Falling in Love

by Aimee Norin

  The plane slid onto the grass in a soft touchdown, rolling over bumps in the soil until she was at taxi speed.

  She stopped.

  She closed her eyes and thanked the Lord for His miracles, then looking out the windows at miles of crops and fences.

  Carb heat off.

  Flaps up.

  Transponder off.

  She throttled up and sat on the left brake, turning the plane around to taxi back to the barn.

  Climbing out of the cockpit, putting her feet on grass beside the shed, Joan still singing in her mind, she was attacked by a brown-black warewolf, wiggling, and licking her all over.

  She fell down on the ground beside her left gear and got licked in the face, then on the backs of her hands as she tried to protect herself-realizing the only way to do that was to bear-hug the beast and wrestle it to the ground, which seemed to delight the thing further.

  Two ladies approached Lourdes, calling the dog off, and one of them hugged Lourdes in a close embrace that could only mean desperation.

  Jim's mother showed Lourdes around the house, especially around a huge kitchen on the south side with its two ovens and over-sized windows on three sides.

  Elaborate directions were given with a show of hands, pointing in the direction of town.

  Lourdes got another hug.

  "Jesse" stayed with Lourdes every minute, never fading, protecting her.

  Lourdes walked through the town.

  It was so clean and tidy. Homes and businesses freshly painted. Yards kept. Well cared for.

  The streets were worn, enough to look used, but wide and smooth.

  A church ahead-classic scene of people filing out of the front of the church, a preacher shaking their hands at the door. Some went to cars, others to mill around picnic tables on the lawns next to the church, under the shade of oak trees. Kids played. Parents beamed. Older folks enjoyed. Some folks headed toward a table of food. Lourdes looked for Jim-

  Her mouth fell open.

  At the same time, Jim turned to see Lourdes, his blue ministerial robes gracefully flowing around him. His face registered both need and pain, as if he were thankful, but also fearful.

  Lourdes slowly walked up to Jim, as if for the first time, staring at him in his robes.

  "You're-a minister?" she asked.

  "We take turns," Jim said quietly.

  Lourdes stared at him and tried talking, but failed.

  He said nothing-looked into her eyes.

  Her face began to twist into a cry. She turned to leave, but he drew her into a desperate hug, holding her tight, squeezing her, rubbing her back with his hands, whispering into her ear.

  She held his neck as tightly as she could, crying, answering into his ear when she could between sobs.

  People around the church, Mike and Millie as well, cried for them both.

  The church picnic tables were full of fried chicken, potato salad, mashed potatoes, garden salad, soda pop and cupcakes.

  Mike was popping off excitedly about something.

  Millie was laughing at him.

  Jim's mother was beaming at Jim and Lourdes, loading their plates with food.

  Lourdes' hands shook too badly to hold her own plate.

  Jim and Mike pushed Lourdes' plane into the shed by the barn.

  Joan Baez still sang in Lourdes' ears. Lourdes begged Joan to stay with her.

  Lourdes and Jim explored each other, making love on the plush, King-sized bed, for hours, it seemed, lost to the world.

  Sharon wheeled Benny out of the front door of the hospital to their car. Lourdes put Benny's bag into their trunk.

  Jim helped Benny get up out of the hospital wheelchair and limp the two steps to his seat on the passenger side.

  Sharon hugged Jim and stifled her tears.

  Lourdes walked up the front steps to the high school, stopping at the top.

  She stood in the principal's office, talking to him in Spanish.

  Stay with me, Joan.

  A cold wind blew outside.

  Lourdes brought some hot chocolate to Jim and Mike as they worked on his RV-9A in the shed.

  Mike quipped.

  Jim laughed.

  They both sipped their hot chocolate.

  Lourdes sat beside them on the concrete shop floor.

  Jim and Mike played Star Wars on side-by-side laptops in the living room, yelling and screaming at the game.

  In the kitchen, Lourdes gave a slice of fresh pizza to Moff Tarkin, then delivered the rest to the end table between the two gamers.

  Lourdes and Jim sat together on the couch, watching "Love Actually."

  "So what are you gonna be for Halloween this year," Lourdes asked Mike.

  "I'm going as the most vile, the most evil thing I can imagine."

  "What's that," Jim asked.

  "The treasurer," Mike said, "of a corrupt, non-profit organization."

  "And you?" Lourdes asked Millie.

  "As a Republican," she answered.

  The Halloween parade made its way up Main St. with people in every kind of outlandish costume. The streets were lined with more people than could fit in the town, all enjoying.

  Jim was on a float doing a zombie Elvis impersonation.

  Lourdes stood with Mike and Millie, laughing at him.

  Mike was dressed in a plain, simple, two piece suit and tie, with his hair combed neatly back, wearing a non-threatening smile.

  Millie was dressed exactly the same.

  Lourdes was June Cleaver, in sympathetic magick.

  Lourdes walked down the hallway at school, eyeing everyone, trying not to show it.

