“I’d just about given up hope of her ever giving me the time of day,” Paul said.
“Well, she’s stubborn.” Morgan nodded understandingly. “Always was. Won’t budge an inch until she’s made up her mind, yes or no, but once she knows what she wants nobody better get in her way.”
“I’ve noticed that,” Paul said slyly. “For years she held me at bay, and then, boom! Out of the blue she shows up and proposes marriage. Well, what could I do?” He held his palms out helplessly. “Imagine how embarrassing it would have been for her if I’d refused.” He blinked innocently, as if the whole thing had been beyond his control. “So, here I am, the noose tied round my neck good and tight.”
I slapped Paul playfully on the arm. “That’s enough of that.”
“Ouch! You see how she treats me?” Paul rolled his eyes toward Morgan and winked. “Admit it, Eva. You proposed to me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I have no recollection of any such unladylike event,” I lied.
Morgan laughed and looped his arm through mine, picking up our suitcase easily with the other. “Come on, you two, we can continue this argument in the taxi.”
Paul took my other arm, and we walked off together, my heart full of the complete picture we made. People walking past would think we were a family. Maybe we were.
Three days flew like an hour. We were so anxious to take advantage of every minute together that we barely slept. We spent a whole day at the zoo. I’d seen pictures of some of the animals in books, of course, but no encyclopedic reference could make you understand the sheer size of an elephant or just how elegant the arc of a giraffe’s neck really is. There was a feeling of breathtaking intimacy in watching those beautiful animals just being themselves, like peeking through the window of a stranger’s house. I felt a little guilty looking in on their private world, yet I couldn’t tear myself away. If a zookeeper hadn’t come up and tapped me on the shoulder to remind me it was five minutes till closing, I suppose I never would have left.
The zoo was my favorite, but we also went to the amusement park at Belmont Park, a museum, and took a ferry to Coronado. We had tea in the Hotel Del Coronado, which was so beautiful! I just had to buy a picture postcard to send Mama and Ruby. We went swimming in the ocean, and that was wonderful, too, though I’ll admit to being a little scared. I never imagined the pull of the tide could be so powerful. Even after Morgan walked us by the base to impress us with the size of the ships that were in port, it frightened me to think of him sailing to Australia on the vast, uncontrollable sea, but I kept my fears to myself. When I had looked at San Diego on a map, I’d thought that we’d be just a hop, skip, and jump away from Hollywood. Morgan explained it would take hours and hours to get there by bus, so I never did get to see the handprints at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, but that was all right. I did see a woman crossing the street who looked exactly like Claudette Colbert! Of course, it was hard to know for sure from so far away, but I didn’t want to get so close that we’d know if it wasn’t. Why risk ruining a good story? Papa would have agreed with me.
It was a wonderful trip. I’m convinced that no tourist in California saw more than we did in those three days—but more than anything else, we just enjoyed being together. And how we talked! Walking down the street, riding a bus, through mouths full of hamburgers in diners, shopping for souvenirs, we talked without taking a breath. Morgan wanted to know everything about Mama and Ruby and Dillon. Funny, I had always thought of our lives there as being so dull and predictable that there were no stories to tell, but it wasn’t true. We were as small and insignificant as any village on earth, but when I thought about it, there were little dramas unfolding every day in Dillon. Of course, if you weren’t from Dillon none of it mattered, but Morgan was hungry for stories from home. He had a million questions. How was Mr. Dwyer’s gout? How many bushels to the acre had there been last year? What had everyone said when Tommy Franks rescued his little brother Joey from drowning in an irrigation ditch? We laughed and talked and laughed some more, trying to crowd a year’s worth of conversation into a few precious hours. Three days flew by like three minutes.
The last night before Morgan had to report for duty, we didn’t get back to our hotel room until after midnight. The hot water ran out during my shower. I was cold and tired and dreading saying good-bye to Morgan in the morning. Paul and I had our first argument.
Paul was already in bed when I came out of the bathroom. “Do you want to get up with me at five and say good-bye to Morgan?” I asked.
