The Wright Sister

by Patty Dann

  In the bedroom, I think I can say my desire is burgeoning, even at this age, something I did not know existed, except in novels. Is “burgeoning” even the correct word? It feels like that, like I am learning how to find as much excitement as I did when we went up in our machine. And it is not only in the bedroom when I have these feelings. I will be sitting in the bathtub, as I am now, or answering some letters about the great Wright brothers, or even, dare I say it, when I am driving in the automobile. After I’m tangled up in Harry’s arms and legs, I feel I shall need nothing more ever again in my life, for those minutes we lie entwined after.

  This morning I awoke thinking of when Orv and I took that trip to Florida, just the two of us, and we stayed with people—what was their name?—who kept saying, “You’ll like our food. We’ve got swamp offerings. Gator tails. And frog legs.”

  Swamp offerings!

  And both of us went to bed hungry that night.

  I hope Orv has been wearing the trousers I lined with flannel. I am not doing much sewing these days, but I’ve met a woman here who could make him a pair.

  I wonder if Orv is still a virgin. Forgive me, Lord, but I’ve been drinking some Scotch while Harry is off on a story. I cannot control my impertinence and curiosity.

  I wish to be less of a schoolmarm, with my hair in a bun and my librarian glasses, but I can’t bear to bob my hair. When we finally do meet again, I can’t stand the thought that Orv might not recognize me. I do think there was some kind of chemical reaction between Harry and me, and since Orv and Will did all those studies in the shop with the magnets, I thought Orv might understand. Perhaps it is all a matter of science and engineering.

  I almost broke the news to Orv that day on the lake, when it was Harry who was out for a walk by himself. I had told Harry that this was going to be the day I told my brother.

  Orv and I were sitting on the porch, looking out at the trees, and just as I was about to tell him that I had found love, he began speaking. Although in my ears it sounded like preaching. I had practiced saying, “You know how Harry and I have become friends. It has turned into something deeper than that, and I hope you will be happy for us.”

  I thought Orv might say, “I had thought so for a while,” or “When do you intend to wed? How can I help with the arrangements? Would you like to get married at the house or perhaps here at the lake? I will start working on a toast right now. And what would you two like as a wedding gift?”

  But I didn’t say anything, and Orv did not respond, because just at the moment I was about to speak, he said, “Sister, look at those kestrels circling around each other,” and indeed we saw two small falcons fly by.

  So I asked Harry that night, after we had been on that very same porch and there had been unbuttonings. I asked him if he would break the news to Orv, gently, almost as if he were asking permission, as if Orv were the Reverend. But why did Orv throw that vase against the wall? What grown man throws a vase full of water and freshly cut flowers? And then he ripped up the coleus plant Mother had potted before she died, and those leaves and the dirt and ceramic crashed to the floor! Who does that?

  And I was the one on my knees sweeping up afterward, of course.

  Maybe he thought Harry did have to ask his permission, as if Orv were the Reverend in the family.

  January 25, 1928

  Dear Orv, Orv dear,

  I am listening to Al Jolson singing “All Alone” on the phonograph. The aeroplane and the phonograph, the two best inventions in the world, that is something we have always agreed upon. So perhaps that makes the sandwich number three.

  I am wearing my wedding shoes today, in the house, of course, a pair of soft beige kid leather shoes that I love. They’re easy to button, slightly pointed. Did you see our photograph in the papers?

  Today I went to the post office with a purpose, to have a long talk with the postmistress, to see if my mail had been misdirected in any way. She is a modern woman in that her hair is bobbed, but she is old-fashioned in that she cares about the way stamps are put on an envelope, just as you do. Do you remember when you screamed at Will because he had put a stamp on an envelope with a slight tilt? Agnes is her name, and she is one of the few women whom I consider a friend here, and she has had such loss from the war—one son dead and the other missing a leg. But she said the hardest part is he has lost his mind. She even said she could handle it if he were just missing a leg. “Crutches are nothing,” she said. “But when your own son, your remaining son, looks at you and screams, ‘I think there’s a man with a knife hiding in the pantry,’ each time I try to make him some dinner, it makes a mother weep.”

