My Substitute Wife Is Not on the Return Manifest novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The Whole Station
The whole station came to the party, and the hangar had never been so loud.
Someone had strung white lights along the rafters.
The big orange helicopter stood in the doorway with its blades tied down and a paper banner across its nose that read STILL MARRIED, BUT BETTER.
Signe held a plastic cup of sparkling cider and watched forty people she had spent three years not knowing line up to hug her husband.
"You're crying," Julie said, appearing at her elbow.
"I'm not."
"You're leaking. It's fine. I brought a napkin."
Julie had a stack of them in her apron pocket.
She had come straight from the cafe in her flour-streaked work clothes and refused to change.
The captain tapped a glass with a spoon.
The hangar quieted by degrees.
"I was asked to say a few words," the captain said. "I'm told I'm not funny, so I'll be short. Lieutenant Commander Mayhew will not fly again. He will, from Monday, run the operations desk. In a year, if the surgeon agrees, he will coordinate rescues for this whole coast."
Applause rolled around the walls.
Dane stood with his head bowed, red to the ears.
"I'd also like to say that my crew follows the people they trust. On Sunday forty-one of them followed one man's voice into a gale." The captain looked at Signe. "And one woman, I'm told, got them to the water."
"Speech!" someone shouted.
"Not mine," the captain said. "Miss Nickerson has demanded the floor, and I fear for the glassware."
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