Chapter 2
“I'm asking you a question.”
Mom touched her napkin.
“Sweetheart, this is Thanksgiving.”
“I know, Mom.”
“Maybe we can talk about it later.”
“We've been talking about it later for seventeen years.”
My father cleared his throat.
“Your brother probably just got confused about that injury.”
I turned toward him.
“Dad, I explained the injury to everyone the day I came home. I broke my wrist during training. I was delayed one class. I graduated and earned my wings.”
Mitchell shook his head.
“That isn't what you told us.”
“It is exactly what I told you.”
“Then why didn't we ever see you flying?”
I almost laughed.
Not because the question was funny.
Because it revealed how little attention he'd paid.
“You were invited to my winging ceremony.”
“I had work.”
“You were invited to my promotion ceremony.”
“People have responsibilities, Kate.”
“You were invited to my change-of-command ceremony in Kodiak.”
He rolled his eyes.
“I'm not flying to Alaska every time you get a new office.”
I looked at him for a moment.
Then I said, “You don't get to miss every important moment in my life and use your absence as proof that none of it happened.”
That was when Grandpa smiled.
Not a big smile.
Just enough.
Tyler slowly sat down again.
“Aunt Kate,” he said, “what's your full rank?”
“Commander. United States Coast Guard.”
His face changed.
He knew what that meant.
He knew the years of service.
The responsibility.
The qualifications.
The command authority.
And, perhaps most painfully, he knew that a commander who had spent thirteen years flying helicopters was not someone a student pilot should have casually dismissed.
“Commander?” he repeated.
“Yes.”
He looked toward his father.
“Dad?”
Mitchell picked up his tea.
“Rank doesn't necessarily mean she flew much.”
Tyler stared at him.
“Dad. Stop.”
Two words.
Spoken quietly.
But I had never heard my nephew speak to his father that way.
Mitchell set down his glass.
“Excuse me?”
Tyler didn't answer.
He was scrolling through his phone.
Then he turned the screen toward me.
“Ma'am, is this your rescue?”
The word ma'am nearly broke my heart.
I had never wanted my nephew to salute me across a Thanksgiving table.
I wanted him to know me.
I nodded.
“Yes.”
He looked down again.
His thumb stopped moving.
“Oh, my God.”
“What?” Denise asked.
Tyler swallowed.
“The Aleutian Dawn rescue. January 2017.”
He looked at me.