“Apparently.” He closed the door and took her coat, a stylish camel hair, ankle-length affair with fur trim around the sleeves, collar, and hem. She looked like a fashion model in it, he thought. Especially with her snow-flecked auburn hair.
“Dinner, in case you’re interested. I hope you like Chinese food.”
“Sure.”
“Good. Where is your kitchen?” Joe pointed and Susan disappeared in that direction, her voice bending back around the corner.
“I see you’re a good housekeeper, Mr. Wallingford.”
“It used to bother Brenda.”
“Your wife?”
“My former wife.”
“I knew that.” She popped her head around the corner to look at him. “Or, of course, I wouldn’t be here.”
She was back in minutes with a loaded tray, the open wine bottle he had left on the counter, and a glass for herself.
“Aren’t you going to ask the lady why she’s invaded your privacy?”
“I’m just glad you’re here. Being alone ain’t all its cracked up to be.”
“Sometimes it is,” she said, licking a dab of spilled sweet and sour sauce off her finger. “I like my privacy, part of the time. But I like to share my privacy, if that makes any sense.” They sat on the couch and balanced the tray between them, digging at the individual cardboard food containers.
“By the way, I, ah, have never asked you about your husband,” Joe said, having heard she had lost him years before.
“Story of my life, you mean?”
“Love to hear it.”
“Only in brief. I’ve other things we should talk about, too.” Susan sipped her wine and looked at Joe until he felt slightly uncomfortable, the eye contact downright intimate.
“My husband never was, Joe. People just assume I was married. But I was only engaged.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Course not. Anyway, my fiancé and I were childhood sweethearts back in Des Moines. We met in grade school, always best friends, grew up together, more or less always knew we’d get married, but weren’t in a rush. He looked around, I looked around, but we always came back to each other.” She paused, watching him, gauging his interest.
“So what happened?”
“Vietnam happened. His family was an Air Force family. Father, uncles, everyone former Air Force flyers. He had to do the same thing, and when he graduated from pilot training, he was assigned to F-105 Thunderchiefs and rotated to Da Nang. I was really proud of him. Later he flew F-4’s with Chappie James and Robin Olds, before they became generals, in what was called the Wild Weasels.”
“I’m familiar with that mission,” Joe said. “They’re the ones who went out looking for North Vietnamese antiaircraft missile installations, getting them to fire, then flying back down the radar beam to wipe out the control trailer.”
“That’s right. As happened to too many of them, that big twin-engine jet didn’t get him home one night, and he punched out somewhere around the DMZ. His backseater never got out, as far as we know. His wingman picked up an emergency beacon and a brief voice message indicating he was safe on the ground, but before the rescue choppers could get in the next morning, the beacon, and my fiancé, were gone.”
“Killed?”
She sighed, her smile drooping slightly. “I’m convinced now that I’ll never know, Joe. I rather hope so, but we got word he had been captured. This was in 1968, mind you. All those years I watched with his parents for his name to be on a list somewhere, other than the missing-in-action list. It never showed up. There was never an accounting. To this day I don’t know, although I’ve asked many returnees, and some were convinced they had seen him in the same compound in Hanoi. Anyway, we finally got his name on the memorial, and I still have trouble visiting it.”
Susan was looking out at the snow, her legs pulled under her as he had seen her do before, much as a cat curls up before a warm fire. “In some ways I’ve never given up.” She looked at him suddenly. “But don’t get the impression that I’m carrying an eternal torch, Joe. I felt cheated for the life we never had, but he belongs to the past.”
“Susan, you’re …” Joe caught himself for a moment, but decided the caution wasn’t necessary. After all, she was here. “You’re such a warm, caring person to be around—not to mention a real knockout, lady—”
“Sure, Joe. I bet you say that to all the Board members.”
They both laughed easily. “No, just the sexy ones. But I had wondered why you weren’t married.”
“That’s not the reason, Joe. Oh sure, the first few years after Operation Homecoming, after the prisoners came home, I held out hope and just wasn’t interested in anyone else. Since then, it’s simply been a case of the right guy never coming along, a growing career, and miles to go before I sleep … with anybody.” She was looking up at him slightly, a sultry look, he decided, smiling, her beautiful eyes saying very disturbing, very provocative things to him, whether she knew it or not. And he had the unsettling feeling that she did indeed know it.
Susan carried the empty boxes back to the kitchen then, searching for coffee and figuring out how to work his grinder and coffee maker while he stood in the doorway and watched her, his eyes following the contours of her well-proportioned body beneath another of her flowing, silky dresses that were at once businesslike and revealing. She obviously kept herself in good shape, in trim shape. Seldom-used logistic and procedural strategies for maneuvering a date into more intimate positions were replaying in his mind, the thoughts amusing as well as disturbing. That surely wasn’t the way she meant the evening to go. They were just friends, colleagues, right? But she was so comfortable to be around. No, not comfortable, invigorating. Inviting. Seductive.
“I rounded up the other three members this afternoon for a war council, Joe,” she was saying as she worked on the coffee. “I gave them a rundown of what had happened, how I’ve watched this thing unfold, and the things that Dean said to me when I confronted him earlier in the day with the question of why he was pounding you.”
