Then the flight attendant stopped beside row eight.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” she said quietly.
“Do you happen to know if anyone sitting near you has military aviation experience? The captain urgently needs someone who has flown fighter aircraft.”
Laura looked around.
Across the aisle sat a family traveling with two small children.
Several rows ahead, an elderly couple sat holding hands.
Everywhere she looked were ordinary people thousands of feet above the ocean, completely dependent on the people inside the cockpit.
For a moment, Laura remembered the promise she had made after leaving the Air Force.
Never again.
Never put herself in a situation where someone else’s life could depend on her.
But another memory immediately came back to her.
Something one of her instructors had told her years before.
A pilot never leaves people behind.
Laura slowly drew in a breath.
“I’m a pilot.”
The flight attendant’s expression changed slightly.
“I’m sorry?”
Laura pushed the blanket away and released her seatbelt.
Then she sat upright.
Something about her changed immediately.
The exhausted passenger disappeared.
In her place was the calm, controlled posture of someone who had spent years commanding aircraft traveling at extraordinary speeds.
A Single Mom Was Sleeping in Seat 8A—Until the Captain Asked Over the Interco
