Part 4 — A woman who came to a blind date was slapped by her ex-husband in front of everyone, but one question from me immediately erased her smile

I immediately called airport security.

I made the second call to the police.

And the third to Nora’s grandmother.

“The child is with me,” she told me. “The door is locked. Do not worry.”

Ariel stood beside me and held the phone so tightly that her fingers turned white.

“John, I will not let you get lost in this.”

“You cannot lose me. I choose myself where I stand.”

Leah put the papers into her bag. Her movements were quick but precise.

“No one will go to the old terminal alone,” she said. “Neither will you.”

“The message says that I should come alone.”

“That is exactly why we will all go.”

They were already putting Caleb into the police car when he called to me through the window.

“You have no idea whom you are fighting!”

I went up to the car, but stopped at a sufficient distance.

“For the first time in my life, I agree with that.”

“Ariel was always lying to you.”

Ariel stopped standing behind me and stepped forward.

“No, Caleb. I simply no longer told you what you wanted to hear.”

His face tensed.

The car moved away.

That night in the police station, the hours passed as if the hands of the wall clock were moving through mud. Documents were spread out in Leah’s room. Michelle stood by the window and looked outside every few minutes.

“Why didn’t you tell me that everything was this bad?” I asked Ariel.

“Because people always want you to save them. When you tell them that you cannot save yourself, they leave.”

“I do not leave the crew even during a flight.”

She smiled for the first time.

“Then you chose your profession well.”

At two o’clock at night, an investigator entered the room.

“The message came again. This time they sent a photograph.”

The old terminal was visible in the photograph. Miranda, Caleb’s business partner, stood by the wall. Behind her was the man whom the camera had recorded near Nora’s school.

Leah looked at the photograph.

“That is Daniel. Caleb’s head of security.”

“Was Caleb giving him orders?” I asked.

“Possibly. But we need evidence.”

At that same moment, the investigator placed my phone on the table.

“John, we ask you to call Daniel. He must hear your voice and believe that you are coming alone.”

The call was made at ten minutes past four in the morning.

“I will come to the old terminal,” I said.

“Alone.”

“Alone.”

“If I see the police, the child will disappear.”

My fingers touched the small copper wing.

“Do not touch Nora.”

“Then follow the rules.”

The call ended.

At five in the morning we arrived at the terminal. The old baggage belt stood in the dust, paint was peeling from the walls, and one light on the ceiling was flickering.

I went forward.

The others hid in the shadows.

Daniel appeared ten minutes later. He held a phone in his hand. Miranda was walking behind him.

“Where is the child?” I asked.

“She is safe,” Miranda said. “But first we need to talk to you.”

“No. Nora first.”

Daniel reached toward a weapon.

At that moment the lights came on.

Police officers came out from both sides.

Miranda tried to escape, but Leah blocked her way.

“It is over,” she told her.

“You will not be able to prove anything.”

Michelle raised her phone high.

“Everything was recorded.”

Daniel’s face turned pale.

Later, in the investigative room of the station, they played Miranda her own voice. In the recording she said that first they would take Ariel’s property, and then demand custody of the child. She said that false evidence against John would be enough, because “no one would believe a lone pilot.”

Miranda denied it at first.

“That is not my voice.”

The investigator played the recording from the beginning.

Her own laughter sounded.

Miranda lowered her head.

“Turn it off.”

“Why?” I asked. “Do you not recognize your own words?”

For the first time she looked at me like a person who no longer had an answer.

“Caleb forced me.”

“He said that too.”

I was not happy about their fear.

I was only tired of the fact that every evil had another person’s name, but they still made the decisions themselves.

In the following weeks everything slowly fell into order. Cases were opened against Caleb and Miranda. Daniel gave testimony. Nora’s school introduced new security rules. Ariel’s property was released from the temporarily blocked accounts, while the forged power of attorney was finally invalidated by examination.

Caleb’s lawyer called me one day.

“My client is ready for a deal.”

“I am not a negotiating party.”

“He wants to apologize to Ariel.”

“Then let him write to her. I cannot promise an answer.”

“John, you understand that all this may last for years, don’t you?”

“I understand.”

“And still you do not want an agreement?”

“I no longer want to buy peace at the price of someone else’s fear.”

Three months later I was standing in Nora’s small room. The first frost of winter was on the window. Colored pencils lay on the floor beside the bed. Nora handed me a sheet of paper.

“This is you,” she told me.

There was an airplane in the drawing, and beside it three people: Nora, Ariel, and me. Above us she had drawn an enormous yellow sun.

“Why am I so big?” I asked.

“Because when we are afraid, you check the door.”

Ariel stood at the door. She held a laundry basket in her hands, and her hair was awkwardly tied up. It was the most ordinary sight I had ever seen her in.

“Do you check the door every evening?” I asked.

“Only twice.”

“That is already progress.”

She laughed.

We moved to a new city, to a small house from which the sea was visible, but it took no more than twenty minutes to reach the airport. I still flew, but on my days off I went to Nora’s school. Ariel opened her own small consulting business and, for the first time, had a workplace whose door she locked herself with a key.

One evening I was preparing dinner in the kitchen when an unknown number appeared on my phone.

Ariel looked at the screen.

“It is Caleb’s lawyer.”

“Will you answer?”

She thought for a while.

“No.”

The call ended.

Then a message came: “He only needs five minutes. He says he has changed.”

Ariel turned off the screen.

“I am no longer his last chance,” she said.

“I know.”

“And you?”

“Neither am I.”

That night Nora attached the drawing to the refrigerator with a magnet. The magnet was shaped like a small airplane and had a broken tail. I lowered my head again, touched the copper wing under my shirt, and realized for the first time that this object from my father was no longer only a memory of flying.

It had brought me back to the ground that evening when everything collapsed in the air.

I went up to the window.

The harbor lights fell onto the water. No one in the house was afraid to open the door. No one needed an escape plan. No one had to ask permission to live peacefully.

Ariel stood beside me.

“John?”

“Yes?”

“Will you make the coffee tomorrow morning?”

“Only if you talk to me for more than twenty seconds.”

She rested her head on my shoulder.

“Now I have my whole life.”

The small copper wing grew warm against my heart.

And for the first time I did not want to fly anywhere.