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Somewhere near the front of the cabin, a young woman stood up slowly, clearly as surprised by the announcement as everyone else on board, her face flushing pink under the sudden attention of every passenger turning to look at her.
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She looked, from the distance I was sitting, to be somewhere around eighteen or nineteen. Dark hair. A nervous, uncertain smile.
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“Ivy reached out to me four months ago,” Weston continued over the speakers, his voice steady despite everything. “Through one of those genetic ancestry services. She’s my daughter. Something I genuinely had no idea about until earlier this year.”
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The cabin murmured with a mix of surprised gasps and soft, sympathetic sounds, considerably warmer than I expected given the enormity of what he’d just announced to three hundred strangers.
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“Her mother and I were together very briefly, a long time ago, before I ever met the family I have now,” Weston said. “I’m not going to pretend the last four months have been simple. But I wanted to do something today to mark the first time she’s ever actually flown with me at the controls. I hope you’ll all forgive the sentimentality. I promise the rest of the flight will be considerably less dramatic.”
