The Little Girl Found a Paper Airplane Beneath Her Aunt’s Perfect Linen Closet… Then Her Missing Brother Sent Another Message

Chapter 2: The Door Behind the Mirror

Caleb caught the mirror before it swung shut.

Maren stood close enough to touch him.

June stood close enough to hear everything.

Behind the panel, Owen coughed.

Caleb pushed harder.

The mirror opened six inches.

A second door blocked the way.

Gray metal.

A keypad glowed beside it.

“Owen?”

“I’m here.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

His answer came too fast.

Caleb knew the difference between a brave answer and a true one.

He looked at June.

“Call Detective Price.”

His phone was in his jacket pocket.

June pulled it free with both hands.

She knew the detective’s name from the screen.

Maren reached toward her.

Caleb stepped between them.

“Stay back.”

“I can explain.”

“Then start with the code.”

“I don’t know it.”

“You looked at the keypad.”

“Anyone would.”

The second door shuddered.

Owen had put his shoulder against it.

“Dad?”

“I’m here, buddy.”

Maren closed her eyes.

For a moment, she looked older than Tessa had ever lived to be.

Caleb hated noticing that.

He hated that some part of him still wanted her to give him a harmless explanation.

June held the phone against her ear.

“Detective Price?”

Her voice shook.

Then it steadied.

“We found Owen.”

A pause.

“He’s inside Aunt Maren’s wall.”

Caleb examined the door.

It had been fitted into an old service passage.

The house had once belonged to a doctor who kept records in a fireproof room.

Maren had told them that over dinner months earlier.

At the time, Owen had wanted to see it.

She had said the room was sealed.

Caleb touched the latch housing.

The lock needed power.

The wiring ran through a narrow box above the frame.

“I can open this,” he said.

Maren’s eyes lifted.

“You’ll damage it.”

Caleb stared at her.

Owen was on the other side.

Maren swallowed.

“That’s not what I meant.”

He removed the cover with the small screwdriver on his key ring.

The screws were tight.

His fingers were shaking.

June came closer.

She put one hand against his back.

“You can fix things,” she said.

It was what Owen said whenever the heater clicked off in their apartment.

Caleb set the screwdriver firmly.

The cover came loose.

Inside, a release tab sat beside the lock.

He pressed it.

The door opened.

Owen stumbled forward.

Caleb caught him.

His son wore the blue sweatshirt he had worn to school yesterday.

There was a red mark on one cheek where he had slept against something hard.

Caleb felt no blood.

No broken bone.

Just a boy breathing against his chest.

June wrapped both arms around Owen’s waist.

“You made the wing wrong,” she said.

Owen gave a weak laugh.

“It worked.”

Caleb carried him into the hall.

The service room held a cot, a water bottle, a small lamp, and a plastic tray of food.

Someone had meant to keep him there.

Maren’s shoes remained planted beside the closet.

“I brought him dinner,” she whispered.

Caleb turned.

“You knew.”

“I was going to let him out.”

“When?”

She did not answer.

Detective Price’s voice sounded from the phone in June’s hand.

Officers were coming.

An ambulance too.

Caleb lowered Owen onto the carpet.

“What happened at school?”

Owen looked toward Maren.

She made a small motion with her head.

Caleb saw it.

“So did I,” June said.

Maren dropped her hand.

Owen held Caleb’s sleeve.

“She picked me up.”

“Why?”

“She said you’d been in an accident.”

Caleb closed his eyes once.

He had been under a furnace in a grocery store when Owen was taken.

His phone had been beside him.

Nobody had called.

“She showed me your name on the school paper,” Owen said.

Maren pressed her palm to the wall.

“The school knows me.”

Owen spoke over her.

“She told me you wanted me to wait here.”

“Why didn’t you come out?”

“She wanted the paper.”

Caleb looked at the airplane on the floor.

Owen had folded it from the document.

He had carried it in his sweatshirt pocket.

Maren had searched his backpack.

She had missed the pocket.

“When she saw me read it, she got scared,” Owen said.

Maren shook her head.

“That isn’t the whole story.”

“It’s enough for now,” Caleb said.

Owen pulled him closer.

“The date isn’t the only wrong thing.”

“What else?”

“The signature.”

“I saw it.”

“It isn’t Mom’s.”

“I know.”

Owen’s eyes filled.

“She practiced it.”

