Spitfire

by Evan Balkan

  But still, in certain moments, she couldn’t help but allow the memories—the good ones—to sweep over her. There was nothing like the exhilaration of being out there on the ice.

  Mrs. Panski looked at her daughter. “So, that’s the story. At long last, you know everything.”

  “I guess it’s hard to talk about.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What do you have to be sorry about?”

  “I’m sorry you got injured. And I’m sorry that having me meant you couldn’t play anymore, even if your leg healed.”

  Mrs. Panski smiled a sad smile and put her arms around Caroline. She kissed the top of her daughter’s head. “Sweetheart, I told you. I wouldn’t trade a trillion games of hockey for you. And if I had it all to do again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Not if it meant I got you and Sam. You understand?”

  Caroline nodded. “I would have loved to have seen you play, though. I bet you were great.”

  Mrs. Panski laughed. “I guess I was pretty good.”

  “I’m sad, Mama.”

  “I know, sweetheart.”

  “I’m sad for all the things I never got to see or do, and all the things I never will. And I’m sad about Beautiful and Dad and … just everything.”

  Mrs. Panski pulled her daughter close and stroked her hair, but Caroline got up and, shoulders hunched, walked up the stairs and into her room, where she closed the door, leaving her mother to navigate her own sadness.

  CAROLINE SAT ON HER bed. No book, no nothing. Just sat and stared, a sad girl who appeared as if she had lost everything important to her.

  After a soft knock on Caroline’s bedroom door, Mrs. Panski entered. “Sweetheart? What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  Mrs. Panski started picking up clothes from the floor. “I know things are tough right now.” Mrs. Panski continued putting things away, distractedly cleaning up. “There are times in our lives when we are tried. And tried good. Some people fold under the pressure. Others find a way to keep going.” She folded a shirt and placed it on Caroline’s dresser. “I don’t know which category I fall in.” Mrs. Panksi stopped what she was doing and looked directly at Caroline. “But I do know which category you fall in. Caroline, look at me.”

  Caroline did as instructed.

  “You are one of the strongest people I know.”

  One tear fell from Caroline’s eye, weaving a path down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.

  “I’ve sent Sam to the Knudsens. Grab your skates. I want you to come with me.”

  Caroline climbed off her bed. She started her way out of the room, but Mrs. Panski halted her progress. Clutching her elbow, she leveled a steady gaze at her daughter. “There’s a reason I gave them to you, those skates. It scares me to no end. The idea you might end up like me. With this bum leg.”

  “I won’t, Mama. I promise.”

  “The world doesn’t work that way, sweetheart. Some things can’t be avoided. But I can’t just sit around here watching you be miserable. I can’t give you my blessing to play hockey either. But if going out to the ice every now and again with your old mother—”

  “You’re not old.”

  “Well. If going out there from time to time and shooting some pucks, if that will put a smile on your face, well, who am I to not allow that, huh?”

  Caroline smiled and hugged her mom.

  Caroline and Mrs. Panski walked down the street, skates draped over their respective shoulders. Mrs. Panski also carried a large duffel, two hockey sticks poking out the back. Caroline was curious, but she didn’t ask where this stuff came from. She was afraid any inquiries would spoil the mood.

  When they arrived at the pond, Caroline sat on the ground and put on her skates. Mrs. Panski rifled through the duffel, pulling out all manner of equipment, though it was difficult to tell what it all was.

  Caroline finished and stepped out onto the ice. Mrs. Panski removed her jacket, revealing that she was wearing her Spitfires goalie jersey. She dug in the pile of equipment she’d removed from the duffel: goalie gear—mask, glove, big leg and arm pads. She strapped it all on and then headed out onto the ice.

  Mrs. Panski’s limp was still visible, but being on the ice seemed to have the effect of ironing out the kinks. Her movements certainly couldn’t be called graceful, but there was a definite fluidity to them. Her mother ran through some odd dance like a ritual or something: banging on her arm pads, tugging on her mask, skating little choppy steps side to side. Finally, she stopped. She set herself up in front of the netting, dropped a puck onto the ice, and whipped it toward Caroline.