  Two tenth graders looked at her.

  She and Jim argued vehemently. Lourdes stormed out the front door of the farm house.

  Lourdes put a large bandage on a boy's knee during a Friday night football game, then patting him on the helmet.

  The boy ran back to the coach demanding to get back into the game.

  Lourdes chased after him, "No!"

  Thanksgiving meal was in Mike and Millie's house. The house was full of close friends and family.

  Millie showed her new wedding ring to some of her family who had come in from out of town.

  They smiled and held her hand to get a better look.

  Jim and Lourdes sat on one side of the table. Jim was talking to Millie's relatives, his arms flying about, obviously describing something he had done in his plane, putting his hands to his mouth to simulate regurgitation.

  Lourdes looked embarrassed, then tried to defend herself.

  The table laughed.

  Mike carved the turkey at the head of the table, and everyone could see the look on his face: as if he had been rescued. "I am so thankful, he said, for everything."

  The little Cessna flew with the two of them over frozen fields of white as far as the eye could see, the morning sun gleaming off snow and ice to the east.

  It was cold outside, especially at altitude.

  But in their coats, together in the cockpit, they were warm.

  Lourdes and Heath bent over his dining room table looking at aircraft plans, his hands moving in the air, simulating work to be done.

  Lourdes hugged him mightily.

  Jim shook his hand.

  Wearing coats and boots, after dark, Lourdes and Jim walked up Main Street in the snow, arm in arm, looking at Christmas lights, saying "Hi" to people they met, enjoying each other.

  Moff Tarkin played along with them, darting across the street now and then to get some love from someone he knew.

  "Go home, now," Jim told him, a strong arm pointing back to the farm.

  Moff Tarkin ran back.

  The movie theatre was the brightest thing on Main, neon lights illuminating the whole street. Friends were waiting for them at the front. They walked in together, talking, taking wraps off, stamping feet to get snow off.

  Lourdes was teaching Spanish in front of a class of tenth graders, laughing with one of them good-naturedly over what
she accidentally said.

  A boy was unkind to the girl.

  Lourdes corrected him gently.

  The boy apologized.

  With a smile, Lourdes told the class proudly, "That's what we do."

  She wrote something on the board and turned to sound it out for the class again.

  The wind was still, but it was cold and gray outside. Everyone was wearing coats and breathing steam.

  Mike's RV-9A was parked out in front of the shed with Mike sitting in the left side of the cockpit.

  Jim gave him instructions.

  Mike turned it over. It caught, missing for a second, then ran perfectly. He kept the R.P.M. low for thirty seconds, then slowly increased the R.P.M.

  Lourdes, Sharon and Millie watched form the side.

  Lourdes and Jim enjoyed a movie in K.C., then pizza.

  The young man was ecstatic with his new Cessna 150.

  Lourdes hugged the left wing strut of her old love and cried as she walked back to Jim.

  Jim held her close as the young man took off, disappearing with Bes to the south.

  Joan! Lourdes begged. "Jesse" still played in her mind.

  An antique Cub sat in the shed, bare to the frame.

  Jim, Benny and Millie sipped chocolate while Lourdes worked to recover the left wing, taking care to keep the seems straight.

  Benny teased Lourdes.

  Jim laughed.

  It was warm inside the kitchen, looking at a picturesque spring evening outside through the large windows. Leaves on the trees were budding. The grass was greening.

  Everything was calm and still.

  Jim stood by the counter, holding Lourdes in his arms.

  "So?" Jim asked.

  "So what?" Lourdes asked.

  He leaned down for a kiss, which she warmly shared.

  "Remember what I asked you at Show Center?"

  Lourdes stopped for a second and looked at her feet then at him then at the town, backing away.

  Moff Tarkin sat in the vet's office, a front foot bandaged.

  The vet gave him an in injection.

  Lourdes cupped the dog's sad face with her hands and kissed him on the forehead.

  Lourdes and Jim sat together, holding hands, in the eighth row at the playhouse in Kansas City, watching a musical.

  Lourdes stood in the kitchen cleaning the counter tops, looking out the large windows to the east, south, and west. The early summer sun was low in the western sky, but she could still see the tractor by the barn that Jim had been using all day.

  She went into the living room to get Jim's plate. The TV was on. His plate was empty. And he was fast asleep in his recliner.

  Lourdes thought about her life and looked back at the man in the next room.

  On a warm summer day, Lourdes sat with Moff Tarkin under a tree on a small hill overlooking Greenhills to the east.

  He slept, his head on her lap.

  She stared at the town, unmoving.

  Lourdes walked up, tentatively, behind Jim at the kitchen sink and lightly put her hand on his waist.

  He turned to look into her eyes as if a question were still there, though he said nothing.

  He raised his hand to touch her arm, and ever so slightly, she flinched. He withdrew it.

  Slowly, more slowly than she thought possible, he lifted his hand again and touched hers, lifting her hand gently, holding it there, steadily.

