I exhaled and sank onto the arm of the chair. We sat in silence for several long moments. “Ma…you have to understand,” I said. “It’s been over with Collie for a long time. I’m in love with Ingo. That’s been true for a long time too.”
“That face,” murmured Ma.
“What does it matter?”
“In an ideal world, it wouldn’t.” Ma hesitated, looking pained. “I like him,” she said.
I stared at her.
“I do,” said Ma. “He’s intelligent, well-spoken; he obviously comes from a nice family…” She sighed, as if she’d been saying the opposite. I could almost see her trying to reconcile herself to a man in my life who wasn’t Collie.
“He’ll be good to you,” she said finally. “I can tell.”
I was tempted to ask about Dad then – to find out what Ma had alluded to in her letter to Hal. I felt too drained to pursue it. I kissed Ma’s cheek. “See you at dinner,” I said.
When I reached the bedroom on the top floor, Ingo was slumped on the bed wearing only his trousers, his fingers buried in his dark curls. He didn’t look up as I closed the door.
“Well, that went well,” he said.
I went and crouched on the floor in front of him. I rubbed his knees. “She likes you,” I said.
He laughed.
“No, I’m not kidding. She told me.”
Ingo’s eyebrows rose. He pulled me onto the bed and I straddled him. “She thinks you’re intelligent and well-spoken.” I kissed his neck – nibbled it lightly. “She says you’ll be good to me,” I murmured.
His good eyebrow was still high. He caressed my thighs. The feel of his hands on my skin undid me and I pushed him back onto the bed. We landed in a tangle and I laughed.
“All right, I think my powers of observation have completely failed me,” Ingo said. “What would it have been like if she didn’t like me?”
“It wouldn’t have mattered.” I smoothed his hair back. “I’m so sorry,” I added. “I should have guessed that she’d…”
“Stop.” He slid his hand behind my neck and kissed me. “If you meet my family, you’ll have three of them firing questions at you.”
If. I understood. I did the same thing. Part of me was glad that Ma had forced the issue of our future out into the open…though I was scared that the depth of my feelings might jinx it all, just as much as saying when instead of if.
What remained of Hal’s right leg was slightly elevated, its bandages pristine. They had to be changed twice a day. I could look at it now without wincing.
I sat beside him on the bed the next morning, careful not to jostle him. “How’s it going?” I asked.
“Peachy,” Hal said.
“What’s Lorna like?” I’d met the nurse Ma had hired only briefly.
He shrugged. He was sitting propped up against the pillows.
“Nice? Not nice? Any of the above?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Hey, you’ve got a view,” I said, noticing. There was a street, and then beyond it, hills. The sound of seagulls squabbling drifted in.
He didn’t look. “Mmm. Yeah.”
“This seems like a pretty good place. Ingo and I met everyone last night. Some of the boarders aren’t much older than you.”
“Great. I can make new friends.”
I sighed. “Are you still glad you came?” I said after a pause.
Hal seemed to rouse a little. He rubbed his forehead.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough. “I couldn’t stand being at the base hospital so close to where…people…had known me before. Or so close to base, when I can’t work on the planes any more.”
I studied a vase of flowers on the bedside table. Casually, I said, “You know, once the war’s over, maybe you could still be a pilot someday.”
The air felt charged suddenly. Hal shot me a dark look. “With one leg?”
“You’ll have a prosthetic.”
“My fucking knee’s gone, have you forgotten? How would I push down on the rudder?”
I ignored his anger and shrugged. “I was talking with the doctor before we left New Manhattan. It’s not impossible, depending on what type of prosthetic you’ll have. And how much exercise you do to build up the muscles left in your thigh.”
Hal didn’t answer. His mouth was tight, his expression half-resentful. I sensed that now wasn’t the time to push it – that I should just let the idea germinate a while.
“Did Ma talk to you?” I said at last.
He knew what I meant. The tension defused. He sighed and plucked at his sheets.
