by Patty Dann
Mainly I am crazy with grief, the way we were when Will died. This young girl, she really was like a daughter, and that baby . . . I loved that baby. I would have cared for him. My thoughts are like bats flying around.
I think I am losing my mind now. I am reaching for baby Psalm. I want to hold him close. I want to rub Psalm’s baby ears.
February 26, 1929
I have lost my appetite. I need to get away. Maybe Orv could visit, and we could all drive together to Canada and then take the boat to Lambert Island for our birthdays this summer. Orv once said he wanted to be buried there, or even walk the plank from one of the canoes.
At night I hear baby Psalm crying. I hear my dear friend Frances from school, how she sang when we used to hike together. Identifying trees without their leaves—just by their bark. I have long woolen underwear on, and Harry keeps saying, “Dearest one, just get better. That is all I ask.”
I imagine he would prefer not to be a widower again. People might think there was something fishy going on here. JOURNALIST KILLS SECOND WIFE!
I found some notes from Isabel, they were stuck at the back of the second drawer in her bureau, our bureau, and although I was shocked, it made me feel closer to her. She too got lonely, and I have come to believe that all women get lonely. I want to tell her about baby Psalm. I understand that loneliness is simply part of the river of our lives, and I want to thank her for sharing her husband. I imagine Orv would say he is lonely too, although he would not say that out loud. Isabel’s notes are written in a girlish handwriting on thick cream cards with her initials on them, I.H. Isabel Haskell. I miss H. when he is downtown, she writes. What can possibly always be so important!
Rather than feeling jealous, I feel a great kindred spirit with her.
I am weary now.
February?
When Harry got home, I was sitting up in bed covered in a pile of comforters. I heard his automobile door slam, but then he did not come in the house immediately and I feared he was out in the snow, pacing around the outside of the house like he was on some kind of Aborigine walkabout. I heard him walk up the stairs, and then he was there, my dear man with a pile of newspapers in his hands. He traipsed snow all the way into our bedroom and dumped the papers on his chair in the corner. I know he is scared, and I want to comfort him. I don’t know if he can hold in his head the thought of two wives who have died. I cannot stop coughing.
Then, as he stood by the bed, he took his cold hands and rubbed them together before he touched me. “Katharine dear, I want to hold you, but my hands are so cold.”
I took his hands in mine as I lay in bed. “Harry, I have been to your Isabel’s grave. Last summer. The impatiens needed watering. I watered them.”
Harry looked startled, and I said, “Harry Haskell, I saw what is written.”
Harry knelt down by my bed and kissed my hands.
“I understand,” I said. “Vivid. Joyous. Brave,” I recited, as he stroked my forehead. “I want to hold that baby boy.”
February ?, 1929 (my calendar is downstairs), written upstairs by hand . . .
Dear Orville Wright!
Please come for Harry’s fifty-fifth birthday on March 8. Don’t be late!
K.
P.S. I saw you wrapped in silk from the wings and just your underclothes. Of course, you were wearing your polished shoes. I saw you that day, in your room, before you went to sleep. You were smiling, doing some kind of two-step.
February 28, 1929
Are you coming? I wonder if Harry will marry again.
Do you remember when Harry, my Harry, came to interview us in Washington after we returned from Europe? I did feel a flicker then—I admit it. Once when he helped me with my math lessons at Oberlin, our hands had touched as they lay on the composition book.
P.S. Harry and I are to set sail on March 9 to Italy and Greece. It will mean I miss four flying lessons, but I will race to the airfield as soon as I am back. I am beside myself with grief and coughing. I am trying to remember everything. When the three of us went to Italy in 1909, King Victor Emmanuel III—or was it IV?—showed us how to eat spaghetti without dropping a strand.
February ?, 1929
Dear Orv, Orv dear,
I don’t know what day it is . . . I’m so blue . . .
Orville, do you recall the photo that was taken when we went to the White House and met President Taft? I wore a white dress, and people said you and I looked like bride and groom. Do you still have that photo? I long to see it again. The Reverend talked from the pulpit about women voting, and that march down Main Street in 1914 was one of my happiest days, with you and the Reverend by my side.
Orv, Orv dear, February 28 or is it the 18th?
I am dizzy. It’s just you and me and Lorin left. Please come visit. It is pneumonia. We have to cancel our voyage to Italy and Greece . . . If you come, we can dance together in silks from wings at the club . . .
Who pushed the door open, when the Reverend was with the woman, was it you or Will? I can’t keep the story straight. I can’t keep anything straight. Still, I want to tell you love is not like that, Orv. Love can be pure. The word “pact” comes from the Latin word for “peace”—we must make a new pact.
March 1, 1929
THE LEAVING PART
I am leaving. “It is the way of nature,” as Will said once when the three of us were looking at a blackbird in the shed, one that had been caught and dragged in by one of the cats. The poor bird lay on its side on the dirt floor. It’s the way of nature. I was seven, so Orv must have been ten and Will fourteen. Will was right. It’s the way of nature.
