Grace said, and her voice had gone very small and very cold was on the news. Her aunt didn't answer, which was the answer. Grace walked to the couch on legs that didn't feel like hers, picked up the remote, and turned the television back on. And there it was on every channel. Transatlantic flight declares emergency over North Atlantic.
Captain incapacitated 217 souls on board, diverting to Greenland. She knew the flight number. She'd made her dad text it to her before he boarded. She always did. Meridian 447.
Grace Carter sat down on the floor in front of the television. And she did not cry and she did not scream because her father had taught her something the world had never bothered to teach anyone else about him. When everything falls apart, you get quiet and you get still and you find the one thing worth holding on to and you hold it. So she held on to the promise. I don't break promises to you, Gracie.
Not ever. Come home, Dad, she whispered to the screen. You promised. Come home. Switch, Ethan said, and Calin took the full weight of the yolk while he shook out his screaming arms for 90 precious seconds.
How are you doing that? She asked through gritted teeth. How are you so calm? I'm not calm. You look calm.
That's the trick. Ethan flexed his fingers, forcing blood back into them. Fear's still in there. You just don't let it get to your hands. You put it in a box, and you set the box on a high shelf, and you deal with it later on the ground with a bottle of something.
But not now. Right now, the box stays on the shelf. He glanced at her. You've got the same thing in you, Kalin. I've been watching.
You put your captain in a box 30 minutes ago so you could fly. That's not being cold. That's being strong. You'll open that box tonight and it'll hurt like hell, but you'll be alive to hurt. That's the deal we make.
Calin's eyes shown, but her hands never wavered. Is that what you did when you lost your family? Ethan went very still. Walter told you. You told me when you first sat down, you said you lost your wife on a plane.
He was quiet for a moment. Both of them holding the airplane up out of the sea by main strength. And then he said in a voice she almost couldn't hear. My wife was a flight attendant, Sarah. She was working a domestic hop, a little regional jet.
Nothing a milk run. Weather came in. The captain made a bad call. They went into a mountain in Colorado at 200 knots. His jaw worked.