It was a company tradition she had started herself, twenty-six years earlier, because she believed a crew should be greeted by someone who knew their names.
Dillon knew that.
I had told him three weeks earlier, on a bad connection, that Mom would be standing at the gangway with a podium and a band.
He had said, “Mm-hm,” and asked me what was for dinner.
He had never heard a word of it.
Now every drop of color had left his face.
“Rosanne,” he said, and it came out as a croak.
Then, remembering her title, “Captain.”
“Dillon,” said my mother.
Her voice was perfectly pleasant.
Beside Dillon, the glossy-haired woman looked from my mother’s stripes to my husband’s face.
“Who is that?” she whispered.
“She’s… nobody,” said Dillon.
“I run the fleet,” my mother said mildly, “and I sign his evaluations.”
“Nobody” didn’t last long.