Where am I? What state? I miss Ohio. Why is Kansas City mainly in Missouri? Shouldn’t it be in Kansas?
I hear a strong wind outside, too strong for flying.
Orv once said, “I like a state that begins and ends with the same vowel!”
March is so beautiful—Sap Moon, Crow Moon, Lenten Moon.
I try not to let Harry know that I am dying, and he does the same for me. I am certain that he does know, but I think he does not want to admit it. I understand it is too hard for him. I can see in his eyes that combination of fear and sadness. He has been here before and does not want to go back again. I wish I could keep him from making that visit. But I can’t. I am too weak. I am too cold.
One regret I have is, I was not able to continue reading to Orv at night. After the Reverend died, I read to him bedtime stories, but what comforted him most was his list of birds. The birds from Kitty Hawk did the trick: kestrels, black-bellied plovers, great blue herons, mallards, and his favorites, the piping plovers.
I would love to see Orv before it comes, even with the way he has behaved. Deaths have so defined our lives. How different they would have been if Mother had not died when she did, if Tom Selfridge had not died, if Wilbur had not died. And then Isabel. If she had not died, I would never have married Harry. And Rochelle and baby Psalm. I should have helped Rochelle more.
How can I miss April? Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Pink Moon. And our birthday month, Green Corn Moon and Grain Moon.
I did make a copy of the movable rudder I designed, of the drawing I placed on Orv’s desk so many years ago. I always made copies of my drawings. We all did. There is a folded copy of the rudder plans in the envelope at the back of my marriage diary. I don’t know what Will and Orv did with my original drawing. I had put it on Orv’s desk late one night and it was gone by daybreak the next morning. A woman has needs. A woman has needs.
But now, so that Orv might remember me, I am writing a list of all the words for flying he might not know and might find amusing. I think he should start flying again. When I learn to fly solo, I shall fly to Dayton and pick him up. He would think that is a fine howdy-do.
aviate
buzz
climb
control
cross
dart
dash
dive
drift
flat-hat
f
leet
flit
float
flutter
glide
hop
hover
maneuver
mount
operate
pilot
reach
rush
sail
seagull
shoot
skim
soar
speed
swoop
take a hop
take wing
whisk
whoosh
wing
zip
zoom
Whatever word one uses, I am going up now forever and I am flying solo now. Clear skies. I wish I could take a picture and show Orv the view, and our mother. I hope Orv has enough socks.
I am not able to get out of bed, so now I am writing in my mind, not my right mind, but here for a few more moments, or is it days? I hear Harry making telephone calls to Lorin in the hallway downstairs, imploring him to contact Orv. There is a screaming in his voice when he says the word “bleak.” And now he is begging him to call Orv to make the journey to visit me, now before I take off.
March? I Do Not Know When
I can see Carrie packing him a tin of biscuits and a Thermos of apple juice. Orv loves his traveling case. She is helping him pack for the journey. He will come.
I can see him standing in his bedroom at 7 Hawthorn, holding the pale green ceramic vase he had brought home for me from Kitty Hawk. Yes, he will bring that as a gift. And stay here, the guest room is made up, and in two months there will be forsythia and then the roses. He will fill the vase and set it on the kitchen table here in KC. I will make him French toast while Harry is at the paper.
I can see Orville sitting up the entire way on the train, with his traveling case flat on his knees, barely looking out at the snowy fields, not eating a bite of biscuit or sipping juice, just folding endless origami cranes.
Another Day in March?
I hear the doorbell downstairs. Is it Orv? I know he is in his suit. I hear Harry asking him to come in, but I do not hear my brother speak. There is someone climbing the steps now. We used to make flour-and-water paste with my mother in the bucket in the yard. It was such strong paste for paper and projects we fastened together. But that paste was not strong enough after the wind shear.
I can see Harry pointing Orv upstairs to the bedroom. I hear Harry’s singsong voice—“Harry Haskell, Kansas City Star”—but I do not hear Orv’s voice. My mind is tangled. I hear Orv climbing the stairs slowly, his bad hip preventing him from moving as fast as he would like. I want to rush to him and hold his arm. The bedroom door is shut, and I imagine he puts up his hand to knock but realizes that is foolish. Orv opens the door slowly, and quietly enters the bedroom that smells of rosewater and rubbing alcohol and death.
I smell him now, his licorice candies, as I lie under several white comforters. Where are my glasses? I want to see Orv. I think his hat is off, close to his chest.
I feel him reaching out to touch my arm. The room is silent now except for stray squirrels scrambling on the roof and my breath. Such a struggle to draw in air. Orv is with me, at my bedside that way, for minutes, for hours.
Someone else is here. Harry, I think, is now sitting on the chair in the corner. The room is dim as the sun goes down, eclipsing my sight. There is no turbulence. There is no wind shear. I draw in a breath and let it out.
I can hear the men far away, and I feel Orv placing paper cranes on my chest.
Is the doctor here? I am hungry for air. I cannot draw in another breath.