  I don’t know what to say to her. I have never been a mother, but I just say how sorry I am. But then she asked me, directly to my face, if I thought there would have been the Great War without the aeroplane. Of course, you and I know it wasn’t better when the boys were looking at one another in the eye as they did in the Civil War, but something has been unleashed now, so I had to tell her honestly, I did not know. It’s so different from when we were flying in those just-beginning days. To think when we went up, we used to sing our songs above the propellers, like it was a walk in the park. “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” that was the best, yes? The two of us shouting into the wind, as simple as do-si-do.

  But let me talk more about something that makes you happy, like when we used to study the hummingbirds when we were young. Those endless discussions we had in the parlor, how they have to eat twice their body weight each day to survive. And you said you would eat twice your body weight if I made you apple pie every day! Do you still have those charts of the thousands of miles of routes they fly from Mexico each year? And those wings . . . that was the first time you talked about flying.

  Humbly yours,

  Sterchens

  January 26, 1928

  RESPECTABLE WOMAN TURNS GREEN

  I am having a case of jealousy again, and this time not about Isabel, who of course suffered greatly at the end of her life. I actually wish I could confide in Isabel right now! But there is a woman down at the paper who brings Harry fruit every day. She is the telephone operator at the Star. As I said, it will be a long hop, skip, and a jump before they allow women journalists there, but I saw her at a party, she has her hair dyed red like a kind of parrot in a short bob, and she said, “Harry gets so hungry in the afternoon. I am always sure I have an apple or pear to bring him, and I cut it up for him when he’s on deadline. You know he likes his fruit peeled.”

  My mother once told me, at her pulpit, the clothesline, “If you ever feel jealousy toward someone, you must invite them over to the house, Katharine. Feed them a meal and you’ll lose all that silly jealousy.”

  At the time, I had no idea what Mother was talking about, but that is exactly what I shall do.

  The next time we have people over, this fruit woman will be number one on the guest list!

  January 26, 1928

  Dear Orville,

  After all those years of fast bicycles and sleek gliders and the excitement of the flying machines, the bending and banging, the thinking and tinkering, it was so sad to see it all turn into lawsuits and lawyers. It was especially sad that Wilbur did not live to see it all resolved. It was wonderful to get all that money that meant so much to our family and was so well deserved, but I know that what really drove all of us was that the Wright brothers (and sister) should get credit for coming up with the idea of how to control a flying machine before anyone else did. Does it really matter if the entire wing is warped or only a part of it is hinged? Of course not! We Wrights in Dayton, Ohio, figured that out. As a result, the world is a different place.

  But the aeroplanes today look so different from the ones you built, with their engines and propellers in the front and those long sleek bodies stretching out behind. We put the “elevator” in the front and the rudders out back, and now they are always part of one tail unit. Why didn’t we think of that? Our pilots were so exposed. But all the more thril
ling, is what I say. Still, all of that, cockpits and the rest, came about because of what we worked out.

  I just wonder what else all of us might have come up with, had the Reverend been different, had the lawyers not come to dominate our lives, taking over so much of our minds that we were steered away from the important work of watching birds, creating new designs, and building engines.

  K.

  February 1, 1928

  Dear Orv, Orv dear,

  Two women from Isabel’s old book group have influenza, and I fear they will not make it. Although I do not feel any closeness to these women, I certainly do want them to enjoy good health.

  Are you keeping warm? There is a wonderful yarn store here with the most beautiful hues, and I was able to purchase a turquoise blend of silk and wool I think you will enjoy in your stockings.

  When the woman in the store asked whom I was knitting for, I murmured that it was for you, and she said, “I assume you are knitting for your poor husband as well,” which in fact I am not, because “poor” Harry has enough socks to last a lifetime and likes to purchase them from the department store.

