Cover

Danielle
Steel

FLYING
ANGELS

Dedication page

To my beloved children,

Beatrix, Trevor, Todd, Nick,

Samantha, Victoria, Vanessa,

Maxx, and Zara,

May the challenges and the hard times

in your lives

prove to be blessings

and bring you closer

to those you love.

I wish you courage, strength, wisdom,

good fortune, joy,

and lives filled with love

and good people to love,

protect, and comfort you.

With all my heart and love,

Mom / d.s.

Epigraph page

“Love makes us brave.”

Chapter 1

It was a big day for the Parker family, on a perfect morning in June 1938. Audrey had set her mother’s clothes out for her the night before, the blue-gray silk suit she wore whenever she had something important to go to and felt well enough to go out. It didn’t get more important than this. Ellen’s son, Audrey’s brother, William Edward Parker, was graduating from Annapolis Naval Academy, as an ensign, like his father and grandfather before him. Ellen was only sorry that her late husband and father-in-law wouldn’t be there to see it. She and Audrey were the only family Will had now. Unlike his father and grandfather, Will was more interested in planes than ships. His next stop was basic flight training at the Naval Air Station at Pensacola in Florida. He was going to be a navy pilot. He would receive more advanced flight training after that, and eventually would become an expert at taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier. He had earned a Bachelor of Science degree.

His father, Captain Francis Parker, had died three years before of a brain tumor. His grandfather, who had died when Will and Audrey were very young, was only a dim memory now, a tall man in a uniform with a lot of braid on it: three-star Vice Admiral Jeremiah Parker. They were a distinguished naval family, and there had never been any question about Will following in their footsteps. It was an unspoken law in their household, Parker men went to Annapolis, and Will wouldn’t have dared do otherwise. He wouldn’t have wanted to disappoint his grandfather or his dad, even though they were no longer there to see it. He would be wearing his dress white uniform for the graduation ceremony.

Her parents’ illnesses had had an impact on Audrey’s life. Only months after Audrey’s father had died, after his painful deterioration from cancer, her mother had begun exhibiting strange symptoms: muscle weakness, a lack of balance, and trembling hands. Both Ellen and Audrey thought it was caused by nerves at first, but then she had been diagnosed with the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. The doctors had explained to them that it was a progressive illness that would eventually leave her severely impaired, bedridden, and unable to walk. Hopefully that would be a long way off.