A stranger beside me on a flight asked, “Could you pretend you fell asleep on my shoulder?” I almost said no. I had just left Chicago with my five-year-old daughter, two suitcases, and a marriage that had fallen apart three days earlier. But I agreed. Two hours later, I woke up still leaning against him—and discovered the quiet man beside me was one of the country’s best-known billionaires. Then my phone reconnected, and a message from my ex-husband appeared: I KNOW YOU TOOK FIONA TO NEW YORK.

The answer did not come quickly.

He looked at his hands.

“Because I know what it is like when a private family problem suddenly becomes something other people think they are entitled to watch.”

I remembered what he had said about people filming him.

He continued.

“My divorce was public. More public than it needed to be. There were stories every week, many of them wrong. I had money, lawyers, security, and I still remember the feeling of walking into a room wondering who had already decided what kind of person I was.”

He looked at Fiona, who was hugging Mr. Buttons.

“I also know that children remember how adults behave when things fall apart.”

That answer I believed.

We went to the guesthouse.

It was not a cottage.

People like Luca apparently used the word guesthouse differently from the rest of us.

It had three bedrooms, a kitchen larger than the one in my townhouse, and windows overlooking the Hudson River through rows of late-summer trees.

Fiona ran directly to the window.

“Mommy, there’s a boat.”

“I see it.”

“Can we live here?”

I almost laughed.

“Let’s make it through tonight.”

Luca stayed ten minutes.

Before leaving, he placed a card on the kitchen counter.

“Marcus’s number. Mine is already in your phone. Rachel will call when she has Illinois counsel.”

“You really don’t have to keep doing this.”