Chapter 24: 4:17

On the ninth of October, a year to the night, I took the dispatch desk myself.

Jude had asked me not to.

He said it with his hand flat on my back and a flight suit already zipped to his throat.

"You could sleep," he said. "Nobody would say a word."

"I know."

"It's the one night you don't have to be here."

"That's why I'm here," I said.

The ring he had given me in March clicked against the desk when I set my tea down.

It was a plain gold band.

He had asked me out loud, in the hangar, in front of the crew.

I had said yes before he finished the sentence.

He kissed me on the temple and went out to Hollenbeck One.

I watched his dot on the big screen settle into place beside the other five.

The base was quiet.

The crew chief dozed in a chair by the coffee machine with his cap over his eyes.

Gran's blue pen stood in a mug on the desk.

Beside it was a framed copy of the one-page rule we had signed in November.

The clock on the wall said 4:03.

I watched it the way I had watched my phone on a mountain road.

The air outside was dry and the wind was up.

A red glow sat low on the east ridge, where the fire crews had been working since midnight.

I told myself it was small.

At 4:09 the beige phone rang.

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