Jason’s face went gray. The woman with him was not a crew member. She was a passenger he had smuggled into the staff quarters for six weeks, against every rule of the company. The legal officer explained that he had also used the crew welfare fund to pay for her excursions, nearly nine thousand dollars in total. Captain Reyes added that two other crew members had reported him for harassment. Jason tried to protest, but the officers stood on either side of him, and his mistress quietly slid her suitcase away.

I told him what I had decided. I had already met with a lawyer, and the papers were waiting at home. He would pay child support for both girls, and he would never speak to me about “male nature” again. Jason glanced at the babies, and for a second, I thought he might say something real. Instead, he looked at his captain, and he muttered that it was all my fault. My father stepped beside me and said nothing, which was answer enough.

The company terminated his contract that afternoon and demanded he repay the welfare funds. His mistress vanished before the officers finished their forms. Jason never apologized, but he signed every paper the lawyer gave him, and the court set payments that began within a month. My father drove us home, and I sat in the back seat between my two sleeping girls. A year later, we celebrated their first birthday in a garden full of balloons, and I was finally, completely at peace.