Ran Away From His Sky
While packing Ethan's flight bag, I found a custom solo wings pin.
The engraving on the back read: For Lark, to celebrate your first solo.
Beneath the box sat the receipt for Skyler's flight school tuition, paid in full by Ethan, along with a photograph.
In the photo, she was sitting in the pilot's seat.
Ethan's gloved hand rested over hers on the control yoke.
Seven years ago, I had sat in that same seat.
Back then, I was one step away from my first solo flight, but Ethan talked me out of it again and again, always claiming it was "for my own good."
He said flying was dangerous, that someone had to stay home and take care of things.
I put down my logbook, pressed the wrinkles out of every one of his captain's uniforms, and spent seven years living by his flight schedule.
Only now did I finally understand.
It wasn't that he didn't want to take anyone flying.
He just didn't want to take me.
What made it even more absurd was that the night Skyler first flew through the clouds, I was alone in a hospital, losing our baby.
I called him over a dozen times.
At three in the morning, he finally called back, his voice flat and indifferent.
"I just took Lark through the clouds. Next time something comes up, give me a heads-up."
I put the wings pin back exactly where I found it, then pulled the crumpled ultrasound printout from the bottom of the drawer and tucked it inside the logbook that had been gathering dust for seven years.
This time, I wasn't going to wait for him to look back.
He convinced me to leave the pilot's seat, then turned around and put another woman in the sky.
So I would leave him and take back the sky that had always been mine.