“No, the two of you need some time alone. He’s been good to include me, but I’m sure there are things you have to say to each other that will be easier if I’m not there.”
“Nothing that you couldn’t listen in on, I’m sure, but I wouldn’t blame you for staying in a warm bed at that hour.” I shivered as I did up the last buttons on my nightgown. “It’s freezing in here! I thought California was supposed to be warm,” I grumbled.
“It is. It’s just the water that’s cold.” He pulled back the covers and made a space for me next to him. “Get in here. It’s warm under the blankets.”
He wrapped his arms around me, and soon my teeth stopped chattering. Paul yawned, and I echoed him. “Fine pair of newlyweds we are,” he said, groaning with exhaustion and rubbing his eyes. “Less than a week after the wedding and so exhausted all we can do is yawn.”
“Hmmm,” I muttered with my eyes closed. “Most newlyweds are a lot younger than we are, my love. Also, they don’t spend their honeymoon trying to see every sight in the state of California and then sitting in a diner and talking to their son until it’s so late the waitress tells them they have to leave so she can close up.”
“That’s true,” Paul said.
His voice sounded a little troubled, and I opened my eyes and studied his face.
“You don’t mind Morgan being here, do you? I never really asked if this was the way you wanted to spend our trip. Maybe you’d have preferred having just the two of us?”
Paul dismissed that idea with a shake of his head. “Of course not. We’ve got a lifetime to be alone together.”
“Oh, right,” I said sarcastically. “Just you and me and Mama and Ruby.” I couldn’t help but chuckle at my own joke, and Paul joined in.
“And don’t forget the entire congregation of the church,” he said. “They’re always watching us one way or the other.”
“Oh, well, that’s just Dillon. Everybody watches everybody; everybody talks about everybody. It’s our main form of recreation.”
Paul smiled and tried to stifle another yawn. “You and Morgan certainly did some talking these last three days. I never knew my wife was so well informed about local gossip.”
I snuggled closer in his embrace. The word “wife” still sounded new and wonderful in my ears. “Having Ruby as a best friend helps,” I mumbled sleepily. I kissed him good night, rolled over, and spooned myself into the warmth of his chest as I closed my eyes Everything was quiet. In another minute I’d have been dreaming, but Paul wasn’t ready to sleep.
“Do you and Morgan ever talk about him?” he said quietly but pointedly. There was no doubt in my mind that the “him” in question was Charles Lindbergh.
I was suddenly wide awake and shifted slightly to the colder side of the bed, my back still turned to Paul. “When he was younger, I always said I would when he was older. Now he is older, I don’t see any point to it.”
“Don’t you think Morgan would like to know?”
“He’s never asked me about it.” I tried to answer casually, but even I could hear the edge in my voice.
“Of course he’s never asked, Eva,” Paul said. “You’re all he’s got. He’d never risk hurting you by asking you about painful things, things that might embarrass you to talk about, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to know.”
“What is there about Charles Lindbergh that’s worth knowing? You’ve said it yourself: the man’s a coward and an anti-Semite.” I rolled ove
r to face him, daring him to deny my accusation.
Paul sat up. “Eva, there are a lot of things I don’t like about the man, but I’m not blind to his accomplishments. Morgan is a lot like him, adventurous, brave, optimistic, and more at home in the air than on the earth. All those wonderful qualities are the legacy his father has left him. I think he deserves to know it.” I didn’t answer, just stared stonily, but Paul refused to be intimidated by silence.
“I swear, sometimes I don’t understand you, Eva,” he said, shaking his head. “You kept Lindbergh on a pedestal for years, building him up into something that no one could ever be, hoping that one day, finally, he’d glide into town and claim his son and you. Then, just like that, the adoration is over! You take out your sledgehammer and smash your creation into a million pieces and grind the shards into the dirt.”
“Don’t you dare lecture me about Charles Lindbergh!” I said. “I was just about the only person on earth who didn’t idolize him. Everyone wanted to make him into the Lone Eagle, some mythic creature. I accepted him for what he was, or at least for what I thought he was. Now I see how lucky we were that he left Morgan alone. I’m just protecting my son. He’s been through enough already.” I lay down and pulled the covers up to my chin, signaling that the subject was closed.
