that I would understand better later as the posture of someone trained to maintain situational awareness at all times, in all environments. I knew she flew something fast and important. I knew it required years of training and regular recertification and the kind of mental focus that meant she sometimes woke up in the middle of the night and sat in the kitchen with a glass of water and a look on her face that I had learned not to interrupt.
She had never told me to be proud of
her publicly. She had never said tell people about this or let them know. That wasn’t how she operated. But she had also never told me to be quiet about it, and Heroes’ Week was Heroes’ Week, and she was my hero, and when I stood at the front of Mr. Reynolds’s third-period English class with the photograph folded carefully in my notebook, I told the truth because it was the truth.
The laughter started before I finished the sentence.
I need to describe Mr. Reynolds the way he actually
