I knew
the stories about his boyhood in the Ozarks.
I knew how he’d met my mother, at a church picnic, over a spilled pitcher of lemonade.
I knew his favorite songs and the same three jokes he told at every Thanksgiving.
But I stood in that gate area, watching a man in four gold stripes look at him with something close to worship, and I understood how much of him I had never known.
“Please,” I said softly. “Whatever it is, I want to understand.”
For several long seconds, he said nothing.
Then he took a deep breath, and turned the keychain over in his hand, and showed me the back.
The captain leaned closer.
And when he saw the faded number there, he smiled through his tears.
“That’s mine,” Captain Brock Donnelly said. “I was number one.”
Chapter 3: Hangar 3
Nobody in that gate area moved.
The stroller family