  “Show me what you’ve got, kid.”

  Caroline collected the puck and started toward goal. It was hard-charging, legs churning, building speed as she bore down on her mother.

  Mrs. Panski got herself into position, arms and legs folded inward, cutting off angles and entry points. Caroline continued her charge. She made long looping strides, crossing up the puck, handling the stick masterfully. The puck took a few bumps and skids across the rough surface, but Caroline handled each in turn, never losing control. Around fifteen yards out, she wound back, skated another few yards, and then fired. The puck came zipping through the air toward goal at incredible velocity, a perfect saucer flight, the rubber spinning as beautifully and tightly as the grandest football spiral until snap! Mrs. Panski’s oversized glove snagged it right out of the air.

  Mrs. Panski paused a moment, smiling—it seemed a flood of good memories was coming over her—and then dropped the puck onto the ice. She swept it toward Caroline, who also smiled, clearly impressed.

  “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “I’m not sure I can.”

  “I’m guessing there isn’t anything you can’t do if you set your mind to it.”

  Caroline collected the puck, did the same dance, lined up, fired, and—snap! Same result. Mrs. Panski was clearly in a zone. And she was clearly loving it.

  Caroline tried a new tack. She charged hard, lined up to fire, but then put her stick back on the ice and executed a deft little deke as Mrs. Panski stretched toward her. Caroline skipped by her, making a wide arc, and then cut back sharply toward goal, poking the puck behind her laid out mother.

  Caroline raised her arms in triumph. Mrs. Panski, despite the obvious sharp registers of pain in her leg, banged on the ice in celebration.

  Smiling, laughing—the first time in quite some time—Mrs. Panski and Caroline headed home, both of them bright and flashing from the recent exertion on the ice. But as they got close, Mrs. Panski slowed a bit, the smile fading from her face.

  “Mama?” Caroline asked.

  Mrs. Panski stopped, maybe a hundred feet from the front stoop.

  “Mama? What is it?” Caroline asked.

  Still, Mrs. Panski didn’t answer. She just kept staring at their house. Caroline looked, too and saw two men there. They were both wearing army uniforms. At first, a jolt of jumbled adrenalin shot through Caroline, for when she saw the uniforms she immediately thought of her father and the next logical leap—that he had returned home—wasn’t far behind. But after the first quick glance, she could see neither man was her father. No, these were two strangers who had knocked and were standing there. They knocked again, and when no one answered, they had a short conversation with one another—nothing Caroline could hear—and then started down the stoop.

  When they saw Caroline and Mrs. Panski standing on the sidewalk, they made their way over. Mrs. Panski took a step back—barely perceptible, but there nonetheless—as one of the men got close and said, “Mrs. Eloise Panski?” The men seemed unfazed by her hockey getup, as she was still wearing her arm pads, and her mask rested on top of her head, held on by the chinstrap.

  “Mrs. Eloise Panski?” the man repeated. The other man stepped close, too. Caroline could see that they both had kind, soft eyes. And they both looked at her with faint smiles. But their eyes were sad and tired, too, a
nd Caroline could see that they held some terrible truth.

  Mrs. Panski swallowed hard, stiffened. “That’s me.”

  The men removed the hats from their heads and held them between their fingers—wringing them, balling them up in one direction, releasing, and then balling them up again in the other direction.

  “Wife of a Mr. David Panksi, 26th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No!! No, no, no.”

  The army men managed to catch Mrs. Panski as she crumpled to the sidewalk.

  “Mama!” Caroline cried out. She took in the scene, seeing her mother passed out on the sidewalk, the two men trying to revive her. One of them looked up at Caroline. “Sweetheart, can you run inside and get a glass of water?”

