Why did they use a chain drive instead of a direct drive? Whether Kittyhawk was chosen for the wind or the sand? Whether Orville was actually the better pilot or if Wilbur just got less credit?" He paused. I got 8 out of 11. She graded me.
What was your grade? She said B+ was actually quite good for a maintenance person. He said she used the phrase quite good in that tone she has. Sloan laughed. It came out genuine and unguarded in the way that things come out when you're standing in a quiet space with someone you've stopped performing for.
She hurt herself and didn't try to recover from it. She's nine, Sloan said. She's nine going on a problem I'm not equipped to solve. he said. They stood for a moment in the open door with the evening air coming in, cool and carrying the smell of jet fuel and autumn, which was a combination that should not have been pleasant and somehow was. "Can I ask you something?" she said.
She said it differently than she usually said it, not as a preamble to a business discussion, just as what it was. Yeah. he said. That morning before you fell asleep, when you finished the repair and documented everything and you knew the aircraft was safe, she looked at the tarmac. What did you think about right before you went to sleep? It was quiet for a moment long enough that she thought maybe he wasn't going to answer.
Then, Mia, he said, I thought about whether I was going to make it home before she woke up. He paused. I wasn't going to. So, I thought about what I was going to make her for breakfast. whether we had enough eggs. I thought I needed to pick up juice boxes on the way home.
He looked at the sky. That's what I was thinking about, not the aircraft. The aircraft was done. I was thinking about juice boxes. Sloan stood with that for a moment.
She thought about the version of herself that had walked into the hanger that morning. The version that had looked at a man thinking about juice boxes and decided he was lazy. She thought about how complete and certain that version had been in its judgment. and she thought about how that certainty had required her to not look at anything real because everything real contradicted it. I'm going to tell you something, she said. And I don't need you to respond to it.