I Bought A Plane Ticket To Surprise My Pilot Husband On Our Anniversary

with a scrap of gray flannel from his shirt pocket, his movements slow and deliberate.

“The gears are stripped on this, Mercy,” he said, his voice gravelly from forty years in the municipal garage. “He ran the machine without any oil, and now the teeth are gone.”

I touched my collarbone, my fingers finding the small hollow there where continue reading …