Page 3 of Love at First Flight

“But it was your father’s favorite!”

“I understand, but if he could say something right now, he’d probably tell us to not waste money renewing a subscription forPacific Northwest Fisherman.”

This response elicited a gasp from Elena, as if Selah spoke sacrilege instead of the truth. While her father had enjoyed the sport and been an avid subscriber to the small magazine for as long as she could remember, he’d become more obsessed with ballooning than fishing after starting the business. It was beside the point, anyway, because they needed to cut money from wherever they could these days, and this was one of the easier decisions.

“Where the hell is Hailey?” Selah asked when the business line interrupted their conversation, ringing at the next desk over, the same one her youngest sister was supposed to occupy.

She’d swear to God, out of all the sisters, Hailey had the easiest job to maintain for their business, and yet she struggled the most. All she had to do was answer phones, book tours, and keep an eye on reservation requests sprinkling in from the upgraded website their dad had paid someone way too much for. The job wasn’t hard, especially for a twenty-three-year-old who still lived at home and didn’t have any other responsibilities to worry about, like rent money, enjoying a free ride, courtesy of their mother.

“Mija, don’t be mean. Your sister had a rough night. She didn’t go to bed until late. And she said she doesn’t like to answer in case it’s another call from Soaring Over Oregon.”

Selah gritted her molars together due to her mother continuing to make excuses for Hailey. Knowing her sister, she was probably up too late doing something on Loop, a video-based social media app, which always took priority over everything else, even while the rest of the family pulled together to keep their father’s business afloat. Hailey, when not goofing off, was either sleeping, posting video content on Loop, or being in a dark mood because she was mad Elena kept Robert’s urn beneath clutter on her bedroom dresser. While Selah could understand this complaint, she had enough on her plate. It was hard enough trying to get her mother to drop a useless magazine subscription, and Selah didn’t need anything more.

The second part of Hailey’s excuse, about not wanting to deal with Soaring Over Oregon calls... Well, Selah didn’t really blame her sister in this.

The first few months after Robert went to bed with a horrible headache, only to never wake again due to an undetected rupturing cerebral aneurysm, were some of the hardest for the Moreno family. It was the same as walking through a chaotic tornado of information and emotions.

God bless him, Robert was amazing in a lot of ways, but Selah quickly learned how unorganized and messy he was in the financial part of his life and how much she truly hadn’t known the extent of it.

Her mother, while she could pull herself up and be strong in some aspects, completely fell apart when it came to shouldering the responsibilities Robert normally took care of, like the business and household finances. Instead, she’d rather pour herself into cooking, baking, and spoiling her family, ignoring the harder stuff. Selah spent the first month trying to hack into accounts under his name, so things like the internet bill could continue under her mom’s name. Depending on her mom to help with things like missing passwords and making decisions became “too hard,” which would only produce tears from Elena.

Paying bills was one thing. Taking over her father’s business was another thing entirely. As the Moreno family emerged from the chaotic, engulfing grief that arose from an unexpected death, to move forward instead of just trying to survive the day, they were faced with the question—What should they do with High Desert Tours? There hadn’t been any flights, since all tours had been canceled after Robert’s death.

In digging through her father’s finances, Selah saw a new picture emerge, one that made her stomach churn with queasiness. The new envelope, the one replacingThe Blue Wonder, was the tip of the money iceberg her dad had poured into the business shortly before he died. It was the balloon, a larger gondola, the office trailer, the website, the new top-of-the-line laptop, and weather gadgets. It was like her dad had woken one day and decided the business needed to be bigger, more polished, better.

The problem was, there wasn’t a lot of cash to invest in the company. Getting High Desert Tours running in the first place had already put him in the hole, as he’d loaned against their land and home. The original business, the alfalfa crop, had been “let out to pasture,” so to speak, many years before, as her father no longer saw himself as a farmer. Now they were all stuck. When Selah had found out, she’d excused herself from her mother’s kitchen table, locked herself inside a bathroom and spent several private minutes being mad at him, an emotion she’d rarely experienced before and then felt guilty about it.