And now Orv stands and says to Harry, “I am sorry for your loss.”
“I am sorry for yours,” Harry replies.
I believe I hear the men speaking, but I am not in my right state of mind.
“I want to give you this,” Harry says, handing Orv my locked box from the closet and a key that hangs on a ribbon.
“Thank you,” I can hear Orv say.
I long to touch baby Psalm’s little ears again. That always helped him sleep.
Dear Orv
I am writing, with my finger in the air in invisible ink, one last letter to Orv, or I am trying to.
Dear Orv,
I am by your side on the long and horrible train ride back to Dayton, as you open the box with my marriage diary and the copies of the letters.
Listen to me, brother, I broke our pact to never marry, but I am not sorry that I did break it. I love Harry. Are you listening, Orv? I also wish you had broken it and found love.
Over the three years I wrote to you, is it true you took each letter Carrie handed you? Is it true you always thanked her kindly, even when two envelopes arrived on the same day? I know when you were alone you read each one carefully, but then always tossed them into the fire. A sister knows.
Now, on the train, we are together, shivering, as you read each one again, mouthing the words silently to yourself as if in prayer. You are sitting so stiffly in your seat, reading every word, in the cold and noisy railcar as it makes the rattling journey east.
And then you read my marriage diary. You reach for Carrie’s biscuits, eating and reading, scattering crumbs on the words I had written, thoughts and emotions you had never known before. By the end of the journey, your hands are stained a deep black purple from the carbon, which still clings to the letters.
When you arrive in Dayton, cold and frail, Carrie meets you at the front door. She cannot see me by your side as you clutch the box with the diary and letters as if it were a beloved toy.
That night, after Carrie insists, you eat some chicken and carrot soup, but you keep the box next to you on the dining table. You do not eat enough. You eat so slowly, no more than a half a bowl of soup, then stand stiffly, lifting the box and carrying it into the study, where you build a fire. I see how you kneel down and set the box on the hearth, then slowly place small sticks in the fireplace and light a match.
At first, it seems you want to burn the copies of the letters and rip out the pages of the marriage diary and throw them into the fire. But you do not. You stand and walk over to the filing cabinet that I always kept so organized. You open the top drawer.
First you take out four custard-colored folders and lay them on your desk. You label each one of them in your neat hand in heron-blue ink.
K LETTERS: NOVEMBER 20, 1926–NOVEMBER 19, 1927
K LETTERS: NOVEMBER 20, 1927–NOVEMBER 19, 1928
K LETTERS: NOVEMBER 20, 1928–FEBRUARY 1929
The last folder you label MARRIAGE DIARY. You methodically place the letters and the diary in the proper folders. Then you place the folders back in the filing cabinet and close the top drawer.
I see that hesitation before you bend down and open the bottom drawer. If I could scream I would have, because now you take out a folder, labeled KATHARINE IN KANSAS CITY, of letters you had never mailed to me. I see the stack of envelopes, sealed and addressed to Mrs. Harry Haskell, but you had never stuck on stamps. And then you walk back to the fireplace.
I am kneeling by the fire with you as you place the stack of letters on the hearth. One by one, taking each letter you’d written from its envelope. Without reading a word, you fold each letter into a paper aeroplane. As you kneel, I believe you feel something that you have only felt rarely before, first when Will died, and later, thinking about all the young boys in the Great War, but also when years ago you had gone up and the buckle of the strap on your goggles failed. You had to take off your goggles and face the harsh wind without them. I am here, close by your side, as you fly all the paper aeroplanes into the fire, as a tear runs down your cheek.
Author’s Note
Katharine Wright Haskell died on March 3, 1929, at fifty-four, five days before Harry’s fifty-fifth birthday.
Lorin died in 1939 at the age of seventy-seven.
Orville died in 1948 at seventy-six.
Will, Katharine, Orv, and Lorin are buried in the family plot with their parents in Dayton. Reuchlin i
s buried in Kansas City.
In 1931, Harry Haskell married for the third time, to Agnes Lee Hadley, the former wife of the governor of Missouri.
Harry Haskell died in 1952 at seventy-eight.
When the astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, they brought with them small pieces of muslin fabric from the wings and two pieces of the propeller from the Wright Flyer that first took off at Kitty Hawk in 1903.
Acknowledgments
Great thanks to Jill Lipton, whose keen eye and wit were key in imagining this story. Thanks also to Kate Ginna, Mary Rae, and Carol Weston for their careful readings and apt suggestions.
As always, thank you to my agent and friend, Malaga Baldi, who has supported me through thick and thin.
I am extremely fortunate to have the wise and wonderful editor Sara Nelson, whose sage edits transformed the manuscript into a book.
Mary Gaule’s support and attention (and patience) are a writer’s dream.
I could not have written this tale without my husband, Michael Hill, who endured years of my musings about the Wrights, read several drafts of the story, listened to it read aloud, and even went on our honeymoon to Kitty Hawk.
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