Caleb went still.

Owen pointed at Maren.

“I watched her practice Mom’s name.”

* * *

The first officers arrived before Caleb asked another question.

Detective Price came behind them.

She was in her forties, with tired eyes and a raincoat she had not bothered to button.

She had walked the drainage ditch with Caleb that morning.

Now she knelt beside Owen.

“My name is Detective Price.”

“I remember,” he said.

“I need to make sure you’re safe.”

Owen looked at Caleb.

Caleb nodded.

A medic checked Owen while Price separated the family from Maren.

Maren did not resist.

She asked for her lawyer.

Price told her she could call one.

Another officer remained with her.

Caleb wanted to hear every word she said.

Price asked him to stay with Owen instead.

That was the first sensible instruction he had heard all day.

The medic found dehydration and exhaustion.

Owen accepted a paper cup of water.

June refused to let go of his hand.

When the medic asked her to move, she moved six inches.

The airplane lay where it had fallen.

Price photographed it before touching it.

She photographed the closet.

The mirror.

The keypad.

The room beyond.

Then she placed the airplane in a clear evidence sleeve.

Caleb watched the pencil word disappear behind plastic.

HOME.

“Can he tell you what happened?” Price asked.

The medic said Owen could answer a few questions.

Price kept them short.

Maren had signed him out at 10:42 yesterday morning.

She said Caleb was at a hospital.

She drove Owen to her house.

In her upstairs office, he saw a stack of papers.

At the top sat a page with his mother’s name.

Owen knew the signature was wrong because Tessa had taught him how she made the first letter.

A long stem.

A short cross.

She had drawn it on birthday cards and lunch notes.

Owen asked Maren why the date came after Tessa died.

Maren told him he had misunderstood.

He took the page.

She noticed.

Then she led him into the service room, saying she wanted to show him something from his mother.

The door locked behind him.

Owen had shouted.

Maren had told him nobody could hear from the hall.

Once, another woman brought him food.

Owen did not know her name.

She wore a green coat and smelled like oranges.

That was all he could say.

Price wrote it down.

“Why the paper airplane?” she asked.

Owen glanced at June.

“She sees things on the floor.”

June looked offended.

“I see other things.”

“I knew you’d look,” he said.

He had found a loose seam along the mirror panel.

He spent hours working the edge of the document through it.

When June’s voice reached him in the hall, he pushed the folded plane beneath the closet door.

Caleb remembered how still she had stood.

She had been listening before he entered.

He put an arm around both children.

The medic advised an evaluation at the hospital.

Caleb agreed.

He wanted them out of that house.

Price gave him a case number.

She also warned him that the paper might not be the original document.

The printing looked real.

The signature needed examination.

Other records would matter more.

Caleb appreciated the honesty.

For thirty-one hours, people had offered certainty they did not have.

At the hospital, Owen slept through most of the examination.

June slept sitting upright against Caleb.

He watched the rise and fall of their shoulders.

His own phone kept lighting up.

Search volunteers.

A neighbor.

His supervisor.

Tessa’s father, Howard.

Caleb answered Howard first.

“We found him.”

Howard made a sound Caleb had never heard from him.

Then he asked where they were.

The call ended quickly.

Howard had always liked quick calls.

He believed work solved most problems.

He had owned three pharmacies, sold two, and kept a calendar full of appointments after retirement.

Tessa had inherited that habit.

She used to leave notes on the refrigerator with boxes Caleb could check.

He had kept her last grocery list.

It was still inside a kitchen drawer.

Price came to the hospital near midnight.

She had obtained the school sign-out record.

Maren’s name was on it.

Beside it was a note saying Caleb had authorized the pickup.

The school had called the number on its emergency contact sheet.

Someone answered.

That number was not Caleb’s.

It had been changed eleven days earlier.

Caleb stared at Price.

“Who changed it?”

“The office record shows Maren submitted the update.”

“She was allowed?”

“She was listed as an emergency contact.”

Caleb remembered signing forms after Tessa died.

Maren had helped him with them.

He could barely recall what he had eaten that week.

She had stood beside him in the school office, handling the papers.

Price did not ask him to remember more.

She had requested the original forms.

She had also called the trust company named on the airplane.

That company managed money Tessa had left for the children.

Caleb knew the account existed.

He had never touched it.

Tessa wanted Owen and June to have choices when they grew up.

She had named Maren trustee because Maren understood money.

Caleb fixed boilers.

At the time, the arrangement had seemed sensible.

Price turned her notebook.

“The transfer page has a second signature.”

Caleb looked at the photocopy in her hand.

Below Tessa’s forged name was his own.

It was dated three weeks ago.

He had signed nothing.

The lie had his name on it too.

* * *

By morning, Owen was cleared to go home.

He walked slowly.

June carried his hospital bag as if it were treasure.

At their apartment, Caleb saw everything Owen had missed.

His sneakers beside the couch.

A half-built cardboard bridge.

The cereal box with a drawing of a tiger on it.

He had passed these things for two days without seeing them.

Now each one looked painfully alive.

Owen went to the couch.

June sat beside him.

Neither child wanted the bedroom yet.

Caleb made toast.

He burned the first four slices.

June ate one anyway.

“It tastes like camping,” she said.

They had never been camping.

Owen smiled at her.

Price called before noon.

Investigators had secured Maren’s office with a warrant.

They found a printer history matching the transfer page.

They found several sheets bearing attempts at Tessa’s signature.

They also found a schedule of payments to Maren’s development company.

Price did not share amounts over the phone.

She asked Caleb to bring any genuine samples of Tessa’s signature.

He opened the kitchen drawer.

The grocery list was there.

So were birthday cards, tax forms, and a note Tessa had left inside his work boot when he turned forty.

He chose three signed cards and a bank document.

He left the boot note where it was.

At the station, Price met him with an evidence officer.

They copied the papers.

Caleb kept the originals for the moment.

A document examiner would compare them with the transfer page.

Bank and trust records would establish what had actually moved.

No one promised him a verdict by dinner.

Across the station lobby, Howard stood beside a vending machine.

His face looked gray.

“I called her,” he said.

Caleb stopped.

“Who?”

“Maren.”

“When?”

“After you told me Owen was found.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing useful.”

Howard crushed the paper cup in his hand.

“I told her to tell the truth.”

Caleb did not know what Howard had believed before that call.

He was afraid to ask.

Howard looked at the evidence envelope.

“I made her trustee.”

“Tessa named her.”

“I recommended her.”

That was true.

Howard had said Maren was practical.

He had said Caleb had enough to carry.

Caleb had let the words stand.

Howard swallowed.

“She told me you’d been missing work.”

“I was looking for my son.”

“She told me before he disappeared.”

Caleb felt the floor settle strangely beneath him.

Maren had been building a story.

Missed shifts.

Late bills.

A father who needed help.

Howard reached toward him, then lowered his hand.

“I should have called you.”

“Yes,” Caleb said.

There was no kinder answer.

Price came through the security door.

She had another question.

Caleb followed her into an interview room.

Maren had filed a request in family court that morning.

She wanted temporary care of both children.

Her statement said Caleb was exhausted, financially unstable, and making accusations that frightened June.

The filing had been prepared before Owen was found.

Its attached papers carried dates from the previous week.

Caleb read that sentence twice.

“Can she do this?”

“She can file,” Price said.

“That doesn’t mean she wins.”

Caleb had no lawyer.

Maren had two.

Price gave him the number for a legal aid office and a victim advocate.

She could not give him legal advice.

She could give the advocate his case number.

Caleb called from the station lobby.

A woman named Dana answered.

She asked about the children first.

Then she asked whether Caleb had a safe place to stay.

He did.

A lockable door.

A neighbor who knew them.

He had not felt safe there since Owen vanished.

Dana listened.

She said an attorney could review the family filing that afternoon.

She also said a judge would want facts about Owen’s recovery, not Maren’s polished account of Caleb’s grief.

Caleb went home.

A black car was parked across the street.

He noticed because it had been there that morning.

Its engine started when he reached his building.

It drove away.

Maybe a reporter.

Maybe somebody else.

He called Price.

She logged the description.

Ten minutes later, his supervisor called.

Someone had asked whether Caleb handled company accounts.

Someone had suggested he might be under investigation for theft.

The supervisor did not believe it.

He wanted Caleb to know.

Caleb stood in the kitchen, holding the phone.

Maren had reached into his job.

Into his children’s school.

Into Tessa’s name.

There was not much left she had not touched.

Owen appeared in the doorway.

“Are we going back there?”

