Chapter 7 - The Final SaluteThe Black Hawk’s engines whined as they spooled up to takeoff RPM, generating a gale-force wind across the tarmac that whipped my hair around my face.
As I turned to walk toward the open cargo bay, my mother broke through the security barrier, ignoring the frantic warnings of the base guards.
"Claire! Wait! Please!" she cried, stumbling across the concrete, her designer handbag slipping from her shoulder and hitting the ground unheeded. "Don't leave like this! Let us... let us fix this! We can have dinner, we can talk—"
I stopped, turning slowly to face her. The woman who had whispered poison into my ear just twenty minutes ago, convinced of my inferiority, was now begging for a crumb of my attention.
"There's nothing to fix, Mom," I said, my voice entirely devoid of emotion. "You got what you wanted. You have a son who achieved your definition of success. Let that be enough."
My father stood frozen a few yards behind her, broken and hollowed out. The legacy he had spent forty years building—a legacy he thought he owned—had just flown out of his reach on a military helicopter he didn't have the clearance to board.
I turned my back on them, climbed up into the belly of the Black Hawk, and strapped myself into the jump seat.
May you like
General Vance climbed in behind me, securing the heavy cargo door as the aircraft lifted smoothly off the tarmac, banking sharply toward the Pacific.
Through the reinforced glass porthole, I watched the Coronado base shrink below us. I saw my brother standing alone on the stage, a tiny white figure against the vast gray expanse of the parade grounds. I saw my parents standing side by side, utterly alone in the middle of a cheering crowd, realizing too late what they had thrown away.