  Lourdes wore a beautiful, white gown, and Jim, a black tuxedo. They faced each other before the altar at Church. Their friends were beside them.

  Jim was smiling.

  Lourdes was near tears.

  Millie officiated in her ministerial robes, lawfully ordained, marriage license obtained.

  Lourdes hands trembled in Jim's.

  She looked again at his chest, his arms, glancing at herself and the congregation, at Mike behind Jim, letting her eyes come to rest on their hands.

  She started to pull away-a reflex-but he held her fast.

  She gripped his hands tighter for strength.

  Feeling light-headed, somehow she heard herself say meekly, "I do."

  Jim kissed her warmly in front of everyone.

  Rice didn't wait for the door.

  Lourdes and Jim laughed with Penn and Teller, they were intrigued by Lance Burton, and they sang with Barry Manilow in Vegas.

  Relaxing, enjoying French cuisine at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant, overlooking the strip, Jim held Lourdes' hands across the table.

  Lourdes gaze drifted from the fountains across the strip to Jim's hands.

  She thought of his RV-6 at the airport, her partially refurbished Cub at home, their friends, Moff Tarkin, her new career at school, and the fear that had held her back for so long.

  They sat together on a swing bench Jim had suspended beneath the oak in the side yard of the farm. Tarkin was sleeping at their feet.

  The sun was setting to the west. They could see it melt like butter into the horizon. Everything was bathed in gold.

  Jim had his arm around Lourdes, resting it there, staying.

  Neither of them spoke.

  Lourdes relaxed onto him the rest of the way, feeling for the first time in many years a peace that comes with love and a sense of belonging.

  As the sun drifted below the horizon, and the light faded, she laid her head on his shoulder and moved his hand over her heart.

  He kissed the top of her head.

  She laid her arm across his chest.

  She did not notice the music in her mind as it faded.

  All she could hear was the sound of his heart beat against her ear.

  Slowly receding, Joan finished her song to a healing part of Lourdes' soul that no longer needed to hear.

  "Hey Jesse?it's lonely?come home."

  EMANCIPATION

  I beg your forgiveness for a moment that I may share some things not directly related to this novel in an objective sense but which are nonetheless vital to its heart on every page: subjugation and inequality, the lack of empathy, the self-centered way people are willing to limit other people to better themselves. It has been inspired in me throughout my life and was related to me, again, so well in the major motion picture "Lincoln." It's a problem most people who are different, or who are disadvantaged, still face today and is central to trans issues.

  Thomas Jefferson-author of the Declaration of Independence, author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, founder of the University of Virginia, third president of the United States of America-in his first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, stated, among other things, "All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

  President Jefferson's quote ran through my mind while I watched Spielberg's "Lincoln," with Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role. Yes, I thought about the lessons related. The majority in any case will vote, and will they let the minority suffer?

  For as clear as it was that "Lincoln" deserves at least a dozen Oscars in recognition of its excellence, it was all too painfully clear to me that the movie wasn't just about Lincoln's mastery of the politics of his day or the process the government went through to pass the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was also about the very idea that some people-sadly a lot of people-were willing to suppress others, to hurt them, oppress them outright, own them, and even torture them in order to- What? To better the course of humanity as they saw it? To do the right thing as God intended?

  Balderdash-as well as several foul expressions I would like to use.

  Nothing about it could even pretend to be so righteous.

  What I felt was so clearly depicted was the simple truth that people existed who would subjugate and hurt others, to damage or even ruin their lives, so that they, the oppressors, could get something they wanted, so they could compensate for diminished inne
r securities and feel better than someone else, so that they could pretend to go to sleep at night comfortable in bigoted views without pressure to change-or worse, because they actually enjoyed the suffering of others.

  And I was inspired in watching a story based on truth, on real history, of people struggling within themselves and with each other to rise above such a disastrous practice as slavery, and also symbolically to help society consider: What is the value of human life?

  Whose life is worth more than someone else's?

  What is equality?

  What is one man's right to be more in society than another?

  How on Earth can one person limit the life of another human being-or of any life-for his own benefit? Does he not care about his own life? Does he not seek love and happiness? Does he not flee pain and fear? Can he not see the needs in his own heart and then perceive the value of a life? And if seeing that, does he think no one else should care?

  It is a testament to great story-telling that I cried during the movie, that I cry now writing this, that I cheered for them in Congress when voting for the Amendment-Yes!-and that I am sickened to remember the way some people can value their own life so much, and at the same time value other lives so much less-and to remember as well, that that quality of oppression and superiority is still a part of the human condition. It still happens a billion times a day, knocking people over and then kicking them when they're down.

  It happens still when people who are different are killed. It happens when gossip and presumptions destroy reputations and joy in relationships that could have been. It happens when someone prefers his own loneliness to association with someone different, when a job is not offered because a difference is not understood, when the difference of another is so disliked, that understanding is not even desired. When this happens, the life of the one who is different is diminished, and with that, so is society.