  Caroline didn’t register this request. Instead, she watched as Miss London, their neighbor, came bolting out of her house, running in her housedress toward the scene, running with her hands in the air and her large bosom swaying back and forth.

  Caroline stood on the sidewalk, looking at her mother, at Miss London, at the men, and feeling utterly lost in the world.

  Miss London caught up to them and wrapped her arms around her, pulling Caroline away from the scene. Instinctively, Caroline twisted away. Then, without knowing how or why, she took off, passing the two old men, still out on the steps chatting about football or hockey or war or whatever, who waved at her as she ran.

  Caroline raced through the streets at a full sprint, trying to outrun what she knew was waiting for her back home. She took to the blind alleys, blind now herself with confusion, fear, rage. She skidded to a cross street, sprinted across it without registering the loud honks of the cars swerving to avoid her, and then stopped in front of a house she didn’t recognize. She saw it, but she didn’t see it. She couldn’t register a thing, her thoughts just a jumble in her brain. Then she took off again, trying to run to something, some understanding of something. And then, without even realizing she’d done so, she found herself at the pond. It had been the sight of her last happy moment, so why not go there?

  But it didn’t help. There was no getting around it. Her daddy was dead. He would never come back home. She would never see him again. She fell to her knees and sobbed.

  THE FUNERAL WAS HELD in Green-mount Cemetery. She’d been to Greenmount once before. Well, sort of. She and her father had been walking along Oliver Street, away from Penn Station, and turned onto Green-mount Avenue. She couldn’t even recall why they were there or what they were doing. In actual crow-fly distance, it wasn’t very far from their home, but it was up north past Little Italy, Jonestown, and Oldtown, even beyond Johnston Square and Brentwood, up where Joseph lived. In short, Greenmount West was just not a place they went. But Caroline could remember walking past the cemetery—the great imposing wrought iron gates tucked inside the crenellated stone entrance—and her daddy telling her that eight Baltimore mayors and eight Maryland governors were buried there. Sixteen Civil War generals. Johns Hopkins and Enoch Pratt. Both Walters—Henry and William. The poet Sidney Lanier. Elizabeth Patterson, Napoleon’s sister-in-law “Married Napoleon’s brother Jerome,” her daddy said. Caroline made a face. “It’s true,” he said. “Lots of others, too. Arunah Abell, the founder of the Sun papers. John Wilkes Booth. He’s buried there. A whole mess of famous people.”

  Caroline had tugged on her daddy’s sleeve, hurrying the walk. Cemeteries gave her the creeps. He picked up on his daughter’s trepidation, for he leaned in close—she could smell his aftershave—and told her that old dumb joke, “C’mon kid, people are dying to get in there.”

  “Daddy,” she said, not laughing, until he poked his fingers into her ribs and she squealed with delight and it didn’t matter that they were at a cemetery. She’d had her dad all to herself that day, and there was nothing better than that. Nothing in the whole wide world.

  But now she was back at the cemetery for his funeral, and there was no laughter. No more having him to herself. He belonged to everyone now. Everyone and no one. And yet she remained steely somehow, taking it all in, revealing an inner strength well beyond her years. It was as if she’d decided to take the role of family rock when neither Sam nor her mother appeared capable of it.

  The funeral was, of course, a dismal affair full of women in black, stoic military men, a somber priest. Mrs. Panski wore all black, too, with a black veil covering her face. Despite the veil hiding her face, the grief and tears and utter devastation came through anyway. Sam was a mess, also, wiping away tears, his face swollen and red.

  “We say ‘goodbye,’ but let us examine the word,” the priest said. “‘Good-bye. Let us break it up. It means, God be with ye. Those of us who know our French, our Spanish, we look at how those people take leave of one another: ‘Adieu,’ with God. ‘Adios,’ be with God. It is the same for us, in our language. David Panski is with God and that means we will see him again.”

