In the co-pilot seat, drawn with careful, loving detail, was a smaller stick figure wearing miniature gold bars, labeled CO-PILOT MASON.
Beside Mason’s elbow sat his clear plastic bag of gummy bears, his child-sized noise-canceling headphones resting around his neck, his hazel eyes wide and shining beneath his unruly chestnut curls.
My husband of nine years, Tyler Mercer, was thirty-six years old.
To the passengers boarding the Boeing 737-800, Captain Tyler Mercer was the epitome of commercial aviation excellence: tall, lean, with that easy, patrician Virginia jawline, silver-threaded dark hair cut into an immaculate military taper, and a smooth, baritone voice that could soothe nervous travelers through severe mid-Atlantic squalls.
He had flown for regional carriers before landing his senior mainline position six years ago, and whenever he packed his leather flight kit in our home in Great Falls, Mason would follow him from room to room, carrying his shoulder epaulets as if they were holy relics.