She was almost grateful when the calls from David Selene at Soaring Over Oregon came, regarding buying the business and removing them as their biggest competition in the area. It made everything easy, and it made sense. High Desert Tours didn’t have a captain, and Selah could never replace Robert. She wasn’t sure she could shoulder that kind of pressure—to climb out of the same hole her dad couldn’t climb out of. What else were they going to do? They needed the money. The temptation to say yes and walk away from the whole operation was right there on the tip of her tongue, except the decision wasn’t entirely hers.

“You can flyThe Blue Wonder!” Hailey had insisted through tears. “How hard could it be? You already have your piloting license. Why wouldn’t you want to be the captain? Why would you destroy dad’s dream like that?” Her youngest sister had taken the matter personally, growing strangely stubborn and insistent, especially after being the one to answer Soaring Over Oregon’s latest call, now coming from David’s son, Ryland. She freely referred to them as a family of vultures. “I would rather starve to death than give them the business. I hate every one of them.”

Naomi jumped in, also hating the idea of selling the hot-air balloon business. The friendly rivalry and faux hate with Soaring Over Oregon had turned into the real thing, as though their father’s honor was on the line. They didn’t understand that this wasn’t Robert’s ultimate dream. It was something he’d settled on. When their mother started crying, too, Selah hadn’t the energy to fight against them.

She promised the family two years. Two years, she’d help get the business back on its feet, two years to find its real captain. She wasn’t staying, because between her and her dad, one of them was going to be a pilot of a real aircraft with an engine and, with him gone, it only left her. This roadblock wasn’t going to stop her. Fate wasn’t going to win.

The office phone rang again, reminding her that if the business was going to continue, it would seem she’d have to do it all herself. “Oh, for God’s sake. I’m not putting up with this. You need to tell Hailey that if she really wants Dad’s business to keep going, she needs to start pulling her weight. I can’t do everything, and you need to stop babying her.”

“Don’t talk about your sister like that. We’re all trying. I just want you to love one another.”

Her mother’s tolerance at handling family strife, including small disagreements between siblings, was low since Robert’s death, as if this was a sign the whole family was falling apart. It was better if Selah dropped the matter before her mother started sobbing again. Muttering a half-hearted apology, she rolled her office chair to the other desk, snatching the phone receiver up.

“High Desert Tours,” Selah answered on the fifth ring. She watched as her mom moved toward her work laptop. “Don’t touch that. It’s going to crash. Remember?” Her mother pulled her hand away as though the laptop was a live wire.

It was questionable whether the laptop would actually crash simply from her mother using it, but Elena had a habit of treating it like her personal Facebook-checking device. With her mother’s gullibility for clicking on random links, Selah didn’t want to take any chances. Robert’s laptop was set up exactly how she liked it and, as one of her most valuable piloting tools, she didn’t want anyone to mess with it. Selah found that if she told her mom touching it could crash it, her mother’s natural fear of electronics kept her away—if only she didn’t have to be constantly reminded.

“Oh, God. Is this a direct line to the hot-air balloon? I’m so sorry. Don’t worry about me. Just keep flying... floating... whatever. I’ll call back later,” a male voice said on the other end of the phone line.

“I’m sorry?” Selah responded to the caller, completely confused.

“It’s okay. It wasn’t that important. I don’t want you to crash your hot-air balloon.” The words stumbled out in a nervous ramble.

Understanding this person mistook the words said to her mother, Selah found the situation hilarious, and a laugh sprung out, her first lighthearted moment in forever. It was strange and, yet, somehow freeing to express some other emotion besides grief, responsibility, or obligation. The man had sounded genuinely worried for her. “Oh my God. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t... I’m not, um, currently in the air.”

There was a short pause before he replied, “Are you sure?”

Selah watched as her mother left the trailer before turning her attention to the call. “I’m a professional pilot, sir. I’m pretty sure they’d revoke my license if I couldn’t distinguish between when I’m on the ground and when I’m in the air.”

“You’re the pilot? I can’t believe that.” His tone was friendly, but her own posture straightened, expecting some form of misogyny to spring into the conversation. It wouldn’t be the first time since she’d started on her path toward becoming a pilot.

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