  It is true that I am Christian, although we don’t know how good a Christian I am, and though I am intrigued by the followers of the Koran and the Jewish people, and studied both religions at college, I think all those hymns we sang from birth have been permanently stamped into my brain. I think it is those hymns I will sing as I pass to the next life.

  But still, I do think that there should be more tolerance for different peoples, and I know you do too.

  With the whole country screaming about Prohibition, I would say I certainly am opposed to it at this point. I believe I shall vote for Al Smith, and I am not upset one bit that he is a Catholic.

  Some of my fondest memories are when Will was still alive, and we stayed up talking in the parlor. And he was folding all that origami. You both were so good at it. You would sit there by the fire, folding and folding. I thought it was wasteful—if you didn’t get it right you threw the papers into the fire—but you did not give a hoot about that. I still have a white paper crane you folded before you went to Kitty Hawk the first time. You said, “We can’t be as graceful as this crane, sister, but if you promise to be here with blueberry pancakes when we return, I’ll make you proud.”

  And you did. And I think I made two dozen pancakes that you ate until your lips were stained dark with the blueberries. I was telling Harry last night about Will’s very complex scheme, complete with diagrams, on how you boys would fly to every country in the world, and that you would take a child up from every country, and then those children would grow up and talk about the Going Up Project.

  He did not roll his eyes, as you did, but I thought it was an excellent idea. I have no idea where we put those diagrams and the drawings I did of children with their goggles and their hair flying in the wind.

  I do not really have anything of Will’s except for two handkerchiefs I took from his drawer when I left. I use them and wash and iron them when Mrs. Crossbottom has her day off. And when I weep and wipe my eyes with those cloths, I think of him. To die young is a crime, but I am relieved he did not see the Great War.

  When I last saw the boy with one arm who works in the hardware store in Dayton, I felt he was angry at us for starting something terrible, but we had no idea. The night we got the reports from Europe about the strategic bombing, you kept muttering, “Strategic? Strategic?” with such disdain. “What human strategy is this, killing people from zeppelins and aeroplanes?”

  Wearily,

  Sister

  March 1, 1928

  Dearest Orville,

  I came across the list of full moons that Mother had written out for us and made us memorize. I keep it in my Bible at the Twenty-Third Psalm. When I see her penmanship, I place my hand on the words and I am with her. You were the best of us at memorizing. I don’t remember it all, but I do know that February has the Snow Moon, or Hunger Moon, so perhaps you’ll visit at the Crow Moon?

  Although we never made it to the moon, whatever you think, I do not believe by going up we flew too close to the sun. I believe aeroplanes were going to be invented, and we were the ones to do it. We did do it, of course, so we can’t look back.

  Looking back is your problem, I believe. I know you’ve always gone through your spells. Katy, bar the door, as you might have another fit if you read this: you were an impossible boy to be around. And that constant counting and stacking of your books. I do know I was the only one you wanted to wash your socks, and I always did, inside out, then ironed them. I never told any of the ladies I worked with on the vote that I ironed your socks, then laid them individually on your bed, with the toes facing east, toward the Atlantic. I knew you had to fold them in your special way yourself and line them up in the drawer. Paying attention to all those things I had to do for you, and the things you insisted on doing your way, by yourself, became second nature to me. And who does those things now?

  You could drag out the printing press you boys built—I think it was from a part of a bicycle and scrap metal. I know it’s in the attic at the big house now. Did it involve a bicycle or is my memory failing? Why don’t you start a newspaper of news from Dayton and hand-deliver it?

  Perhaps we were happiest then, printing that newspaper, West Side News, about the neighborhood animals that escaped and those poems. You did like your poetry.

