She stared at the list, some items recognizable, others more like a foreign language. Before she could react, Rufus closed the door and gave it a thunk, the way people patted a horse’s flank.
Through the cockpit window she saw Daniel striding toward the plane, his movements controlled yet easy. A breeze riffled the dark waves of his hair. Determination showed in his jaw, anticipation in the up-slanting corners of his mouth. A man in his element.
He didn’t enter the plane, though. Instead, his voice drifted through the open door on his side, the phrases unfamiliar, the tone businesslike.
Then, the voice seemed to shift timbre somehow, no longer Daniel’s, but another’s. A voice she hadn’t known she remembered. Yet, this voice resided in her heart the same way Daniel’s did.
Now, Daddy? Are we going to fly now?
Not yet, angel. Have to make sure everything’s ready to go on this bird.
So we can fly?
That’s right, so my angel can fly and then come back to earth safe and sound.
“Kendra?”
She started. She hadn’t noticed Daniel get in the plane.
“You okay? You’re pale.”
Like she’d seen a ghost? Or heard one?
“I’m fine. Other than wondering why I’ve been kidnapped.” The words should have cut, but she couldn’t pull it off.
Her father. . . Was it a memory or a hallucination?
“It’s not time to talk about that yet. I won’t keep you up long, but you are going to try this.”
He closed his door and concentrated on the instruments before him. Absolutely matter-of-fact, he explained each move. His words–or maybe his voice–so absorbed her that she barely noticed until the plane lifted off the ground.
Panic jolted her back against the seat, hands clenched.
So my angel can fly and then come back to earth safe and sound.
Her eyes popped open. The voice had been so close. . .
A trail of cloud drifted in front of them. Closer, closer–the propeller would shred it. But it didn’t. The cloud flowed around them, uninhibited by form or space.
“When I took Marti up,” Daniel started, “she said flying in a plane like this lets the hills look curvy. That’s why I don’t like jets. They flatten everything out. Make it look like a two-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, instead of some place people live and breathe and work.”
“Daniel, I–”
“When you go up in a jet, you’re detached from the earth. You’re above the clouds. Where the skies are always blue. I like this kind of flying because I’m on top of the world, but still part of it. With birds as next door neighbors.”
Is this what the birds see, Daddy?
It’s exactly what birds see.
She shut her eyes, not in panic, but to hear the voice better.
It’s so blue! Like the ocean. Like we’re on top of the waves.
A chuckle rumbled in her memory.
Exactly like being on top of the waves. That’s one of the reasons I love it up here, Angel.
Better than you love Mommy and me?
Not better, sweetheart. Different. I miss you and Mommy when I’m away from you. But flying’s my job. And it’s my duty to go when they tell me to.
You could get another job.
I suppose I could. But it wouldn’t be a job I loved. You see, just like I miss you and Mommy when I’m away, I miss flying when I’m away from it. I hate leaving you and Mommy, but I love doing my job. I hope someday you’ll understand, Angel. That’s why I brought you up today, so you could see what flying’s like and so you’d think of me doing something I love while I’m away.
But you’ll come back, won’t you, Daddy?
Yes, I’ll come back.
Only he hadn’t.
And all these years she’d forgotten about the first time she’d gone flying. The only time her father had taken her flying.
Or had she forgotten?
Did it explain her aversion to small planes and tolerance of jets, even though her father had gone down in a jet? It made sense if her five-year-old self had connected that single small-plane trip with her father with his failure to return. At least she knew now that he had loved them, her and her mother. And he’d loved flying.
Just like Daniel, he’d taken every precaution to make what he loved safe. But he hadn’t come back.
She opened her eyes to his profile, the straight, strong nose, the solid chin, the defined cheekbones. A swell of love as strong as any of Aretha’s blasts swept through her, leaving her shaken.
“So, what do you think?”
“Daniel, I–”
“About flying–just flying. We won’t stay up much longer. But it’s not time to talk about the rest of it yet.”
The rest of it was the big part. The rest of it was them.
“But there’s one thing. Kendra, I admired your courage during the hurricane. But the courage you have every day in raising Matthew–raising him alone for so long.” Their eyes met, and she saw his regret. “That’s a special courage.”
“Daniel–”
“Not yet. After I land, then we’ll talk.” He sounded grim. “You can say all you want about how impractical it is to think we can be a family. But before you start, I want to say a couple things.”
“Okay.”
Her calm agreement earned a sharp glance, but he was all business as he communicated with Rufus over the radio, then maneuvered the plane into a pattern around the runway that led into a descent to earth accomplished with barely a bump. Off the runway, he stopped and turned off the engine.
The silence roared around her head as he helped her from the plane.
“After all your questions, Kendra, it’s my turn. And I want you to answer with the truth–not what you think is the truth, but what you feel is the truth.”
With each beat, Kendra’s heart lunged against her chest painfully. Her breath came short and sharp. “Okay.”
“If you knew this was the last day of your life, if you knew you were walking into another hurricane tomorrow and this time you knew–you knew you weren’t going to walk out–who would you want to be spending today with?”
The answer came–immediate, clear and