Paul scooted across the bed and settled in next to me, pushing himself up on one elbow. His voice was infuriatingly reasonable but firm. I could see he had no intention of minding his own business. “This isn’t about protecting Morgan, Eva. You’re furious with Lindbergh, and not even because he abandoned you and Morgan. That at least would make some sense. You’re angry because you thought you knew him and you were wrong. You were willing to give him everything in exchange for the honor of being the one person who truly understood him because you thought that meant he loved you. Now you know the truth; the man is an enigma to you, to everyone, and he doesn’t love you. Possibly he never did, but that doesn’t make him a monster.” The hard line of his mouth softened, and he reached out to pull me closer. “No matter what he is or isn’t to you, he’s still Morgan’s father.”
I rolled away and sat up on the edge of the bed with my back to him. “Paul, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Well, I do.” He pushed off the blanket, strode around the bed, and knelt down in front of me, making it impossible to avoid his eyes. “Eva, I won’t let you shut me out. When you love someone you share the truth, even the painful parts. You’ve made it very clear to Morgan where the forbidden zones are. Soon he’ll start building up walls of his own to go with the ones he’s inherited from you and from Lindbergh. Give him a little time and he’ll have constructed such a fortress of secrets that no one will be able to get close. Is that what you want for him?”
I tried to pull away again, but Paul held me fast. There was no getting away from those deep, piercing eyes, and the absence of cover filled me with panic. “This doesn’t concern you, Paul!” I cried. “What I tell or don’t tell my son about his father is between us. It’s a family matter, so just stay out of it!” The ugly words spilled out of my mouth unbidden. Paul’s face fell, clearly stung by my attack. His mouth twitched, and for a moment I could see him struggling within himself, fighting off the bitterness and resentment; he won that battle. Without saying a word, he got to his feet, pulled me to mine, and held me in his embrace, tight and close, as though he would never let go.
Anger, punishing silence, even a slammed door would have been easy for me to handle. I could have summoned a controlled response to any of those reactions. Paul’s tender retort caught me completely off guard. I felt helpless in the face of his unyielding love. I sobbed in his arms.
We stood that way, wrapped up in each other for the longest time, until finally my tears were spent and I leaned against him, more in love with this man than ever. He kissed me gently and wiped away the last traces of my tears.
“We are family now, Eva,” he said softly. “We both hold the keys to all the doors in our lives; there are no locks between us. I love you, Eva. That won’t change no matter what you say to me or to Morgan, but I think you owe him the truth. That’s my opinion. You can do with it what you will.”
I lifted my hand to his face, pulling it toward mine, finding his lips, pulling him back down onto the bed. As he eagerly followed my lead, I opened myself to him with no restraint, no boundaries, each of us at once yielding and demanding, one flesh forever.
I knew him ... and he me.
Later, exhausted but unable to sleep, I laid awake for what was left of the night, puzzling over what I would say to Morgan but reaching no conclusion. The night sky began fading from black to misty gray. Taking care not to waken him, I lifted Paul’s arm from where it rested on my hip, slid silently from the warmth of the bed, dressed in darkness, and left to meet Morgan in the coffee shop.
Morgan had gotten there first. He waved to me from a booth upholstered in a candy-apple red that gleamed artificially bright and cheerful in the dull dawn light. Morgan’s wide, fixed grin told me he was determined to ignore the specter of farewell that stood just outside the door. We ordered breakfast, though when the waitress put the food in front of me I could do little more than pick at the scrambled eggs and push the potatoes from one side of the plate to the other.
We talked about Mama and her birthday picnic at the lake. I told Morgan how Mr. Cheevers had pressed the extra gallons of gas on me, taking care to paint a picture of that kind man that was more amusing than poignant. Morgan said again what a great guy Paul was. I smiled and agreed, but then the conversation lagged. Our silence was tight and uncomfortable, and I could see Paul was right. There were too many things unsaid between us. It was time for Morgan and me to quit protecting each other. I took a deep breath and resolved to tell him everything—but Morgan cleared his throat before I could speak.