  Harry wrote a beautiful story yesterday. There was a mining accident, and he was sent to write about it and interview some of the widows. He went to the cemetery in the deep snow, and he said how silent and stoic everyone was as the minister was speaking. He said the flurries fell like feathers and that every step he took was covered in a soft gray ash. The whole village was covered in ash. Of course, it’s a very sad story, but I think that image is beautiful too.

  I shan’t ask you for Harry’s birthday celebration this year. It will be a small gathering. The Lenten roses look like they might bloom early this year!

  Missing you,

  Sister

  March 17, 1928

  FIRST WOMAN ON THE MOON

  I was holding the tin bucket of clothespins up for Mother when she was hanging laundry on a March day like today, with everything achingly ready to burst green. I was looking up at the sky when I winced, because she pinched me on the back with a clothespin. It did not hurt too much, but my eyes stung.

  “Katharine Wright,” she said, “when I was a child, I was helping my father in his shop, and I told him, ‘I believe we will go to the moon someday.’ He said, ‘The moon is not for men to stand on, Susan, not to stand on at all.’”

  And then my mother said to me, right after she pinched me on the back with a clothespin, “But, Katharine, I believe you and the boys will go there someday.”

  We both laughed, but there was something in her tone, as she went back to hanging clothes. I held out the bucket of clothespins to her, and she gave me a look I will never forget. “You and the boys have work to do on this earth. This will be your mission in life,” she said.

  Harry has just returned home from planting. He always is particularly subdued after his visits to the cemetery, and I let him take a few hours to come back to me. He folds his gardening gloves over the handle of the shovel at the kitchen door as neatly as Orv folds his socks. That is the only neat thing he does. He doesn’t tell me where he’s been, but of course I know. It’s not that he lies. He is just extremely silent. I saw him load up the car with impatiens. I like that he plants flowers at Isabel’s grave.

  May 18, 1928

  Dear Master Orville Wright,

  The star magnolias are in bloom, exploding white! Have they bloomed in Dayton yet?

  There’s a boy who delivers the Star, the newspaper not the tree. I know, it’s funny we get it delivered, when Harry writes for it, but we do. A bit like coals to Newcastle. But the delivery boy comes by on his bicycle and it lands on the porch with a thump. He knocked on the door once while Harry was downtown and I ans
wered. The boy was extremely polite, tipped his hat and said, “Would you like to contribute to the boys’ baseball league, Mrs. Haskell?” and then he paused and said, “Or Mrs. Haskell, sort of.” I tried not to giggle. Now when we are teasing each other, Harry sometimes calls me “Mrs. Haskell, sort of.” Such is the lot of a second wife!

  Love and laughter,

  Katharine

  P.S. Do you recall when we were in Europe and King Alfonso wanted Wilbur to take him up for a flight, but the king’s mother wouldn’t give him permission?

  May 19, 1928

  Orville Wright!

  I think you are the most selfish man in the world, and that’s quite a feat. How dare you not respond after us being so close all our lives?

  Last night I was dreaming of canoeing on Lake Huron with you and Scipio, who was sitting proudly up front in the bow with me, his ears perked up, scouting for birds or even fish! I looked up in my dreams book to see what the new brain doctors think dreaming of dogs represents, and it says, “When a person dreams of dogs he is dreaming of fidelity or someone who is loyal or in some instances disloyal.” It is entirely possible the dog in the dream is you (but perhaps not!). I also dreamed of the fireflies flickering through the trees up at the lake in summer, like Christmas lights, so high up. But there was nothing in the book about dreaming of fireflies.

  The hydrangeas are bursting blue, as you say!

  Your only sister,

  Katharine

  May 20, 1928

  Orville,

  Harry has built the sweetest bird feeder, shaped like a little house and covered with birdseed and straw. I think you would approve of the design and the construction. It is similar to the ones you used to build. It is now hanging on the sugar maple outside our bedroom window, but getting it there was a hoot. I was holding on to his waist as he leaned out the window to find a suitable branch, and when he backed up afterward, we tumbled onto the bed like in one of those Charlie Chaplin movies.