“You don’t have to explain,” she said with satisfaction. “Just don’t try to make me blow off my obligations when you won’t do the same.”

Will swung the Expedition into the general aviation area. Lines of single- and twin-engine planes waited on the concrete apron, tethered to rings set in the cement, their wheels chocked against the wind. Just seeing them lightened his heart.

“You’re the one who encouraged me to be more social,” Karen said in the strained voice she’d used earlier.

“I’m not joining the Junior League when I grow up,” Abby said from the backseat. “I’m going to be a pilot.”

“I thought you were going to be a doctor,” said Will.

“A flying doctor, silly!”

“Flying doctor sure beats housewife,” Karen said sotto voce.

Will took his wife’s hand as he braked beside his Beechcraft Baron 58. “She’s only five, babe. One day she’ll understand what you sacrificed.”

“She’s almost six. And sometimes I don’t understand it myself.”

He squeezed Karen’s hand and gave her an understanding look. Then he got out, unstrapped Abby from her child seat, and set her on the apron.

The Baron was ten years old, but she was as fine a piece of machinery as you could ask for, and Will owned her outright. From the twin Continental engines to the state-of-the-art avionics package, he had spared neither time nor expense to make her as safe and airworthy as any billionaire’s Gulfstream IV. She was white with blue stripes, and her tail read N-2WJ. The “WJ” was a touch of vanity, but Abby loved hearing the controllers call out November-Two-Whiskey-Juliet over the radio. When they were flying together, she sometimes made him call her Alpha Juliet.

As Abby ran toward the Baron, Will took a suit bag and a large leather sample case from the back of the Expedition and set them on the concrete. He had driven out during his lunch hour and checked the plane from nose to tail, and also loaded his golf clubs. When he reached back into the SUV for his laptop computer case, Karen picked up the sample case and suit bag and carried them to the plane. The Baron seated four passengers aft of the cockpit, so there was plenty of room. As they loaded the luggage, Karen said: