Chapter 14
PATRICK
The mornings at the restoration bay became the only part of the day that made sense.
Each day, I slipped out of my office before the sun was fully up, my briefcase stuffed into the trunk of my car, the streets of Seattle still mostly asleep as I made my way across the city to the museum.
I didn’t have a plan, not exactly. I just needed to be near her world, and the Ford Trimotor was as close as I could get without actually facing Sadie herself.
I knew a lot about planes. I had built a company that designed and built jet engines.
But restoring an old vintage aircraft from one hundred years ago required a skillset I had never completely developed.
My knowledge and understanding could get me halfway there, but the real work took the patience of knowing the historical quirks of a bygone era, as well as the skill of learning from old-timers who still remembered what things used to be like before computers and advanced technology.
Still, I picked up the work quickly. It helped that I was obsessive by nature.
Once I decided to do something, I didn’t stop until I understood every piece of it, and the restoration of Sadie’s beloved Ford Trimotor was no exception.
There was something soothing about the rhythm of the work, the precision it required.
For those few hours each morning, my mind quieted down, focused solely on the mechanical dance of tightening bolts, cleaning old wiring, and inspecting every inch of the aircraft that had become so much more than just metal to Sadie.
It became the center of my world in a way, a small piece of redemption, a way for me to show her I understood the importance of her passion without ever saying a word.
I worked methodically, making sure every task was done to perfection, even though she didn’t know I was the one doing it.
She didn’t even suspect. In the beginning, she’d mentioned that someone had been working on her plane while she was at Holbrook, but she never once mentioned me, never seemed to put together that I might be the culprit behind the mysterious progress on her pet project.
I preferred to keep it that way for now.
Afternoons at Holbrook were a different beast. I spent those hours at my desk, trying to manage a company while half my mind remained in the restoration bay with Sadie.
My mind wandered constantly to her, wondering if she’d seen the new components installed, if she’d noticed how smoothly the wiring had been upgraded or the way the corroded panels were now pristine, either because I had scrubbed away the corrosion or I had replaced the panels.
The smallest signs of progress felt like major victories to me, even if they were invisible to everyone else.
It had been two weeks since I’d started this routine, two weeks since I last saw Sadie outside of a fleeting glimpse as she drove her car past mine one evening.
I missed her every day. Her presence was an ache in my chest that didn’t fade no matter how many reports I signed or how many hours I spent at the restoration site.
It wasn’t enough, this secret, one-sided gesture.
I wanted more. I wanted her to see me, to hear me, and for us to move forward. I was tired of being in limbo.
The rest of the day felt like a blur of meetings and conference calls.
I wasn’t really present. I did what I had to do, but my thoughts kept drifting to Sadie, imagining her face as she found each improvement on her Trimotor.
She had a habit of keeping a logbook near the plane, where she noted every adjustment.
I often wondered what she wrote, if she ever questioned who had done the work.
There were times I almost wanted to sign my name to something, to leave behind a clue that it had been me, but I couldn’t bring myself to risk ruining the fragile trust I was still trying to rebuild.
As I was wrapping up the final meeting for the day, my phone buzzed.
My first thought was that it might be Sadie, but I knew better.
She never called. The knot of disappointment tightened briefly, and then I saw Ellen’s name flashing across the screen.
I stepped out into the hallway, answering quietly.
“What is it?”
“Got a problem,” she said in her no-nonsense tone. I could already tell by her voice it was something to do with the restoration. “We’re missing a part for the Trimotor. We need an original magneto housing to finish the ignition system.”
I blinked, confused. “I thought we had everything we needed. Wasn’t that the last major component?”
“It was,” Ellen replied. “But when I went to pull it this morning, the damn thing was cracked. I don’t think it can be salvaged, not without more time and resources than we’ve got. We’re at a standstill until we find a replacement.”
I leaned back against the office wall, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Do we know where to find one?”
“Well, that’s just it.” Ellen’s frustration was obvious. “They don’t make them anymore, and trying to get an exact match for that particular model isn’t going to be easy. It could take months. Maybe longer.”
Months. The word echoed in the cavernous space of my mind, reverberating with a hollow sound that matched the emptiness in my chest. I didn’t want the restoration to drag out any longer than it already had, each passing day feeling like another layer of dust settling on something precious that needed to shine.
The idea of prolonging it, of giving Sadie yet another reason to feel frustrated, gnawed at me with the persistence of a rust spot spreading across pristine metal, a slow cancer of delay that I couldn’t bear to let take root.
“There has to be another way. I mean, can’t we modify something else? Or order a custom part?”
“I’m looking into it, but even that might take weeks,” she replied, sighing into the phone. “I thought you should know. She’s going to figure it out soon, and when she does, she’s not gonna be happy.”
I gritted my teeth, the weight of Ellen’s words sinking in.
I was trying so hard to make things right, to quietly support Sadie from the sidelines, but here was another obstacle thrown in my path, another reminder of how little control I had.
But this time, it wasn’t something I could fix by just working harder in the early mornings. This needed something more.
“I’ll figure it out,” I said, my tone firm, more to convince myself than Ellen.
“You’d better move fast,” she warned before hanging up.
I paced the hallway for a moment, trying to think of a solution.
I couldn’t let this setback slow the restoration down any further.
And more than anything, I couldn’t let Sadie get frustrated by it.
I was already hanging by a thread with her, and the last thing I wanted was to remind her that she had been right, that I couldn’t make this right as quickly as she deserved.
With a burst of determination, I grabbed my keys from my desk and headed to my car.
There was someone I needed to talk to. He was one of the oldest connections I had in the industry, a collector and former engineer who had more vintage aviation parts stored away than anyone I knew.
I didn’t call often, but when it came to rare components like the magneto housing for the Trimotor, I knew he was my best chance.
The drive to his estate just outside of Seattle took longer than I wanted it to, the city traffic bleeding into suburban sprawl, each traffic light a small test of my patience.
As I finally left the grid behind, winding roads took me through forests where ancient trees reached for the sky, their shadows elongating as the afternoon waned.
By the time I arrived at the estate, the sun was setting, casting the sprawling property in a soft golden glow that seemed almost too serene for my current state of agitation.
The immaculately maintained grounds stretched out before me, manicured lawns giving way to wilder sections where nature had been allowed its due respect.
I parked in the long driveway between two classic convertibles that were polished to a mirror shine, taking a deep breath of the evening air before walking up to the massive oak door.
The brass door knocker was cold against my fingers as I lifted it to ring the bell, its deep chime echoing through what I imagined were halls filled with aviation history and memories of conversations I was now desperate to recreate.
Arthur Langdon greeted me with the same measured grace he always had, even though he was in his eighties now.
His eyes still held the same sharp intelligence that had made him a legend in the world of vintage aircraft engineering, though there was a hint of wariness as he looked me over, the unspoken question of my motives hanging in the air.
“Patrick,” he greeted, opening the door wide enough for me to enter. “This is unexpected. It’s been a while.”
I nodded, trying to push down the guilt of not having visited sooner.
“I know. I’ve been busy.” I stepped into his foyer, surrounded by glass cases holding relics from a different era of aviation.
It was like walking into a museum, but more intimate.
Each artifact held a story that Arthur seemed to know by heart.
“Too busy for old friends, eh?” he teased, though there was no real sting in his words.
He gestured for me to follow him into the sitting room, where an enormous window looked out over his private airfield.
A vintage Beechcraft sat on the tarmac below, its polished surface reflecting the sunset in a way that made me think of Sadie’s beloved Trimotor back at the museum.