“If Daniel helped you through all that, why didn’t I know you?”
The smile disappeared.
The captain looked at the airplane.
“Because we didn’t part well.”
He sat in the empty aisle seat across from us.
“Years later, Daniel told me he was leaving.”
“Retiring.”
“That’s what he called it. I didn’t handle it well.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought it was about me.”
“He’d spent years pushing me forward. Then one day he was done. He wouldn’t tell me why. I was angry. I accused him of walking away from everything he’d built.”
The captain swallowed.
“Our last real conversation was an argument.”
“Daniel never told me that.”
“He didn’t tell me much either.”
The captain glanced toward the front.
“Years later, another pilot told me Daniel left because something was happening in his family.”
I knew before he finished.
“Our daughter.”
He looked at me.
I nodded slowly.
“She was going through a very difficult time. Her marriage ended. She had a young child. She didn’t want people knowing how bad things had gotten.”