“What did he say, by the way?”
She looked over her left shoulder with a knowing smile. “He told me too much. He told me, basically, that he’s allowing external pressure from the airline and the FAA to massively influence our investigation. He’s told me enough to nail him to the wall.” She turned back to the coffee. “So, that’s just what we’re going to do. Tomorrow, all four of us have requested the dubious pleasure of his company at an eleven o’clock closed Board meeting, and I intend to rip him a new tail pipe.”
“Are you sure your fiancé wasn’t in the Navy?”
She laughed at that. “Seriously, he’s still leader, but we have some leverage, and not the least of that is a mutual trip over to the White House, although I think that’s unprecedented. He’s scared of the White House staff. Thinks they’ll block his reappointment next year.”
They took the coffee back to the couch and talked awhile, watching the snow, Susan finding the switch for the yard lights, discovering that they illuminated the snowstorm better than the porch light, painting a wintry scene of soft beauty, especially with the interior lights off. When she returned to the couch, it was to sit beside him, touching his leg with her knee, looking at him so long without words that there was no longer a need to wonder what to do. The feel of her hair in his hands as he pulled her gently to him, the taste of her, was like waking from a long sleep. Susan pulled away slightly after a while, her face aglow with the reflection of the fire, her hand on his cheek, a chuckle in her soft voice. “This is going to get complicated, you know,” she said, smiling.
“I sincerely hope so,” Joe replied.
20
Thursday, December 6
In his parents’ North Dallas home, Ron Timson quietly pulled a chair up to the folding doors separating the living room from the den, straining to hear the worrisome conversation filtering through from the other side. The 9 A.M. visit had caught him off guard, but he had recog
nized the chairman of his father’s airline, David Bayne, from pictures and television coverage. Ron had never seen such a powerful man in his parents’ home before. He was at a loss to know what to do—how to protect his folks. What could a nineteen-year-old college student do, anyway, other than provide moral support, which he knew in advance his father would reject, as always. Dick Timson needed no one, and neither should he. All his life that message had been hammered into Ron.
The level of the voices rose momentarily, making the words easier to understand, the effort blocking for a moment his concurrent urge to be with his mother, who had entered Baylor hospital two days before. Bayne was questioning his father, probably about the crash. He didn’t seem mad, he seemed worried. And his father had been pensive, almost resigned when Bayne had appeared on their doorstep.
“… a lot riding on this. We took a hell of a beating … Kansas City hearing this week. Are … your assurance, without question … order to stand behind you.” It was spotty, but Bayne’s words, what he could hear of them, were painting a picture of wavering trust.
His father’s voice was even harder to hear.
“… everything I know … remember about it. It had to be the … whether Airbus acknowledges it or not.”
At long last the sounds of chair legs scraping across a hardwood floor and leather shoes striding toward the front door were unmistakable, and Ron hurriedly got up from his listening post, replacing the chair, waiting for the doors to open after Mr. Bayne had left.
The sound of their grandfather clock blended with the sound of a powerful car engine and tires on gravel fading into the distance. It was a cold day outside, and the central heater clicked on suddenly, the rushing air masking all other noise.
There was no sound from the front hallway, and Ron forced himself to move in that direction, opening the den door at last, seeing his father standing with his right hand still on the knob of the closed front door, head down, saying nothing.
“Dad? Are you okay?”
Dick Timson didn’t answer for the longest time, leaving his son in a quandary before turning slowly back into the lushly decorated interior of the colonial house his father had paid for and his mother had lovingly made into a warm and distinctive home. “I’m fine,” he said simply.
Ron followed him back into the living room, standing and feeling awkward as his father sat heavily in the armchair his mother had purchased years ago over her husband’s vitriolic objections. They couldn’t afford it, he had raged. But we must have furniture if we’re going to entertain, she had replied, and the argument that ensued had left both mother and eavesdropping young son in tears.
Ron moved forward a few steps.
“Dad? What’s happening?”
Timson looked up and sighed, replying at last, “I wish I knew.”
“I mean, why was Mr. Bayne here?”
“To see if I’m a bomb that’s going to explode in their faces.”
There was silence again as Ron worked up the courage to ask more.
“Are … is your job …?”
“Are they going to fire me? Is that what you’re trying to ask?”
“Yes sir.”
“Eventually.” Ron suddenly realized his father’s face was down in his hands, and the man was actually crying … crying softly, but crying. A wave of utter disgust rolled over him for a moment, the memory of a thousand buck-up-and-act-like-a-man lectures ringing in his memory. Was this how a man acted? All the times he had choked back tears as a little boy so his father wouldn’t rage at him, be disappointed in him, be disgusted with him, or stand him against a wall and yell at him—were they lies? Ron struggled to get past the feeling, sitting down finally opposite his father, studying him as if he had never before had permission to do so. His hair was a lot thinner than Ron recalled, as was his overall physique. It hurt to realize his father was looking old. Old and drawn and defeated, with none of the fire and determination he had always seen. He had always been terrified of this strong, dynamic, successful man. Terrified of his rages and his dislikes, of triggering his displeasure. As terrified as his mother had always been, though she was more anxious to please.
