by Karen White
My hand found its way to the necklace that hung around my neck, a new habit of mine. It was an intricately carved silver padlock, probably sixteenth-century Spanish, with beautiful gold inlays around the edge and surrounding the keyhole. And behind it hung the matching key. James had given them to me, a serendipitous find in a shopwindow on a small side street in Chelsea.
I’d been too busy over recent months to think about my collection of keys, or my endless search for locks they would fit. Maybe I didn’t need to search anymore. Maybe there would always be questions without answers, and sins without forgiveness. But in finding James, none of that mattered.
I spotted James easily, the sun magnifying the red in his hair as he walked toward the car with Caroline’s youngest—Alex—clinging to his back. Despite his claims to the contrary, he did burn easily. I turned around and began climbing the porch steps again to retrieve more sunscreen from the kitchen drawer.
I paused just a moment on the threshold to the dining room to admire the Limoges china that resided in the glass-fronted cabinet. The restored teapot, the elegant and proud honeybee perched on its lid, sat in its place of honor, front and center. A talented china restorer had done an amazing job with it, and only those of us who knew where to look could find where it had been put together. I sometimes thought that Maisy, Birdie, and I could identify with it. Our cracks were proof of our survival, evident only to those we allowed close enough to see where we’d been patched.
I was searching through the catchall drawer in the kitchen when I felt Maisy enter the room. Her face was drained of color, her lips slightly parted. I straightened. “Are you all right?”
“Florence asked me to bring her this today at the festival, to share with other beekeepers, so I went to go get it.” She slid into a kitchen chair and placed a thick notebook on the table. I immediately recognized it as our grandfather’s bee journal, the second volume that he’d used while we’d known him, chronicling his life among the bees. “I’d just shoved this on a shelf when Birdie came home from the hospital and we were trying to get the room ready for her. But just now, when I pulled it from the shelf, I dropped it. And something fell out. I don’t know how I missed it before. It must have been stuck into the binding in the back.”
She slid an envelope toward me, and I dropped into the seat next to hers when I noticed the foreign postage, the Hebrew lettering. The return address that was a P.O. box in Jerusalem. The addressee was Ned Bloodworth, Apalachicola. I stared at the envelope for a long time, not sure what I was supposed to do. Maisy opened it up along the top where it had long ago been sliced, and took out a letter and handed it to me.
The words were printed on embossed, official-looking letterhead, a bold black logo of six long triangles with a swirl in an “S” pattern beneath it, Hebrew letters followed by the words “Yad Vashem” beside it.
“Read it,” Maisy commanded, as if we both realized I needed someone to force me to do so.
Dear Mr. Bloodworth,
In answer to your inquiry, the testimonies and accompanying documentation you provided to initiate the investigation into the case for Giles Mouton will be preserved in Yad Vashem’s archives for perpetuity and serve the purposes of research, education, and commemoration. Yad Vashem is committed to pursuing the Righteous Among the Nations program for as long as petitions for this title are received and are supported by solid evidence that meets the criteria.
Yours very truly,
I looked at the name and signature, but couldn’t read either because my vision was too blurry. “It was Grandpa who sent in Giles’s name. Who gathered the documentation and testimonies needed to acknowledge what Giles had done during the war.”
“In secret,” Maisy said. “He must have traveled to France at some point for research—maybe one of his trips when he said he was visiting other beekeepers. And we never knew.”
Maisy placed the letter on the table, smoothing the creases with her hand, and we read it for the second time together.
Neither of us spoke, our minds running in tandem, thinking of sins and atonement, and of the lengths a person will go to in an attempt to make amends for a wrong that could never be completely made right.
“Do you think Birdie knows?” I asked finally.
Maisy shook her head. “No. We’ll have to tell her. Maybe it will bring her some peace.”
“Maybe it will bring us all a little peace,” I said, acknowledging the dark specter that hovered in the periphery of our sight lines, the ghost of a loss that could never be fully recognized.
We linked our arms and left the house, emerging into the bright sunshine and the shouts of happy children. We stayed linked together for a long moment, in tribute to our shared childhoods and the grandfather who had raised us and in the end taught us that love and forgiveness are like the moon and the tides, each dependent on the other. Each lost without the other.
James approached, and Maisy dropped my arm so I could go to him. He held my hand as we walked in the direction of the apiary, which no longer smelled of smoke but instead carried the green scent of summer grass and bright, blooming flowers.
James had once asked me what my price for flight was. I hadn’t believed at the time that my decisions had a price. But of course they did. Every leaving, every good-bye, had a cost. So did reunions, the price paid in discarded pride and newfound forgiveness.
I thought often of Giles Mouton—not of his death, but of his courage in life. I saw it in Becky and felt grateful that his legacy continued. That he had not completely disappeared in a swamp and then been forgotten.
A bee buzzed past us twice in a circular flight pattern, reminding me of the bees on the china. James kissed me as the bee spun around us before flying up into the wide summer sky. I stared after it for a long time, thinking about journeys beginning and ending, the patterns of flight innumerable, the destination always home.
Flight Patterns
Karen White
Questions for Discussion
The title Flight Patterns has many layers of meaning that become clear only after you’ve read the novel. What do you think the title represents?
Many people collect china or have pieces that have been handed down in their family through generations. Do you have a china collection? If so, do you know its history? Is knowing its history particularly meaningful to you?
Georgia and Maisy grew up knowing that their mother, Birdie, was mentally ill, but it doesn’t seem to be something that is openly discussed in the family, even between the sisters. Is there a stigma in talking about mental illness? Is it something you think you would be able to discuss with either family or friends?
One of the subjects of Flight Patterns is family—what people do in the name of family and to protect their families. Many of the characters have done extreme things to protect their families, such as Giles’s sending away Colette, Georgia’s gift to her sister, and Ned’s protecting his wife even long after her death. Do you feel that this is realistic? Would you go to the same extremes for your family?
Bees and beekeeping are important elements throughout Flight Patterns. What do you think the bees represent to the different characters?
After caring for the bees almost religiously for most of his life, Ned does something destructive toward the bees, nearly burning down the house and killing his granddaughters. Why do you think Ned acted the way he did?
Birdie has acted for most of her life, despite not having a career on the stage or screen. Who do you think the real Birdie is?
Becky accidentally discovers a secret about herself. Is this something that Maisy should have told her about before? Why or why not?
We find out that Ned is the one who sent in Giles Mouton’s name to Yad Vashem to be recognized and honored for what he did during World War II. Do you think this helps to mitigate some of the guilt he bears concerning Giles’s death?
Birdie’s inability to cope with her past and her emotional instability lead to her being a neglectful mother to Georgia and Maisy. Do you think she deserves forgiveness from her daughters now that they know the truth about her damaged personal history?
Author photograph by Claudio Marinesco
Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of nineteen previous books, including The Sound of Glass, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between, and the coauthor of The Forgotton Room with New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and two children near Atlanta, Georgia.
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