“Mama, have you seen Virginia Pratt lately?” He dunked a donut in his coffee with a deliberately casual air.
“Why, no,” I answered. “Not recently. I guess she’s about ready to graduate, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. Next month. She made salutatorian. Oh, damn it!” A soggy crumb from the coffee-soaked donut dropped on his shirt as he took a bite.
“Don’t curse,” I said automatically in my “mother” voice, handing him a napkin to blot the stain. Morgan grinned.
“Still trying to turn me into a gentleman, Mama?” He dabbed at the spot, but it wasn’t helping.
“No. Trying to remind you that you already are a gentleman. Here. Give me that.” I took the napkin from him, dipped it in my water glass, and gave it back. “See if that works any better.” It did. “How do you know so much about Virginia Pratt?”
“She writes me sometimes,” he said as he returned his attention to the coffee stain.
“You write back?”
“Sometimes.” He shrugged.
This news surprised me, though it shouldn’t have. Every mother of an adoring little boy knows there will come a day when she is no longer the most important female in her son’s world, but when the moment actually arrives it’s a shock. I couldn’t help but wonder where the time had gone.
Today was not the day, I realized, to talk about the past, to tell him where he’d gotten those deep gray-blue eyes, so different from mine. Morgan was grown up and living his life, living it in uncertain times. He didn’t care about yesterday. His mind was set on today and tomorrow and another pair of eyes, hazel, I remembered, and sparkling with curiosity, placed evenly in a heart-shaped face that bore a delicate pink-and-white complexion, translucent as fine china with the sun shining through it, framed with long red curls. Virginia Pratt. I didn’t know her well, but I recalled her as a quiet girl who read a lot—shy, but not painfully so. She’d liked to hide behind her mother’s skirts when she was little but would come out and greet adults with a solemn handshake when prompted. A pretty girl. That was the picture imprinted on Morgan’s mind. That was the way it should be. Mr. Cheevers would agree, I was certain. I de
cided then that, no matter what Paul said, today was not the day to tell my son about his real father. Someday, I silently promised myself, when the war was over and Morgan was home for good, there would be no secrets between us. He would know everything. In the meantime all he needed to know was the face of a pretty girl and that I supported his choice.
“She’s seems like a sweet girl,” I said approvingly. “Must be smart to stand second in the class. Always had real nice manners, I remember.” Morgan nodded in agreement and continued blotting the spot that had already completely disappeared. I cleared my throat uncertainly. “Anything you want to tell me?” I asked.
He put down the napkin, took another long drink of coffee, and shook his head. “Not right now. We’ve talked about ... you know ... things,” he admitted as a blush of color rose in his cheeks. “She’s always wanted to be a teacher. It’d be a shame if she didn’t go to college while she has the chance. Besides, she’s young yet. It’d be selfish to ask her to wait. It’s a long war, and, well ...” His voice trailed off, and he brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I’m a pilot,” he said simply. “You know, the odds aren’t good for me, Mama.”
“I know,” I whispered. My hand rose unbidden to cover my mouth. “So many times I’ve thought I should have insisted you stay in college. Maybe I shouldn’t have let you learn to fly in the first place.”
“Mama, you couldn’t have stopped me. No one could have. It’s just part of me.” He leaned in toward me, and his eyes became brighter, as they always had when talking about flight. “When I joined up all I thought about was flying, just me and the plane and blue sky that doesn’t end. I never really thought about why I would be flying. Not that I didn’t understand that there was a war and that I would be in it, but I didn’t really know what war was. The newsreels clean it up and make it seem so simple and straight, but there’s no color in those pictures. There’s no spewing red of blood, or ravenous orange flame that eats tail sections alive, or blue-black ocean that sucks downed planes into the depths and hides them where they’ll never be found. A battle reported in black and white is just an outline of the real thing.”
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