“Yeah,” he said.
CHAPTER FORTY
After dinner the night before, Ma had said that she wanted to speak to me privately. Somehow, from her expression, I’d known it was going to be about Dad. A sickening mix of dread and hope had rushed through me.
“Yes, of course,” I said stiffly.
Ingo guessed too – his eyes had been concerned as they met mine. He remained in the communal parlour, talking with another pilot who was staying there. Ma and I went back to her rented living room, with its cheap knick-knacks that seemed to have little to do with her.
Hal was asleep. I perched awkwardly on the sofa. I didn’t think I was going to learn anything that would help, but the hope that I might felt devastating.
“I know you and Hal have questions,” Ma said, looking down at her hands. “I don’t really know where to begin.”
“Did you know Dad threw the Tier One fight?” I blurted.
Ma sighed. Finally she rose. She went to the same cabinet where the kettle and hotplate hid and took out a bottle of sherry. She poured us each a small glass and sat down again.
She swirled her drink, gazing down at it as if mesmerized.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice.
I stared at her. I’d always assumed that she hadn’t – couldn’t – have known.
Ma cleared her throat. “Let me back up. I met Truce when I was seventeen. He was nineteen and a Peacefighter and I thought he was the handsomest, most charming man on the planet. I loved how he never took anything seriously.”
My forehead creased. My father had joked around at times, but he’d taken plenty of things seriously. My childhood was filled with memories of him intently telling me stories of our ancestors, who’d fought so hard to bring peace to the world.
“That…doesn’t sound like him,” I said.
“You never really knew your grandmother on his side,” Ma said. “I wish you had. You can’t understand Truce unless you understand her.”
In a disconnected flash, I wondered if the same was true of me. Could I be understood without understanding my mother?
I shifted on the sofa, my heart pounding. “Tell me,” I said.
Ma did. She explained how she used to go visit Pacifica Vancour with Tru. His mother was a former Peacefighter herself and formidable. Ma – “Silly little Rose Petrie”, as she described herself – had felt nervous and inadequate around her.
“I was sure she’d tell Truce that he shouldn’t waste his time on me,” she said. “And of course she did. She couldn’t have done me a bigger favour.”
At my quizzical expression, Ma said, “Tru resented his mother terribly. He always had.”
I nodded slowly. He’d never told me that, but I could see it. The night before he died, when I’d come across him drunk in the kitchen, he’d sounded so bitter about her.
“She was a domineering woman,” said Ma. “Tru was the life of the party, but then we’d get to Pacifica’s and he’d go silent. He never wanted to be a Peacefighter,” she added.
I stared at her. “But…”
“Pacifica bullied him into it. None of the ideals meant much to him, back then. He loved the flying, but…” She shrugged helplessly.
I fell silent, stunned, remembering how much pressure Dad had put on me to become a Peacefighter.
“Did you know about Madeline then?” I said finally. Madeline had been a Peacefi
ghter for Can-Amer with Dad. According to her, she and Dad had been seeing each other too at that point – had been in love.
Ma’s expression tightened. “I met her a few times. I could tell that they were…involved.”
Surprise stirred. “You knew even before you got married?”
She slowly nodded. “But you have to understand, Amity. Truce was such a good-looking man – so charming. Any woman would have wanted him.”
Though she was defending Dad, in a way, I could see old anger and hurt on her face. She looked down. “So…then I got pregnant,” she said. “And I made sure Pacifica knew about it.”
Ma had known, she said, that if a grandchild was involved, Pacifica would make Dad do the right thing. And that Dad wouldn’t stand up to her, because he never did when it was something important.
“You mean you got pregnant on purpose?” I whispered.
“Not on purpose exactly,” she said weakly. “But, well, I suppose part of me thought that I wouldn’t really mind if…” She trailed off.
You’re not married, Amity. It’s not nice. I took a gulp of sherry, even though I didn’t like sweet drinks.
