My Substitute Wife Is Not on the Return Manifest novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Memorial Wall

On Tuesday the whole station gathered in the hangar lobby under the memorial wall.

Forty names were engraved on the black stone, and one of them had been cut five years ago.

Signe stood at the back, beside the chart room's big easel, with a covered display board under her arm.

Dane stood across the room in his dress blues.

He had not asked her to come, and she had not asked him if she should.

The captain said a few words about the crash and the cutter, and the crew bowed their heads.

Then Brooke came to the front in her father's squadron patch, with a folded paper in her hands.

She spoke for four minutes.

She talked about the smell of his coffee, and the way he sang off key in the cockpit, and the last time she had seen him.

By the end a mechanic was wiping his face, and the duty officer had his arm around the cook.

Brooke looked straight at Dane and said, "He gave his life so someone else could keep flying. I think about that every day."

"Thank you," the captain said quietly. "Lieutenant Commander Mayhew has asked to say a word."

Dane stepped out of line.

He tapped his watch twice and then folded his hands behind him.

"I was in the second aircraft that night," he said. "He asked me to look after his daughter, and I said I would."

Brooke's eyes filled.

"I have kept that promise for five years. I've sat with her. I've gone to the dock when she called. I've told myself it was love, and it wasn't." He turned to her. "It was a debt, Brooke. I've paid it. I won't come to the dock again."

Nobody breathed.

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