That would never stop being true, and it would never stop costing her something on certain mornings.

But he was not in the clouds anymore, waiting to fall.

She had let him down out of that sky and laid him to rest in a cedar box with his guilt lifted off him, and what was left of him in her was not a ghost at all.

It was a friend she had loved, and a lesson she now taught, and a reason to get the next student safely back on the ground.

She stood at the fence a while longer after the training jet had gone, letting the autumn sun work on her, and she thought about how long she had misunderstood what it would take to be free of the ghost.