“No.”

“Even if she says we have to?”

“No.”

Caleb set down the phone.

He knelt so his eyes met Owen’s.

“The people handling this know where you were.”

Owen looked at his hands.

“I should’ve told her I didn’t see the date.”

“You noticed something important.”

“She locked me in.”

“That was her choice.”

June came in carrying the cardboard bridge.

She set it on the table.

“We need the last piece,” she said.

Owen took a chair.

Caleb found the glue.

For twenty minutes, they held cardboard in place while it dried.

June made the river too wide.

Owen said the bridge would fall.

Then he added another support.

Caleb watched their heads bend together.

His phone rang.

It was Price.

The woman in the green coat had come forward with a lawyer.

She had worked at Maren’s house.

She said Maren paid her to bring Owen food and keep quiet.

She had kept messages.

One was dated five days before Owen vanished.

It told her to prepare the service room.

The plan had begun before the school pickup.

Maren had ordered every part of it.

* * *

The emergency hearing took place two days later.

Caleb wore the only suit he owned.

Tessa had bought it for Howard’s retirement dinner.

The sleeves were a little short now.

June noticed.

“You look like a magician,” she said.

“I hope that helps.”

Owen stayed with a neighbor they trusted.

June wanted to go with Caleb.

Dana, the advocate, arranged a child specialist to speak with her separately if the court needed her account.

Caleb told June she did not have to repeat her story to a room full of adults.

She seemed relieved.

The courthouse hallway smelled of floor polish and coffee.

Howard waited outside the courtroom.

He stood when Caleb approached.

“I brought the school records,” he said.

“How did you get them?”

“The school gave copies to the detective.”

He looked embarrassed.

“I only brought my own.”

He held up a folder.

Inside were letters from Tessa.

One named Maren trustee.

Another described what Tessa wanted for the children.

College if they chose it.

Help with a first apartment.

Money to leave an unsafe job.

Nothing about Maren’s company.

Howard had found the letters in his home safe.

Caleb took the folder.

“Thank you.”

Howard nodded once.

Maren arrived with her lawyers.

She wore navy.

Her face showed no makeup Caleb could see.

She looked tired enough to seem human.

When she spotted him, she stopped.

“Is Owen all right?”

Caleb looked at her.

She had fed his son through a door.

She had heard him asking to come out.

She had gone downstairs afterward and served June soup.

“He’s home,” Caleb said.

Maren’s lawyer touched her elbow.

They went inside.

The judge began with the children’s immediate safety.

Caleb’s attorney, a woman named Ellis, submitted the hospital discharge papers.

Owen had been examined.

June was safe with Caleb.

Detective Price had filed a statement describing where Owen was found.

Maren’s lawyer objected to conclusions still under investigation.

The judge read the factual portions.

Maren’s lawyer argued that Caleb had been under severe strain.

He had missed work.

He had searched without sleep.

He had forced open a wall in Maren’s home.

Maren had cared for the family since Tessa’s death.

She had paid for school supplies and helped with bills.

Caleb knew each example was true.

That made the argument harder to hear.

Maren spoke when asked.

“I love those children,” she said.

Her voice broke.

“I made a terrible decision about Owen.”

She paused.

Her lawyer did not stop her.

“I was afraid Caleb would take them away from everyone who could help.”

Caleb looked at Ellis.

She wrote something down.

Maren went on.

“June was already frightened of him.”

“That’s false,” Caleb said.

Ellis touched his sleeve.

He sat back.

Maren’s lawyer asked the judge to appoint an independent person to assess the children.

That sounded reasonable.

For a moment, Caleb understood how she had persuaded Howard.

She placed one true fact beside a lie.

Then she spoke softly.

Ellis stood.

She did not raise her voice.

“The court has an independent witness,” she said.

“Detective Price found Owen behind a locked door.”

She laid out the timeline.

Maren had signed Owen out of school.

She had told him Caleb was injured.

She had kept him in the service room.

She had filed her request for custody while he was missing.

Maren’s lawyer said no criminal charge had yet been proved.

Ellis agreed.

Then she showed the court the document Owen had folded.

The original remained with police.

The court received a certified copy and Price’s account of its recovery.

Tessa’s signature appeared eight months after her death.

Caleb’s appeared three weeks ago.

The transfer request directed money from the children’s trust toward Maren’s development company.

