“I knew you could do it, sweetheart.”
She cried so hard that he couldn’t understand the next three things she said.
He cried, too.
That memory remained one of the happiest of her life.
But success had come with costs that she had not fully understood when she was younger.
She had missed Thanksgiving dinners, birthdays, weddings, and ordinary Sunday afternoons that other people barely thought about.
She had watched friends settle into homes, welcome babies, and develop little family traditions while she collected hotel key cards and learned the names of airport coffee shops around the world.
There had been moments when she wondered whether she had mistaken independence for invulnerability.
Still, she had never regretted becoming a pilot.
She only sometimes wondered whether she could have built something else alongside it.
The flight from Chicago to Miami departed on schedule.
After takeoff, Elena and Marcus completed their climb and settled into the routine of cruising flight. The aircraft moved smoothly through the morning sky, and the cabin crew began their service.
