I'll wear what I wear. Frank almost smiled. Of course, you will. That night, Caleb picked Owen up from the neighbor's house where he stayed after school. Mrs.

Patterson, a 70-year-old retired teacher who smelled like lavender and oatmeal cookies, met him at the door. "He's been talking about paper airplanes all afternoon," she said. "Something about wings like a real jet." "That's my boy." Owen came running out with his backpack bouncing and a paper airplane clutched in his fist like a trophy.

Dad, look, I added winglets. Caleb knelt down and took the airplane carefully, turning it over in his hands. The folds were surprisingly precise for a 9-year-old. The winglets were angled correctly, not by accident. "Where'd you learn about winglets?"

Caleb asked. "YouTube? There's this channel about how planes work. Did you know winglets reduce drag by up to 5%." I did know that.

How? Caleb handed the airplane back. Lucky guess. Come on, let's go home and test this thing. They walked the four blocks to their apartment.

It was a small place. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen that doubled as a dining room. The walls were mostly bare except for Owen's drawings, which were taped up everywhere. Airplanes mostly, some rockets. One drawing of Caleb that made him look like a superhero with a wrench.

Caleb made dinner. Spaghetti with meat sauce. Owen sat at the kitchen counter doing homework, asking questions between math problems. Dad, what did you do today? Caleb stirred the sauce.

Worked on some planes. Same as always. Pretty much. Anything cool happened? Caleb thought about the cockpit, the throttles in his hands, the sky opening up in front of him like a door he thought he'd closed forever, the sound of the engines, and the way his heart had hammered in his chest during those first 30 seconds of the takeoff roll.

"Nah," he said. Just a regular day. Owen went back to his math. Caleb watched him for a moment, and something heavy moved in his chest. Not pain, not regret, something more like the weight of a choice he'd made a long time ago that he'd make again without hesitation.

After dinner, they tested the paper airplane in the hallway. Owen threw it six times. It flew straight every time, gliding on those little winglets like it knew exactly what it was doing. "Dad, I want to be a pilot when I grow up," Owen said. Caleb caught the airplane on its seventh flight.

He held it in his hands and stared at it. You can be anything you want, kid, but I want to be a pilot like the ones at your airport. Those guys are good. Are you better? The question hit Caleb in a place he didn't expect.

He looked at his son at those bright eyes that hadn't learned yet how the world works, that hadn't yet discovered how it can take the thing you love and twist it into the thing you fear. I'm just a mechanic, buddy. But Mrs. Patterson says you can be more than one thing. She says people have layers like onions.

Caleb laughed. A real laugh, the kind that started in his belly and surprised him on the way out. Mrs. Patterson is a smart lady. So, are you more than one thing?

I'm your dad. That's the main thing. What's the other thing? Caleb looked at the paper airplane in his hand. Then he knelt down eye level with Owen and held it out.

The other thing is the guy who's going to teach you how to build a better airplane than this one. Go get some paper. The thick kind from the printer. Owen's face lit up. He ran to the desk, grabbed a stack of paper, and brought it back like he was delivering gold.

They sat on the living room floor for an hour, building paper airplanes. Caleb showed Owen how to fold a delta wing, how to adjust the center of gravity by adding a small paperclip to the nose, how to bend the trailing edge to create a slight pitchup moment that would keep the airplane in the stable glide. Owen absorbed every word. His small hands mimicked Caleb's with surprising accuracy. And when they launched the new design down the hallway, it flew twice as far as the original.

Dad, how do you know all this stuff? I read a lot of books when I was your age. About airplanes. About everything that flies. Owen picked up the airplane and studied it with a seriousness that made him look 10 years older.

I'm going to build a real one someday. I believe you. Will you help me? Every step of the way, Owen grinned. That grin again.

The one that was worth more than every flight Caleb ever made and every medal he never talked about. They cleaned up the paper scraps and Caleb put Owen to bed at 8:30. He read him two chapters of a book about a kid who builds a rocket in his backyard. And by the end of the second chapter, Owen was asleep. Caleb sat on the edge of the bed for a while, listening to his son breathe.

The apartment was quiet, the kind of quiet that used to bother him when he first left the Air Force. When the silence felt like punishment instead of peace. Now it felt like home. He stood up, turned off the light, and walked to the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water and leaned against the counter.

His phone sat on the table. He picked it up and scrolled through his contacts until he found a name he hadn't called in years. Colonel Ray Whitfield, retired, his old commanding officer at Edwards, the man who had pinned his wings on him 20 years ago. The man who had stood in his hospital room after the accident and told him that what happened to Jinx wasn't his fault. The man Caleb hadn't spoken to since the day he turned in his resignation.

He stared at the name for a long time. Then he put the phone down and walked to the window. Tomorrow he had a meeting with Victoria Hail, a woman who had looked at him like he was nothing and now wanted something from him. He didn't know what she wanted. He didn't particularly care.

But he knew one thing. Whatever she offered, it would have to fit around the only job that mattered. the one waiting in the bedroom down the hall, sleeping with a paper airplane on the nightstand. Caleb finished his water, washed the glass, and set it on the rack to dry. He turned off the kitchen light and stood in the darkness of his small apartment, listening to the silence. Somewhere out there, 37,000 ft above the world, jets were flying through the night sky.

He could almost hear them. He could almost feel the yoke in his hands, the thrust pushing him forward, the impossible freedom of being above everything. Almost. He turned away from the window and walked to his bedroom. He set his alarm for 5:00, the same as every morning.

He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. And for the first time in 10 years, Caleb Reed dreamed about flying. The alarm went off at 5 and Caleb was already awake. He'd been staring at the ceiling for 20 minutes, running the conversation in his head. Not the one with Victoria, the one with himself.

The argument he'd been having since Frank told him about the meeting. One voice said, "Go hear her out. Keep the peace." The other voice said, "Stay in the maintenance bay where it's safe, where nobody asks questions, where the past stays buried under grease and routine." He got up, showered, and stood in front of his closet.

Two work jumpsuits hung on the left, three flannel shirts, and two pairs of jeans on the right. One button-down shirt, white, still in the dry cleaning bag from Owen's school picture day six months ago. He reached for the jumpsuit. Then he stopped. He pulled the white shirt off the hanger instead, put it on, tucked it into his cleanest pair of jeans, looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, and almost laughed.

The shirt was too tight across the shoulders. His hands still had grease worked into the creases of his knuckles that no amount of scrubbing would remove. He looked like exactly what he was, a mechanic trying to look like something else. He untucked the shirt, rolled the sleeves to his elbows, and decided that was as good as it was going to get. Owen was still asleep when Caleb made breakfast.

Two scrambled eggs, one piece of toast, a glass of orange juice. He set it on the counter with a note that said, "Bus at 7:15. Don't forget your lunch. love, Dad. He taped the note to the orange juice glass where Owen couldn't miss it and slipped out the door. The drive to Meridian took 14 minutes.

Caleb parked in the employee lot, the same spot he always parked in, third row from the fence. He sat in the truck for a moment with the engine off. 5:45. He was 2 hours early for the meeting. Good.