The judge examined the page.

“Is this the basis for your financial concern about Mr. Mercer?” she asked.

Maren’s lawyer hesitated.

“No, Your Honor.”

“But it concerns the children’s assets.”

“Yes.”

Maren lowered her eyes.

Ellis had another record.

The trust company had confirmed that a transfer request was submitted.

It had not approved the full amount.

Its compliance staff flagged the dates and froze the transaction.

That morning, a company representative supplied an affidavit and account history.

The paper airplane was no longer just Owen’s proof that he was there.

It was the sheet Maren had needed back.

Maren’s lawyer argued she had intended to borrow against her own share of a family investment.

The trust company records showed no such share.

Ellis let the judge read them.

Then she presented the independent confirmation.

The house employee’s messages described Owen’s confinement.

The school log showed Maren collected him.

Phone records placed her at the school and at her house that day.

No single piece had to carry the whole story.

Together, they did.

The judge denied Maren’s request.

She ordered no contact with Owen or June while the criminal investigation proceeded.

She directed an independent review of the trust.

Caleb kept care of his children.

The ruling took less time than the two days he had spent fearing it.

Outside, Price waited with a prosecutor.

Maren walked between her lawyers.

The prosecutor asked her to stop.

He explained that she was being taken into custody on charges connected to Owen’s removal and confinement.

Other financial charges could follow.

Maren looked at Caleb.

“You think love is enough,” she said.

Caleb felt Howard shift beside him.

For years, Caleb had worried that love might not be enough.

Love had not paid the rent.

Love had not kept Tessa alive.

Love had not put a lock on the service room.

He answered her carefully.

“I know what it cannot excuse.”

Maren’s face hardened.

The officer led her away.

Months passed before the criminal case ended.

Records from the trust company showed she had tried to divert money as her firm approached default on several loans.

The forged signatures had been prepared in her office.

The house employee’s messages matched payments from Maren’s account.

Maren accepted a plea agreement.

The court ordered restitution and imposed a prison sentence.

The employee cooperated and faced consequences for her own part.

Caleb did not attend every hearing.

He attended the one where the judge heard Owen’s statement, read by the prosecutor at Owen’s request.

Owen wrote that he had made the plane because June would believe him.

After the hearing, he asked Caleb whether he could have the original back.

The evidence officer said the case had to finish first.

Owen nodded.

He was learning that some doors took longer to open.

* * *

Winter came early that year.

Caleb bought a secondhand coat for Owen.

Its zipper stuck halfway up.

June declared this an improvement.

“It gives him room for snacks.”

Owen tried to hide crackers inside it.

They fell out at the bus stop.

For the first time in months, Caleb laughed before either child did.

Their apartment stayed crowded.

The kitchen drawer still jammed.

The heater still knocked when it started.

Caleb repaired that heater on a Sunday afternoon.

Owen handed him tools.

June inspected the work with a flashlight.

“You missed a screw,” she said.

He had.

She celebrated for an hour.

Owen returned to school with a plan made by the counselor and Caleb.

He could leave class when the hallway became too loud.

He used that permission twice.

Afterward, he preferred to stay.

June sometimes checked the closet before bed.

Caleb let her.

He checked it too.

One evening she asked whether all closets were safe.

“Most are,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“We open them.”

She thought about that.

Then she opened the door herself.

Inside were towels, a mop, and her lost yellow glove.

She held it up like a trophy.

The trust review took months.

The company stopped the attempted transfer.

Maren’s firm failed anyway.

Restitution came from the sale of her property and other assets, though it did not cover every cost her actions had caused.

Caleb did not count on it.

He kept working.

His supervisor had held his place.

Two coworkers had covered his shifts without making speeches about it.

When the first payment arrived, Caleb met with an independent adviser recommended by Ellis.

He had learned enough to ask questions.

The children’s money would remain in accounts with oversight and regular statements.

It would belong to them when they were old enough to decide what to do with it.

Howard offered to add to it.

Caleb did not refuse on the children’s behalf.

He asked Howard to explain the gift to Owen and June when the time came.

Howard agreed.

He began visiting on Saturdays.

At first, he brought expensive toys.

June liked the boxes more.

Owen asked him to help finish the cardboard bridge.

Howard sat on the floor in his pressed trousers.

He had no idea how to hold the pieces.

Owen showed him.