Ma said that Dad had thrown himself into marriage at first, as if it were a game. He’d finished his Peacefighting term and then Pacifica had deeded him her grandfather’s farm in Gloversdale and he and Ma had started fixing up the rambling old house.
But he still kept seeing Madeline, even after I was born. Ma decided to ignore it, to believe his claim that they were just friends.
“He said…that he needed someone he could really talk to,” she confessed softly.
I winced. Madeline used to visit us – spend weeks during the summer months with us. How could either of them have done that to Ma?
She looked up and saw my face. “Your father loved me, Amity. But I suppose after we’d been married awhile…” She studied her sherry. She sounded tired as she said, “We were very different people.”
I thought of our house in Gloversdale, on the edge of town and surrounded by fields and woods. It had never occurred to me that my childhood spent romping outside might have come at a time of loneliness for Ma. She had just always been there, doing things for us.
“And I think…Tru resented me, on some level,” confessed Ma. “He loved you, but I don’t think he wanted to get married so young. And then Pacifica died when you were three and left most of her money to charity, and we started to run into financial problems with the house, and…” She sighed.
Distant memories were surfacing. In them, our house in Gloversdale seemed huge, the furniture tall. Angry voices – slamming doors. Hal had been born around that time. I remembered standing on my tiptoes to peer down at this strange new being in its bassinet, so small and olive-skinned – resenting him, thinking that all the upset must be his fault.
“I didn’t behave very well for a long time,” Ma said softly. “I nagged Tru about money and told him that we didn’t have enough for you kids, and that he was a failure who couldn’t even keep a house going. I was angry about Madeline, but I just went on and on at him…” She lapsed into silence.
I gripped my drink, thinking of how jovial they’d always been with each other when I was older. Even back then, it had seemed oddly false.
Then when I was six, the civil war Peacefight had come around. Would Can-Amer stay one country, or divide into two, with John Gunnison ruling the more prosperous one?
By that time, Madeline had left Peacefighting as well; she’d been involved in Senator Gunnison’s campaign. Dad, though retired from Peacefighting, had still trained new pilots.
Ma said he’d come home one day and told her that they wanted an experienced pilot to fly the civil war fight on the “remain united” side, and that he’d agreed to do it.
“The way he said it…I knew something was up, but I couldn’t imagine what,” Ma whispered. “It was as if…he were blaming me, or defensive, or defiant of what I might think… I don’t know.”
When we’d listened to the civil war Peacefight on the telio, I hadn’t known it was Dad flying. No one had. Pilots were always anonymous.
Ma hadn’t breathed a word. But as she’d listened to the announcer’s blow-by-blow description, she’d wondered. One of Dad’s favourite fight moves was to go into a tight, fast turn and hold the plane a knife-edge from stalling.
This time he’d stalled. He’d been shot down.
Her voice was hoarse as she described Dad coming home the next day. He’d tossed an envelope onto the kitchen table, his gaze hard and challenging.
“Never talk to me about money again,” he’d said. He’d turned and left the room.
Half a million credits were in the envelope.
“I guessed then,” whispered Ma. “I was horrified. I tried to forget all about it. I put some of the money in the bank and I spent some of it on you and Hal and then I started fixing up the house. Truce and I never spoke of it, not once.”
“Why did you stay together?” I burst out in agony.
Ma shook her head helplessly. “It may not sound like it, but we did love each other. I knew he’d never leave me for Madeline.”
She wiped her eyes. “Besides, he was crazy about you kids – you know that, Amity. We just pretended everything was fine. Sometimes it felt like things really were. But deep down…it was always broken after that.”
“I know,” I got out, remembering the man who’d told me fervent bedtime stories about the importance of Peacefighting – who’d been too hilarious at times – who’d drunk in secret.
I cleared my throat. “Madeline…Madeline said she was the only person in Dad’s life who knew.”
“Maybe the only one he talked to,” said Ma wearily. “But he knew I knew.”
