The smell of hot aviation fuel and stale coffee always stays in the back of my throat whenever I think about that Cessna 172 over the pine ridges. Back then, I thought I was just paying seventy-five dollars for a Saturday morning introductory flight out of the municipal airstrip, hoping to impress my brother who flew crop dusters down in Aroostook County. Arthur, the instructor assigned to me, was a quiet man with nicotine-stained fingers and a frayed windbreaker that smelled like stale Lucky Strikes.

We had done the pre-flight walkaround at 9:15 in the morning, kicking tires and checking ailerons while the wind blew cold off the river. I remember Arthur tapping his clipboard against his thigh and coughing into his fist before we climbed into the cramped cabin.

“Just keep your hands light on the yoke, Clara,” he told me as we taxied toward the active runway. “The bird wants to fly. You’re just convincing it which way to go.”

Those first twenty minutes were steady, almost boring, as we climbed to thirty-two hundred feet over the patchwork dairy farms and dense timberland. Arthur pointed out the wind drift over the river bend, his voice a low, raspy murmur through the intercom headset. I was actually starting to relax, watching the nose of the plane track against the horizon, when his head suddenly slumped sideways against the plastic door panel.

I thought he was just messing with me at first, testing my reaction time the way my high school track coach used to do before a meet. “Arthur?” I said, nudging his shoulder with my elbow.

He didn’t answer. His breathing didn’t sound right either, just a wet, rattling hitch in his throat before his chin dropped all the way to his chest.

Arthur never moved again. His left hand slipped off the throttle quadrant and dangled toward the floorboards, leaving the engine roaring at full cruise power.

The silence inside that tiny cockpit was deafening, even with the Lycoming engine screaming right in front of us. My brain felt like it was swimming through warm syrup as I stared at the blank dials and the twitching altimeter needle. I reached out and grabbed the radio mic clipped to the center console, my thumb shaking so hard I dropped it twice before I managed to squeeze the paddle.

“May day! May day! Help me! Help me!” I screamed into the static, my voice cracking so high I hardly recognized it. “My instructor pilot is dead and I don’t know how to fly!”

The radio hissed and popped for three agonizing seconds before a calm, steady voice cut right through the noise.

“This is Air Traffic Control, Cessna four-four-zero,” the controller said, his tone flat and professional, as if he answered distress calls from terrified teenagers every single Tuesday. “We can hear you loud and clear.

I will talk you through this and get you back on the ground safely.”

I gripped the plastic mic until my knuckles turned white, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes and hot down my cheeks. “I can’t do this! The nose is too high! I don’t even know where the trim wheel is!”

“I’ve had a lot of experiences with this kind of problem,” the controller said, his voice dropping an octave, steady and rhythmic like a metronome. “Now just take a deep breath. Everything will be fine. Give me your height and position.”

I looked out the side window at the endless green carpet of trees and then down at the instrument panel, my mind spinning. “I’m 5’7 and in the front seat.”

There was a long, terrible pause on the frequency. The kind of silence where you can hear your own heartbeat pounding in your ears like a bass drum.

The engine hummed and rattled, vibrating straight up through the seat cushion into my spine.

“O.K.,” the voice in the radio said finally, sounding a little tired, though still entirely level. “Now repeat after me. Our Father Who art in heaven…”

I let out a ragged gasp that fogged the side window glass. “Are you kidding me? I’m falling out of the sky!”

“I’m not kidding, Clara,” the controller said, and I could hear the faint rustle of paper on his end of the line. “God’s about the only navigation help we’ve got left within forty miles of your transponder blip. Now say the words so we can keep your hands steady on that wheel.”

“Our Father Who art in heaven,” I choked out, my voice trembling so badly I had to force every single syllable past my teeth.

“Hallowed be Thy name,” the controller echoed back, leading me through the lines like a pastor at a graveside service while the airspeed indicator danced dangerously near the stall warning zone.

We spent the next fourteen minutes circling above the valley in wide, looping arcs that made my stomach churn with sour coffee and panic. Every time I tried to look down at the landing gear lever, the left wing dipped toward the trees, and every time I panicked, the voice in my headset would gently pull me back down to earth with another line of the prayer. It felt like hours stretched out over centuries, the altimeter unwinding like a clock spring as we bled off altitude thousand feet by thousand feet.

“Kingdom come, Thy will be done,” I whispered into the mic, my fingers locked onto the aluminum yoke as the municipal airstrip finally appeared dead ahead through the hazy windshield like a gray ribbon drawn on the dirt.

“Wings level, Clara. Ease the power back just an inch,” the controller instructed quietly. “You’re lined up straight down the centerline. Bring her home.”

I pulled the throttle back the way Arthur had shown me during our pre-flight check, the engine noise dropping to a ragged hum as the wheels skimmed over the fence line and hit the tarmac with a hard, rattling bounce that jarred my teeth. The plane skipped twice before I remembered to haul back on the yoke to keep the nose wheel from digging in, steering the bouncing Cessna down the runway until it finally lost momentum and rolled to a coughing stop near the fuel pumps.

The propeller spun down with a lazy, ticking metal ping, and then there was nothing left to hear except the wind blowing through the pine trees beside the hangar.

I sat there in the front seat for five whole minutes with my forehead pressed against the cold plastic of the control wheel, listening to the ticking engine block cool down in the quiet Maine air. Nobody came running out of the terminal right away because they thought Arthur was just taxing back from a routine training hop.

The radio in the dash clicked once, and the controller’s voice came through one last time, very soft and clear before he signed off the frequency for the shift.

“You brought her down safe, Clara,” he said.

I didn’t answer him. I just unlatched the cabin door, pushed it open into the cold autumn wind, and climbed down onto the tarmac with shaky legs that wouldn’t quite stop trembling.