  The tide inside her broke then, mostly because Caroline didn’t believe the priest’s words and could take no comfort from them. So she ran off, found a huge oak tree to shield herself, and wept for her father, dried leaves clinging to her stockinged knees until several family friends pulled her up and away. Away from the tree. Away from the cemetery. Away from the cold hard place where her Daddy was now and would be forever more.

  A week later, Caroline approached school with her books in her arms. She walked with her eyes diverted, aware of the transformation. Many of the other students stared and whispered as she passed. It was clear that word about her dad had gotten around and that she had become an object of supreme fascination.

  In class, the students were silent. None of them spoke to her, none of them knew what to say. It was as if Caroline was some strange creature no one knew how to approach safely so everyone just kept their distance. Undeterred, Miss Bloom read a lesson about the Civil War.

  “General Benjamin Butler’s troops trained their guns on the good citizens of Baltimore from atop Federal Hill—”

  Caroline raised her hand.

  “Yes, Caroline?”

  “I need to use the restroom.”

  “You may be excused.”

  Caroline got up and left, the other students watching her every move. Miss Bloom couldn’t take her eyes off her, either. Eggshells, for sure.

  Once out in the hallway, Caroline ran down the hall until she found a far-off and forlorn looking niche. She leaned against a cinder block wall, slid to the floor, and cried.

  She had demanded to come to school, tired of just sitting at home, wearing black, dealing with neighbors and their heaping trays of food, their offers of help when they couldn’t really do anything anyway, at least not do the one thing they all wanted and needed. They couldn’t bring him back. No one could bring him back alive and well so they could be a whole family again. She was sick of it.

  Back in the classroom, Miss Bloom stopped reading, looked at the clock, and glanced at Caroline’s empty chair. It had been awhile, at least six or seven minutes. Then she resumed reading. “Executions of Confederate soldiers took place in the courtyard of General Butler’s temporary residence on Hamburg Street . . .”

  Caroline had by then begun to compose herself. She suddenly became aware of someone approaching and so straightened up, wiping away the last of the tears from her face.

  When she looked up, she saw Joseph standing in front of her.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  Joseph scratched his arm, the back of his neck. “Are you okay?” he asked, finally.

  Caroline nodded.

  “You’re missing the lesson on The War Between the States.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Your daddy died?”

  Caroline nodded.

  “My daddy died, too.”

  “In Korea?”

  Joseph shook his head. “South Carolina.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Joseph nodded. “You need help getting up?”


  “No.” Caroline got up and smoothed her skirt. They walked down the hall together, back toward their classroom.

  “I had fun that day. You know, when you showed me the ice and all,” Joseph said.

  “Yeah, me too. How did you get out of class?” Caroline asked.

  “Just walked out.”

  “Aren’t you going to get in trouble?”

  Joseph shrugged. “I don’t care.”

  “I don’t want you to be in trouble on my account.”

  “We’re friends. Sometimes friends get in trouble to help each other.”

  Caroline nodded and they continued their walk in silence.

  Joseph stooped down, picked up a piece of crumpled paper off the floor, carried it with him as they walked, and then deposited it in a hallway trash can.

  They came near their classroom door, but Caroline hesitated just before she got there. When she stopped, Joseph, who had been walking just a few steps behind her, stopped, too. He made a noise, a short grunt that Caroline assumed was going to form into a question about whether she was okay. But he got no further than that grunt because Caroline turned around and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly, stifling sobs.

  At first he just stood there. But she kept hugging him, holding on as tightly as she could. Slowly, reluctantly, he raised his hands and hugged her back, allowing her to do whatever it was she needed to do to get it all out.

  She didn’t make any noises during this long hug, burying her face into Joseph’s shoulder. So it wasn’t that which drew Beatrice into the hall. It was the fact that more than ten minutes had elapsed between the time Caroline left and when Miss Bloom, now concerned, told Beatrice to go look for her, to check the bathrooms, to see if she was okay. Beatrice, of course, didn’t have to go very far. As soon as she opened the door, she saw them. She let out a groan of disgust.