After that, Howard brought lunch and asked what needed doing.

One Saturday, he found Caleb alone in the kitchen.

The children were outside with the neighbor.

“I believed her,” Howard said.

Caleb rinsed a plate.

“I know.”

“I told myself I was protecting them.”

Caleb set the plate down.

Howard’s apology had been waiting between them for months.

He did not want to make it easy.

He also did not want to keep carrying it for Howard.

“You should have asked me,” Caleb said.

“Yes.”

“And when I said they were safe, you should have believed me.”

Howard nodded.

“I’m sorry.”

Caleb accepted the words.

He did not erase the weeks that came before them.

“You can be their grandfather,” he said.

“But decisions about them come through me.”

Howard looked toward the window.

Outside, June was directing traffic for Owen’s cardboard cars.

“That’s fair,” he said.

In spring, Owen’s school held a small aviation day.

Children built paper planes and tested them in the gym.

Owen did not want to go.

Caleb told him he could skip it.

June told him her plane needed a mechanic.

That changed the matter.

Owen adjusted the wings.

Her plane flew twenty-three feet.

His flew eleven.

June reminded him of the result through dinner.

He said hers had been helped by a favorable breeze.

They were indoors.

She asked him to explain the breeze.

He could not.

That night, Owen found Caleb washing dishes.

“Can we get the plane back?” he asked.

“The one from Maren’s house?”

Owen nodded.

Caleb had spoken with Price the week before.

The case had closed.

The airplane could be returned after the final evidence process.

“I asked,” Caleb said.

“They’ll let us know.”

Owen watched a bubble slide down a plate.

“I don’t want the writing on the other side.”

“We could put it away.”

“I want HOME.”

Caleb shut off the water.

They stood together in the small kitchen.

Tessa used to make the children write their names on everything they built.

A crooked birdhouse.

A snowman that lasted one afternoon.

A bridge across a cardboard river.

Owen had kept her habit.

He had written HOME when he was afraid he might never see it again.

“We can keep the word,” Caleb said.

“And keep the paper where you choose.”

Owen considered that.

“Can it stay folded?”

“Of course.”

When the envelope arrived, Caleb waited for Owen.

He did not open it alone.

June waited too.

Owen unfolded the evidence sleeve and took out the plane with care.

It had lost some of its shape.

He pressed one crease.

Then another.

June reached for the left wing.

“May I?”

Owen handed it to her.

She made the wing a little shorter.

He smiled.

“Now it’ll turn home.”

They placed it on a shelf beside the cardboard bridge.

Nobody flew it.

Not yet.

* * *

Five years later, June stood before another white closet door.

This one was in the house Caleb had bought after a long search and a great deal of paperwork.

It had three bedrooms.

The kitchen drawer opened smoothly.

The heater still made a noise.

Caleb had decided he liked the sound.

June was twelve.

Owen was fourteen.

He had become taller than Howard and enjoyed mentioning it.

The closet held towels, winter boots, and a box of old school projects.

June stood with a sheet of blank paper.

Owen leaned against the hall wall.

“You’re folding it backward,” he said.

“I know.”

“It won’t fly.”

“You said that five years ago.”

“And I was right then.”

“You were wrong about the breeze.”

“That breeze was real.”

Caleb watched from the kitchen.

They had returned to this argument so often that it had become part of the house.

June finished the plane.

Its left wing was shorter.

She set it on the floor before the closet.

For a second, Caleb saw the other hallway.

The polished walls.

Maren’s face.

A white point of paper against June’s sock.

Then June lifted her new plane.

She opened the closet door.

Nothing waited behind it except ordinary things.

That mattered.

She closed the door and stepped back.

“Ready?”

Owen moved aside.

Caleb moved with him.

June launched the plane.

It curved past the kitchen, touched the table, and landed beside the window.

“HOME,” Owen said.

June grinned.

“That’s where it was going.”

On the shelf above the table stood the first airplane.

Its pencil word had faded.

The meaning had not.

Owen had come home.

June had trusted what she saw.

Howard had learned to ask.

Caleb had learned that accepting help could still leave the choices in his hands.

He picked up June’s plane.

He straightened its bent nose.

Outside, evening light warmed the front steps.

Inside, his children argued over whose turn it was to make dinner.

Caleb set the plane back in June’s hand.

“Send it again,” he said.

She did.

THE END