“I’m sorry you were hurt,” he said.
“So am I. We had some lovely plans for the holidays but accidents happen.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Having you here with Audrey is enough. I was so touched when I found out you were coming to stay with her, though she is always welcome to stay here, of course. We would have loved having her.”
His sister was right. His father had his hands full helping Diane recover. They didn’t need the additional responsibility of taking a middle schooler back and forth to another town for school.
“I had plenty of leave coming to me. It worked out.”
“How are you feeling since your own hard landing?” his father asked.
Tension tightened his shoulders but he forced himself to relax. The colonel wasn’t being critical. He was only asking.
“Fine. Still on desk duty.”
“How are the other crew members?”
“Everybody is recovering.”
He didn’t like thinking about the incident, when an engine malfunction during a training mission had forced an emergency landing in the southern California mountains.
The quick thinking of his crew and the fact he was able to call for help promptly had prevented a bad situation from becoming catastrophic, though Ryan and one other member of his four-person crew were still sidelined from flying, awaiting medical clearance.
He didn’t want to talk about the crash, especially not with his father, who probably thought Ryan should have been able to prevent it.
“How’s Caldwell Aviation?” he asked instead. “Are you able to take off the time you need so you can be here for Diane?”
The irony of the question didn’t escape him.
“It’s a slow time of year,” his father said. “We usually have afew sightseeing flights, maybe some heli-ski tours, but it’s not as busy as the summertime.”
After moving to Idaho, his father had purchased two small prop engine planes and a helicopter and rented a hangar at the small county airport, creating Caldwell Aviation.
Ryan knew he flew small private commuter trips around the area, and sometimes took tourists and hunters on trips into remote areas of northern Idaho.
“I’ve got a good staff who are handling everything in my absence. We’ve had to cancel a few things and rescheduled others so I can focus on Diane for now.”
“That’s good,” Ryan said, instead of what hewantedto say.
Where was this performative show of spousal concern when the mother of your children was dying of cancer?
“You know, son, I can always use more help. If you’d like to take up a few flights while you’re in the area, we can set you up. It wouldn’t take you long to learn the ropes on either of our planes or the helicopter.”
While he wanted to get back up in the air with a fierce ache and knew it was only strict military guidelines, not capability, keeping him sidelined, he had zero interest in helping out his father.
“Audrey is my priority while I’m here.”
“Totally get that. But she’s in school, plus she’s got that babysitting thing after school for Kim’s boss, from what I understand. That will leave you with a big chunk of free time on your hands.”
Yeah. He had thought of that, wondering how he would fill his time over the next three weeks. He wasn’t good at sitting still, something his father probably knew about him.
“I’ll have to see once the dust settles.”
Audrey giggled suddenly and he looked over to see she wasshowing Diane something on her phone. He heard a song clip and guessed it was a social media video of some kind.
The two of them both laughed at the same time, though Diane’s laugh turned into a wince.
