The Flight Portfolio

by Julie Orringer

If we could pin down the moments when our lives bifurcate into before and after—if we could pause the progression of milliseconds, catch ourselves at the point before we slip over the precipice—if we could choose to remain suspended in time-amber, our lives intact, our hearts unbroken, our foreheads unlined, our nights full of undisturbed sleep—would we slip, or would we choose the amber? Would he have chosen at that moment to live forever in a time before that message, intact but unchanged? Would he have chosen to turn around and walk out of the Splendide, out of his life in France?

Decisions