“Dad? It’ll be okay. It’ll work out.”
The words were muffled, but the reply was clear enough because he had never heard such words from this man. “Do you really think so, son?” No sarcasm, no questions about who gave him the right to have an opinion, but a genuine question in return. What his father was feeling was fright. And he was asking his son’s advice.
“Yes sir, it will. You didn’t do anything wrong with that plane. Mom said you didn’t, you told them you didn’t. They can’t blame it on you, they have no evidence. And even if they were to push you out as chief pilot, you can go back to the line.”
Timson shook his head in the negative.
“Well, you have your retirement, and possibly medical retirement. We’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Dad, please don’t worry.”
Dick Timson looked up and saw a thin young man with a tortured expression staring into his soul. “It’s more than the crash, Ron. They tore my performance as chief pilot apart, they … they destroyed me as a manager, and that’s what I’ve tried so hard to be. They destroyed the way I tried—one guy even claimed I was tough because I was scared and in over my head.” Father and son looked at each other, in some ways for the first time.
“Were you, Dad?”
Dick Timson started to respond with knee-jerk phraseology. But it didn’t work anymore, it wouldn’t come. Ron saw him shake his head sadly. “I guess so.”
“The plane crash, it didn’t have anything to do with … with our accident?”
“No!” The intensity of the response was a shock, his father’s volume too loud. His voice quieted again, Dick Timson diverting his gaze out the window. “No, it didn’t. No connection. Impossible.” He looked back at Ron, pleading, not demanding. “And don’t, son, don’t ever mention that incident again … please.”
“Are you going to see Mom?”
Dick Timson looked away again, holding his chin in his left hand, elbow propped on the chair arm. “A little later. I’ve got to call her doctor. He told me this morning it was nothing but hyperventilation, but they want to keep her a few days for observation.”
“I know it wasn’t her heart, but I couldn’t believe she just hyperventilated. She was out cold, chest heaving, cold and clammy …”
“She’s been under a lot of stress, son. I guess I’ve put too much pressure on her for too long.” He looked back at Ron. “Keep that in mind when you marry. Women are weak. Your mother is weak. Always has been.”
Ron Timson had grown disgusted with that attitude. But he had also grown up with it. Females are weak, females are incompetent, females can do nothing right without constant male guidance. But somewhere deep inside he had always known it was a fraud. It had been, he had finally realized, his mother who had held everything together singlehandedly for so long, and that had taken more strength than either her husband or son could muster. Slowly, too slowly, he had come to see it, but it took being away at college and looking back—as well as the horror of the last two months. What was that quotation from Thoreau? The “mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”? Most women too, he figured. Especially his mother.
But what on earth was the matter with her now?
At that moment thirteen miles to the south at the sprawling Baylor Medical Center in Dallas, Dr. Mark Weiss was consulting a scrap of paper with the number of Louise Timson’s room as he walked toward the main entrance. His wife, Kim, had been born in this hospital, and they had once rushed Aaron to its emergency room with a deep cut on his leg. How clearly he remembered that night! Mark found himself casually wondering what they were doing at that moment, Kim, Aaron, and Greg, his mental guard down, as if there had been no crash, and the flames of Kansas City had been only a nightmare from which he had now awakened.
The crushing reality settled in again, all the more painful for having been
pushed so far away for a fleeting second. The most innocent things could trigger that painful cycle of forgetting, then remembering. Many times in the previous weeks that recurring mental jolt had shattered his self-control, forcing him to find a quiet corner or a bench, or to pull off to the side of the road. He had dealt with that reaction in patients many times over the years, always—he knew now—too glibly. He had never really understood the depth of the pain, the heart-stopping suddenness of the mental impact, until now.
But they weren’t waiting for him at home, nor would they be ever again. He had to remember that clearly enough to be able to deal with it … and go on.
Mark fought the memories down faster this time, thinking instead about the economic disaster his psychology practice had become in Kansas City, and of his harassed receptionist who’d had to cancel two months of appointments with no end in sight. His accounts were running dry, though Kim had held some life insurance. He would not worry about the money. This was a quest, not an obsession, and he would have to get back to a professional schedule sometime.
The antiseptic aroma of hospital corridors met Mark Weiss’s nose as he made his way through a surprisingly thick throng of people to the bank of elevators, bound for the sixth floor. It had been a stroke of luck that his call to the Timson residence had been answered by their son. He doubted Captain Timson would have told him anything.
He got off on the sixth floor and walked resolutely to and past the proper door, noting that it was open and only Mrs. Timson was within. He had expected to see her at her husband’s side in Kansas City at the hearing. But she had never shown up, which deepened the mystery of what was going on in the woman’s mind.
Mark walked to the nurses’ station and identified himself as Dr. Weiss, here to look in on Louise Timson. The bored young woman handed over the chart without further question, several other people vying for her divided attention simultaneously.
He examined the records and the negative findings of coronary damage, steady EKG, pathology and other parameters, all the time feeling his stomach tighten. The woman had collapsed from an apparent heart attack at home. But it wasn’t a heart attack. It was hyperventilation, which could be many things, including an attack of acute anxiety.
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