We taught private pilots, and search-and-rescue volunteers, and kids — young kids who genuinely, simply, loved the sky.

The office doors chimed, and Rachel Vance came in — my attorney, and by now one of my closest friends — carrying a bakery bag and two iced coffees.

“Morning, Jessi.

I brought the cherry pastries you like.” “You’re a lifesaver,” I said.

“How are the final trust filings?” She laid a manila folder on the workbench.

“All clear.

The child-support enforcement order is fully integrated with the wage garnishment.

Luca’s pension drawdown is locked into Leo’s educational trust — he can’t touch a dollar of it, even if he files for bankruptcy again.” I looked down at the documents, at the tidy legal architecture that had turned a broken man’s obligations into a solid floor beneath my son’s future, and I felt the deep, quiet satisfaction of a thing built to last.