The Caller’s Name
My belt was looped over my wrist and my boarding pass lay flat in the gray tray, so light it felt like a dare. Shoes off. Laptop out.
Liquids in their little plastic bag. The TSA line moved in that slow, irritated shuffle where nobody makes eye contact but everybody judges. I kept looking at the clock above the checkpoint and willing it to move faster.
This wasn’t a vacation. This was a sprint. My grandfather’s probate hearing was scheduled that morning in Rio Arriba County—the kind of hearing that takes grief and turns it into paperwork, names next to property, signatures next to money, the court deciding what gets passed on and what gets fought over.
Since Grandpa’s funeral, my parents had been circling that day like it belonged to them. We’ll handle it, they’d said. You’ll just complicate everything, they’d said.
They wanted me absent. They wanted the judge to see an empty chair when my name was called, so they could explain it away with concern and soft voices and the story they’d already rehearsed: Nina’s emotional. Nina’s unstable.
Nina can’t be trusted with serious matters. The tray slid forward. I stepped toward the metal detector.
That’s when a uniformed airport police officer moved into my path. Not TSA. Not a supervisor.
Airport police—dark uniform, badge, calm face that didn’t belong to a normal travel day. His partner angled in beside him, a half-step behind, the way trained people position themselves when they don’t want you bolting. “Ma’am,” he said, voice low but firm.
“Come with us.”
For half a second, my brain refused the sentence. I glanced over my shoulder like he’d mistaken me for someone else. He didn’t blink.
His partner’s eyes stayed on my hands. “What is this about?” I asked, my voice steadier than my stomach. “We need to ask you some questions.
Right now.”
The line behind me went quiet in that special airport way—people pretending not to watch while their curiosity leaned forward. I felt eyes, the itch of phones, strangers deciding which version of me they’d tell later. “I have a flight,” I said carefully.
“You need to come with us,” he repeated. His partner softened her tone without softening her stance. “Just bring your ID if you have it.”
Slow hands.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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