“Your mama always knew who I was, Nia,” I said, my voice thick.

“Even when I forgot.” For the next two hours the flight was unlike anything I’d known.

The lead flight attendant — a kind-faced woman named Aaliyah, whose own brother served in the Marines — kept bringing Nia fruit and warm cookies and a set of plastic pilot wings, which she pinned gently to my daughter’s flannel collar.

Every time I tried to pay or decline, she just smiled and shook her head.

“Captain’s orders, Sergeant.

You rest.”