seattle crossed over Wyoming, Derek Mercer felt like every eye on the plane had found him.

His daughter, Rosie, was eight months old and furious at the entire sky.

She cried with the kind of full-throated panic that makes strangers shift in their seats and parents on other rows suddenly become very interested in their phones.

Derek had been bouncing her for almost an hour, his shoulder aching, his T-shirt damp with sweat, his mind fraying thread by thread as the cabin lights glowed dim and merciless around him.

He had done everything a responsible father could do before leaving Chicago.

He had packed formula in premeasured containers, counted diapers twice, brought two extra outfits, a small blanket that smelled like home, teething rings, burp cloths, gas drops, Tylenol, a white-noise app, and the one pacifier Rosie tolerated only on good days.

He had timed the car ride to the airport around her nap and booked the least crowded seat he could afford.

The plan was simple: feed her after takeoff, keep her warm, keep her close, get to Seattle, and survive the night.

The reason for the trip sat like a stone in his chest.

Madison’s parents had been asking for months when he would finally bring Rosie to see them.

Madison had died the day Rosie was born, and Derek had spent eight months finding reasons to postpone this flight.

Work was busy.

The baby was too little.

Cold season was starting.

Tickets were expensive.

None of those things were the truth.

The truth was that Seattle meant Madison’s family, Madison’s pictures, Madison’s room at her parents’ house with the violin still propped in the corner, and Madison everywhere except alive.

Derek could handle diapers, bottles, and exhaustion.

He still did not know how to walk into a house full of the woman he had lost.

So when Rosie’s fussing began somewhere over Nebraska, his body reacted before his mind did.

He tried a bottle.

She pushed it away.

He tried the pacifier.

She spat it out.

He walked her in the narrow aisle until the seatbelt sign came back on.

He rubbed her back, kissed her hair, whispered every useless soothing phrase that had gotten him through the last eight months.

Nothing reached her.

The crying only sharpened, and with it came the shame he knew too well.

A businessman in a navy suit muttered loudly enough for the surrounding rows to hear that some people should learn how to travel with children before ruining it for everyone else.

A woman in front of Derek sighed in theatrical intervals.

An older couple across the aisle exchanged the kind of glance that was not cruel enough to be called cruel and not kind enough to help.

Derek felt his ears burn.

His arms tightened around Rosie.

The tighter he held her, the harder she cried.

When the flight attendant started down the aisle with a careful smile, Derek knew what was coming.

It would be polite and professional and humiliating.

Maybe she would ask if he wanted to stand in the galley for a while.

Maybe she would offer water.

Maybe she would say it in a way that made it clear the rest of the passengers had already complained.