I could only comfort myself with one thought. It wasn't that the plane was going as fast as it could—it wasn't; Toby called me while I was waiting at security and told me that if I made a nuisance of myself demanding that things go faster that I'd be arrested and no good to Donna, so it wasn't like I could tell the pilot to floor it—that the White House had enough power to put a call through to the plane if something happened—I couldn't name the thing, give it the power of being thought, let alone said—or that she was now being protected by the full weight of both the US and Israeli military. It was that she knew. Donnatella Moss knew I loved her, knew that I was in love with her. Miracle of miracles, she loved me back. So I sat there, the whole flight, praying in a way I hadn't since my father, and reading over the ridiculous number of e-mails we'd sent with their bizarre (to anyone else) signs of affection, each one confirmation that she knew. Donna knew I loved her and so she had to know that I was on my way.

There was a sea of pain that was somehow in a sea of fog, so it hurt—it hurt so much—but I couldn't find it, I couldn't name it, and I couldn't care because the fog was numbing my brain (though only sort of the pain). Nothing worked right, nothing made sense. I felt lost in my own body, untethered, adrift in those weird conjoined, stacked, something seas. And it went on like that for so long, nothing real, nothing solid—even my own body. Until someone was holding my hand, stroking my face, giving them place and shape for the first time in ages. A voice somewhere said, I'm here; I'm right here, and I could have cried because that meant that I was there too. Wherever here was, I was and I was not alone.