He sat with his wife’s photo, waiting for a son who had already boarded without him

”, he looked at me and winked. It was a small gesture. But it was him.

And so I said yes to the trip. Not because I believed them, but because something told me this wasn’t just a vacation. It was a test. And I needed to be close, just in case they failed it.

We left for the airport just before sunrise. The sky was still bleeding orange, and the air continue reading …