She stared at her glass. “Actually, it’s not quite true that we never spoke of it,” she said. “One night years later, he came to bed and he’d been drinking, and he said, ‘You know how you betray a nation, Rosie? Just keep thinking, Eye on the prize…eye on the prize.’”
She gave a shaky laugh and pushed her hair back. “I was a coward. I pretended I was asleep and hadn’t heard him.”
Eye on the prize. I felt like a statue.
“I didn’t know until your trial that Madeline was the one who asked him to do it,” Ma said. “But I always suspected. It felt very…pointed. As if he’d been trying to hurt me.”
She looked down. “That’s why…I said in my letter to Hal…that I never thought he was completely to blame. I have to be to blame too, don’t you see? I manoeuvred him into marrying me when I knew he’d never have done it otherwise, and then I goaded him about money for years. I was cruel about it. I belittled him whenever I could.”
My heart felt too tight to keep beating. He was cruel to you too, I thought.
“It was no excuse for what he did,” I whispered.
“No,” said Ma. “But maybe it’s an explanation.”
The next day, Hal plucked at his bedclothes.
“I hate everything Ma told me,” he said. “But at least Dad didn’t just do it because Madeline batted her eyelashes at him. Not that I think the reasons he did do it were great, but…”
“I know what you mean,” I said. Ma was right. You couldn’t understand our father without understanding where he’d come from. Not an excuse, but an explanation.
It meant something to have at least that, after so long.
After talking to Ma, I’d told Ingo everything in the privacy of our room. And lying in his arms, I realized that what Dad had done still hurt, but distantly – part of my past rather than my present.
“It’s strange,” Ingo had said. “I think it would help me to know all of that, even without any real answers. Does it you?”
I’d nodded, staring at the ceiling. “There were so many secrets. I always had Dad on a pedestal. Now I know how flawed he was. Ma too. Their marriage was…” I trailed off, sadness washing over me.
“I think they were both in a lot of pain,” I said finally. I turned
towards Ingo, taking him in. “Remember the day before we came into New Manhattan? I told you that I couldn’t be happy until everything Dad had put into place was gone.”
Ingo smoothed a strand of my hair back. “I remember very well.”
“I was wrong.” I whispered. I kissed his chest. “I just need for all of this to be over with, so that we can hold on to what we have.”
Now I moved to Hal’s window and looked out. The hills had seagulls perched on them like white handkerchiefs scattered by the wind. I saw my brother reflected in the glass behind me.
“Use ‘Eye on the prize’,” I said.
Hal looked startled. “Huh?”
I turned and nodded at the stump of his leg. “Ma told you what Dad said, right? Turn it around…make something good come of it. ‘Eye on the prize’. Your prize is flying, if you work your muscles enough.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
May, 1943
“He what?” said Kay.
The man standing in front of her desk was balding and couldn’t hide the cunning in his eyes, though he seemed to be trying. At her reaction, his expression turned wary. He kneaded the battered hat that he held.
“Well, I suppose I could be mistaken, Madame President,” he said. “It was years ago. Maybe my boy didn’t spend so much time over there after all.”
Kay had half-risen as she exclaimed. Now she straightened all the way, feeling hot. “No. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. I want the exact truth and I’ll know if you’re lying. Collis grew up with Amity Vancour?”
Collis’s father hesitated, then nodded. “Back in Gloversdale.”
“I know where he’s from.”
“We had a little place out there, next to those Van-coors. I never liked them, I’ll tell you that. Snooty rich folk. Didn’t surprise me one bit to find out what he’d been up to.”
“He” was presumably Amity Vancour’s father. “Collis and Amity,” Kay prompted tightly.
“Oh, he was always crazy about her, even though she was a tomboy and kind of plain, if you ask me. Goldie, my wife, said once –” Hank Reed mimicked a high-pitched, whining voice – “Hank, I bet if we played our cards right, he could marry that girl!”
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