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glass.
    I wanted one, but turning my head toward the attendant had caused a sudden rush of dizziness, and I declined, asking for a water instead. When I turned back, my neighbor was yawning, her arms outstretched, finger pads touching the back of the soft seat in front of her.
    â€œYou’re tired,” I said.
    â€œA little. Let’s keep talking, though. This is the most interesting conversation I’ve had on a plane.”
    A prickle of doubt passed through me. Was I just an interesting conversation? I could hear her talking to a friend the next day: You’re not going to believe this guy I met at the airport . . . Freak told me all about how he planned on killing his wife . As though reading my thoughts, she touched my arm with her hand. “Sorry,” she said. “That sounded flip. I’m taking this seriously, or as seriously as you’d like me to take it. We’re playing a game of truth, remember, and truthfully I don’t have a moral problem with you killing your wife. She misrepresented herself to you. She used you, married you. She took the money you earned, and now she’s cheating on you with a man who is also taking your money. She deserves whatever she gets as far as I’m concerned.”
    â€œJesus. You’re not kidding.”
    â€œI’m not. But I’m just someone you don’t know sitting next to you on a plane. You need to decide for yourself. There’s a big difference between wanting to kill your wife, and actually doing it, and there’s an even bigger difference between killing someone and getting away with it.”
    â€œAre you speaking from experience?”
    â€œI plead the Fifth on that one,” she said, yawning again. “I think I’m actually going to take a little nap. If you don’t mind. You keep thinking about your wife.”
    She tilted her chair back and closed her eyes. I considered sleeping myself but my mind was racing. It was true that I had been considering the very real possibility of killing my wife, but now I had spoken it out loud. And to someone who seemed to think it was a good idea. Was this woman for real? I turned and looked at her. She was already breathing deeply through her nostrils. I studied her profile, her delicate nose, creased slightly at the tip, her pressed-together lips, the upper lip barely curving over her lower one. Her long, slightly wavyhair was tucked behind a small, unpierced ear. The darkest freckles on her face were across the bridge of her nose, but, looking closely, there were pinprick freckles across most of her face, a galaxy of barely noticeable marks. She took a sudden chest-swelling breath and twitched toward me. I turned away as her head settled against my shoulder.
    We stayed that way for a while, at least an hour. My arm, which I refused to move, began to ache, then turned numb, as though it weren’t there at all. I ordered another gin and tonic, thought about what she had said about murder. It made sense. Why was the taking of a life considered so terrible? In no time at all there would be all new people on this planet, and everyone who was on the planet now would have died, some terribly, and some like the flick of a switch. The real reason that murder was considered so transgressive was because of the people that were left behind. The loved ones. But what if someone was not really loved? Miranda had family and friends, but I had come to recognize, in the three years that I’d been married to her, that they all knew down deep what she was. She was a shallow user, content to get by on her looks, and have things handed to her. People would mourn, but it was hard to imagine anyone truly missing her.
    The plane began to rise and dip a little, and the pilot’s deeply American voice came over the speaker. “Folks, we’ve hit just a little bit of turbulence. I’m going to ask you to return to your seats and fasten your seat belts till we’ve