The Wright Sister

by Patty Dann

  It was Orv himself who told me once when he was working on a bicycle in the shop, “Sister, life can never be equal. Wings must be equal. But love is not.”

  Where did Orv learn about love is what I would like to know.

  We never discussed love with the Reverend. I do not know if he loved our beloved mother. I cannot recall the word “love” ever uttered in our home.

  I think some of Orv’s bad mood is because of his constant sense of shame about the war. Not that he caused it. It was the notion that this magnificent flying machine he created would be in any way a participant in violence. I sat with him in the movie theater and watched those newsreels. We both saw that boy who used to work in the pharmacy, now home, having to be wheeled in a wheelbarrow by his mother. I would study Orv’s face and I could see his horror, and at times he would mutter that it was his aeroplane to blame, even though he knew trench warfare caused the most deaths. There was a boy who worked in the hardware store before the war, always cheerful, running up and down the aisles: “Mr. Wright, sir, how can I help you, sir?” And when he returned with one arm gone, he was back at the store but behind the counter with a dull look in his eyes, and he did not call Orv “sir” or anything at all.

  And now I am dizzy. I think I drifted off. The one time I asked Harry if we could take down Isabel’s photograph, he looked so sad, stricken almost, like a little boy I’d asked if I could take away his toy train, so I immediately took back my words. I know he misses her and their life terribly, and after all, they had a son together. Our passion does not create children. Our passion creates screams and flushed cheeks and tenderness. Once the boys started working on more than bicycles, I knew I never would become a mother. There was one moment I was at the kitchen sink, washing dishes after yet another dinner for our friends who had come over for a night of music and singing and arguing about whether man would ever fly. I’d made a pot roast and several peach pies with the lattice tops everyone preferred. I was scrubbing the baking pan and had gristle from the meat under my fingernails. I saw the boys out in the yard in the moonlight, trying to rig up some kind of tandem bicycle with wings, laughing and arguing as they did. I had the thought, almost like a ticker tape running across my brain: “These boys are my sons. These boys are my children.”

  I’m not sure what I would do with daughters. I know little of the complexities of braiding hair and fancy perfumes. I wear my hair up, simply. I have my hairpins, I have my mother’s tortoiseshell brush. I do have my lemon eau de toilette, but if I ever put on too much, Orv would sneeze and the Reverend would say, “You smell like a harlot.” Also, I must wear my glasses. They are the last things I take off before I turn out the light, and I fumble for them in the morning on the nightstand. I have often not had time to take them off when Harry and I have made love, but he does not seem to care. The only time I don’t feel plain is when I am in bed with Harry. Perhaps a woman in her fifties should not say that, but bluntness is part of who I am. The newspapers sometimes questioned whether I was too forthright for a woman, but if I were not, I do not know whether the boys would have gone up at all. Let me be honest. I know they would not have gone up. They each had a dreamy quality to them and needed to be taken care of. And there was more.

  I find it interesting that Harry Jr. became a journalist like his father. Their family is certainly more orderly than ours, the son following in his father’s footsteps. I cannot imagine any of my four brothers becoming men of the cloth. Harry and Isabel seemed to be a normal family, in the traditional sense, nothing that I was familiar with. I don’t believe they would have abided the chaos we Wrights had in our house, all of us toiling away with such ferocity, with so many raised voices echoing off the walls.

  February 4, 1927

  Orville,

  It is the fourth day of the second month, and you are not here. I polished the silver myself. I had baked three apple pies, with apples Harry and I had picked last fall. I had bought new bed linens for the guest bedroom. The pies have been eaten by hungry reporters at the paper. The silver gleams. Your bed is ready. I scrubbed the bathroom myself. I cleared off shelves for your books and bought fresh ink for “your” desk. I had put Harry’s friends on notice that you were going to arrive and prepared a dinner of roast beef and mashed potatoes numerous times the way you like it, and green beans, and I made three loaves of lemon bread and your special brownies with walnuts. And then I canceled the party. Harry and I had a lonely feast, and I threw one of the lemon breads out the back door for the stray dogs, imagining it was at your face. Tonight I was so upset I started tidying like a madwoman the way I used to do at home (and you always have done). Harry was sitting by the fire reading one of his one million newspapers. As I bent to pick up a messy stack, he screamed, which he has never done before: “Stop, Katharine. I am not one of ‘the boys.’ I am a grown man who has lived quite well, thank you. I am reading my papers. Now just stop!”

  In disappointment,

  Your sleepless sister, K.

  February 15, 1927

  TRAVELING WITHOUT A COMPASS

  The winds were far too strong for flying today. I do not pass a day without checking the wind. I did it before the aeroplane and I imagine I shall do it until the day I die.

  Although I thought it would take Orv time to adjust to my moving out, I assumed that he and Harry would be fast friends. Their love of newspapers certainly should have been a bond. Newspapermen often seem as if part of the same sporting team, regardless of the fact that they are sometimes fighting fiercely for a story. But Harry and Orv never were working on the same story. In their early years Will and Orv helped the Reverend edit a journal called the Religious Telescope. The boys used to laugh about the name behind the Reverend’s back, calling it the “Tyrant’s Telescope.” Orv said, although not in earshot of the Reverend, “When I look through a telescope, I curse using the Lord’s name when my eyelashes get in the way! Does that count as a religion?” No, neither boy would have crossed the Reverend to his face.

  Later, the boys began a paper of their own, West Side News. They even went into business together as printers. Our house was full of all kinds of religious handouts, even though the boys were men of science not spirit, but none of us ever questioned the Reverend’s religion and wrath. It is true, the boys never worked on a paper full of “hard news,” as Harry calls it, but still, I would have thought they would be comrades because of their shared interests. I thought we would have wonderful meals together and continue to spend sumptuous summers at the lake. When I close my eyes, I am diving in that lake over and over again, with both men by my side. I am sweeping the floors of our cabin, and I can hear the screen door slam and the creaking bed where Harry and I first made love. There were no latches on the doors, so Orv could have come in at any moment, the way he sometimes did, bursting in on me half dressed, shaking his latest drawings at me.

  We’re having two couples for dinner tomorrow night, two reporters from the paper and their wives. I’ve told the housekeeper that I would be doing all the cooking and she could have the night off. You would have thought she was married to Harry!

  Later on February 15, 1927

  THE BRAIN IS A DOODLE OF A THING

  The brain is a “doodle of a thing,” as Orv himself would say. Orv would certainly not be the first genius to be unfit for normal life. Or perhaps it has nothing to do with his extraordinary brain. It is possible it was all too much for him, my moving away from him, becoming a wife, and sharing a man’s bed at this age. If a detective asked me to describe his reaction to the news, I would say horrified. What I am not sure of is whether he was horrified because he could imagine me being with a man or he couldn’t imagine it. There’s also the possibility his imagination is so vivid that he can imagine every detail of Harry and me as lovers, that he pictures what we do, and it disgusts him.

  When I taught Latin at Steele High School in Dayton, I helped my brothers raise money for the flying machine project and I was always writing letters. I also gave s
peeches, but it was writing those letters, with my ink pen and the typing machine, that gave me the most pleasure, promoting our project, extolling the virtues of “the magical machine.” I am also honored to be on the board of trustees of Oberlin, although I am not fulfilling my obligations at the moment, as I am trying to be a good bride. In fact, I have done more than that in my life, but right now I am trying to be Mrs. Harry Haskell as best as I can.

  At our wedding party, even with all the chatter and clinking glasses, I overheard a Kansas City woman wearing far too much lavender perfume say to another, “You know they all knew one another at Oberlin. I imagine she had designs on him then.” But that is incorrect. It is true that Isabel and I were friends at college. It is also true we were all friends, studying together, taking walks and heavenly bicycle rides. But I had no designs on Harry then. I was not a siren seducing him by the water’s edge. In fact, I was most excited by my studies. Isabel had twenty-two years with Harry before the cancer took her away. I am not sure how many women, young or otherwise, Harry courted or courted him before we wed. I have heard rumors. I know of two women who would have very much liked to be the second Mrs. Harry Haskell. Journalists are free with their charms, and Harry’s ink-stained wrists are enough to lure many women. The Reverend once marched through the kitchen and said to me, while I was scouring a pot, “Men have their needs, Katharine. Men have their needs.”

  (I need to go into town as soon as possible to buy some new undergarments. In fact, I must remember to ask for lingerie instead.)

  March 6, 1927

  Dear Orv Wright,

  Ice snapped the telephone wires outside the house, so I could not call even if I had wanted to. After not hearing from you all these months, I now have a formal invitation for you, dearest brother. March 8 is Harry’s birthday, which falls on a Tuesday this year, even though I know your favorite day is Thursday. I remember when you learned the Dutch word donderdag and you kept shouting it around the house, “Donderdag, donderdag.” And then the Reverend started screaming. I lose my train of thought. This is a birthday party invitation. I know you enjoy birthdays if they are not too lavish. You are a man of numbers. It will be a festive birthday—Harry will be fifty-three—but not out of hand. What I am trying to convey to you is I would like you to join us. I’m making several cakes, the coconut, which you used to call the “Angel’s Dessert.” There is even a market here that sells coconuts, and I have purchased one. If I don’t injure myself cutting it, the cake will be as snowy white as you like it, and a chocolate mousse, which Harry says should be censored. I shall have his son and several men from the paper and their wives. I want to make a fresh start here, but certainly you could come, yes? You could take the train to Cincinnati and then to St. Louis before coming here. It is a long journey but an interesting one, and of course far too long for a Model T. You could stay for a few weeks in our guest room, which I would like you to think of as your room, Orv’s room. I know Harry would love it. As for gifts, you know Harry’s tastes. He loves birds almost as much as you do, and history.

  I will prepare the whole birthday dinner if I can keep the maid at bay. I must convey to her that I am the “lady of the house.” I see you smiling at that one.

  Please let me know as soon as possible.

  Hopefully,

  Katharine

  March 7, 1927

  ORVILLE HAS MAGNOLIA MADEMOISELLE

  I wanted to ask Orv several times about the women in his life, but I never had the courage. Perhaps I shouldn’t say courage. I was not frightened of him the way I was with the Reverend. It was more of an awareness that there were aspects of Orv’s being that should not be touched. There was one woman who smelled of rose blossoms and chardonnay in France who seemed like more than an adoring fan, and I know they went out for pastries one morning because he came back with crumbs on his lapel, which he swatted away with his hat. But I have no knowledge of whether he and that particular woman shared more than croissants. It was I who sorted through the letters at 7 Hawthorn. Some letters arrived at the house, but when there was a large amount, which was often, I went to the post office to pick up the bundles. The postmistress, who was my friend, handed me a stack tied in that rough twine I miss and said, “It seems that Miss Magnolia has a particular interest in your Orville.” It did seem to be the case, because once she passed along a parcel of mail the scent of sticky-sweet, slightly artificial magnolias filled the air. When I got home, Orville was standing at the front door like a petulant child, and before I could put my hat on the side table, he snatched the whole bundle from me, as if I were holding fresh flowers in my hands. He ran off to his study, in that forceful way of his, sneezing to beat the band.

  At this new stage of my life I am trying not to fret about things so much. I do long for friendship of my own sex. I do not prefer les filles in a romantic way, but sometimes my husband and brother wear me down. Isabel liked to go on long walk-and-talks. If it weren’t getting dark, I would love to go for one more walk today, but now the snow is falling lightly, and I can hear the squirrels running across the roof, and I still don’t feel I know my way around. I do not want to have the headline WRIGHT BROTHERS’ SISTER LOSES WAY IN SNOW.

  I must learn to not take things so personally. The maid refuses to call me Mrs. Haskell, instead calling me Miss Katharine, and I want to scream at her, but I try to maintain my composure.

  I must focus on what is good, because my mind can be pulled like the wind to dreary spots. One of the most wonderful privileges was to finally be able to vote in 1920. To think, Harding and Coolidge both came around to agreeing the “fairer” sex should be able to vote. But there was that Night of Terror in 1917 that still chills me, although I only heard about it the next day. A good friend of mine from Oberlin was one of the suffragists arrested while picketing outside the White House. The guards at the prison twisted their arms and tied the women to the bars of the cells. The sacrifices women have made!

  I know what a privileged life I have had, full of education and travel, and I also know to have such pleasure at my age is rare. I want to ask other women if they make love with their husbands as frequently as Harry and I do, but I do not know whom to ask. My monthly occasionally leaves a stain on the sheets, which I hurriedly wash out myself, before the maid can see. Once, when I was hanging sheets on the line, she asked what I was doing and I said, “I just like to help out. You do so much work,” and you could see the horror she felt that I had stained the sheets.

  On the subject of sheets, Mother once sighed as we were hanging the laundry on the line. “We live in a house of men,” she said. “There is a dampness that is a part of their lives that we must accept.”

  At the end of last century, which seems so long ago now, we opened the Wright Cycle Shop. Will wanted to call it “Wright Cycle Right!” But Orv thought that was ridiculous and prevailed. Perhaps that was the happiest time for them. Hard to believe now that the bicycle was then such a new invention. When the mailman rides up on his bicycle here in Kansas City, I think he almost looks quaint with his cap, as he says, “Good morning, Mrs. Haskell.”

  I find that men have an easier time accepting that I am the new Mrs. Haskell. I catch myself thinking: If we had stopped with the bicycle—just had the bicycle shop and worked on handlebars and wheels—where would we humans be today?

  And now is it destiny that if I was to marry at all, that I was to be married to the son of a reverend? Perhaps it is in my veins—the rules, the discipline, and the sin. It was not so subtly suggested, in a publication I shall not name, that my beloved Harry married me for the sole reason that I am “a good story.” In fact, I have those most beautiful and intimate letters between us when we were courting that I shall not divulge to the world, even when I read such attacks.

  Once, I sent Harry a letter when we were courting, written in royal-blue ink. In the moisture of the summer heat, my hand blotted the ink as I signed my name. Next to it I wrote, Please excuse the smudge. Consider it as a kiss.

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nbsp; I am still shocked I was so bold. I was never forward with a man before. And I was only once bold with the Reverend.

  The one and fiercely startling time I let myself snap at him was when he stepped over me, as I was on my knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. I muttered, “Is this why I got an Oberlin education?” to which he replied, not so gently pushing me with his shoe, “You are the girl. Of course it is your job.”

  I have bequeathed all my not-so-worldly belongings to Orv when I leave this earth. I think that is right. I do not think Harry would object.

  When I talked about the ends of our lives, while we were sitting by the fire in Dayton, Orv jumped up and said, “Sister, if you talk about bequeathing one more time, I shall have to throttle you.”

  Even so, when I see Orv, I shall need to clarify that I bequeath everything to him, whether I’m throttled or not.

  March 9, 1927

  Dear Orv,

  Harry’s birthday was yesterday, and I would say it was a success. You were missed, but it was not your party, not your day, so I will not dwell on your absence. I know Harry loves me although he does miss Isabel. So we were both missing loved ones. At one point I saw him staring out the window after he’d blown out his candles on the coconut cake and I wanted to ask him what he wished for, but I did not.

  Love,

  Your sister

  P.S. Do you remember when Mother used to stir a big bucket of soap bubbles in the yard with that screwdriver we used on the wings? And that giant wand you and Will made? “Bubbles for Paul Bunyan,” you said, as we watched those bubbles go up to the sky.