Fly Away

by Lynn Austin

  “OK, but. . .” Carol was still staring at her.

  “But what!”

  “It’s just so unlike you, Wilhelmina. And you’ve never been late picking me up before. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Well, I’m not becoming senile, if that’s what you’re thinking. I went to the park to help someone—”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. I didn’t intend to get involved in the contest, believe me. But now I’m glad that I did. It was fun.” She was surprised by her own confession.

  They rode in silence the rest of the way to church with Carol stealing glances at her from time to time. Wilhelmina left Carol in the church lobby and hurried up to the choir room, already several minutes late for the preservice rehearsal. The choir members were dressed in their robes and listening to the music director, a former colleague of hers from the college. She tried to sneak in unnoticed, but as she opened the door the director stopped midsentence. All eyes were immediately upon her.

  “Ah, there you are, Professor Brewster. I was just sharing the news of your new retirement career with the choir.” The director unfolded the morning newspaper and held up a photo spread of the kite-flying contest. The disbelieving stares of 42 choir members bored through Wilhelmina. She may as well have been arrested for running naked through the park. The director tacked the article to the bulletin board for everyone to see.

  “First place, Professor! Good show! Would you like to share the secret of your great success with us?”

  She heard titters of laughter and the lead tenor, also a former colleague, covered his mouth to hide a smirk. Wilhelmina wished she had never agreed to go with Mike Dolan.

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” she said.

  “Oh, I see. You can’t divulge any secrets of the kite-flying profession, right?” The choir roared with laughter.

  Wilhelmina had never felt so mortified in her life. Her colleagues usually held her in high esteem, applauding her achievements, not laughing at them. The insinuation that flying a kite was her new retirement career hurt the most. She seated herself at the practice piano with the remnants of her dignity, and refused to acknowledge the director’s cruel jibes.

  Later, as the choir filed into the sanctuary for the service, Wilhelmina overheard their whispered comments: “Who would have ever guessed! . . . So unlike her! . . . Can you imagine?” Wilhelmina longed to escape the mocking stares and snickers.

  The church service was disastrous. Wilhelmina played the organ prelude so rapidly that Pastor Stockman barely had time to take his seat on the platform before leaping up to the pulpit. She rushed both hymns, leaving the congregation gasping for breath, and took the tempo much too fast on the choir anthem. The director waved his arms frantically at her, trying to slow the stampede. Through it all, Wilhelmina thought of Mike Dolan. This was his fault. She relived her undignified sprint down the driveway, waving the tracts at him like a crazed woman, and closed her eyes in shame.

  Why was God subjecting her to this public humiliation? She was only trying to do what He commanded. Would He make her suffer more degradation, like the 10 plagues of Egypt, before finally delivering Mr. Dolan’s eternal soul to the Promised Land? She stomped the organ pedals during the closing hymn as if they were responsible for her disgrace.

  Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,

  Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave . . .

  How was she supposed to do that? Every time she came up with a plan, things seemed to go all wrong. She pulled out most of the organ stops as she launched into the final verse until even the stained-glass windows rattled.

  Rescue the perishing, duty demands it,

  Strength for thy labor the Lord will provide . . .

  What about public humiliation? Was there a verse about that? By the time the hymn ended, Wilhelmina had managed to drown out the choir entirely. The director was quivering. Wilhelmina didn’t care. When she finished her organ postlude and the sanctuary had emptied, she decided not to return to the choir room to face more snickers and stares. She was attempting to sneak out through a side door to the parking lot when she ran into Pastor Stockman, waving the newspaper article. Wilhelmina groaned.

  “Well, well, well, Miss Brewster! What a surprise to see you in the news. I knew you were a woman of many talents but I had no idea you were a champion kite flyer too.”

  “Yes . . . well, I . . .”

  “I’m so glad to see you’re enjoying your retirement years.” He beamed at her and patted her arm as if she were a child, then hurried away.

  The irony of his final comment shattered her. She fought back her tears. She wasn’t enjoying her retirement. Her life was empty and lonely beyond words. She had found a few minutes of pleasure in the simple act of flying a kite, a few minutes where she could forget her boring existence, and everyone treated it like a farce, as if she had chosen it as a career to replace teaching. Why did everyone see it as a big joke instead of what it really was—a tragic commentary on the senselessness of forced retirement?

  Wilhelmina waited in the car for Carol. She was always one of the last people to leave the church for fear she’d miss a juicy tidbit of gossip. When she finally arrived, Carol babbled for several minutes about the Powers’ new baby and the Baldwins’ oldest son before finally coming to the biggest news item.

  “But you were really the main topic of discussion today, dear. You and your kite contest.”

  “Why is everyone making such a big deal out of nothing?” Wilhelmina said wearily. “I don’t understand it.”

  “Well, Wilhelmina, it’s so unlike you!”

  “If I hear that one more time, I’ll scream.”

  “Well, if you didn’t want to bear the brunt of everyone’s gossip, you never should have done such a thing.”

  “Since when is it a crime to fly a kite!”

  “I didn’t say it was, but at our age . . . you know . . .” Carol left the sentence dangling.”

  Wilhelmina gripped the steering wheel tighter as she drove, struggling to control her anger. But Carol didn’t speak again until they reached her house.

  “Thanks for the ride . . . and try to get some rest, dear. You haven’t been yourself lately.” Carol was about to close the door when Wilhelmina called her back.

  “Carol. I want you to know that flying that kite was fun. I’m not sorry I did it, even at my age.” Carol rolled her eyes and quickly slammed the door, as if Wilhelmina’s insanity might be contagious.

  When Wilhelmina got home her house seemed cold and very, very large—larger than it ever had before. She spotted the trophy on the kitchen table where she had left it the night before, and she picked it up, remembering the tug of the kite in her hands as it pulled, straining to be free. Mr. Dolan had been right—her heart had soared with it. And for just a little while, she had flown far above the earth, tied to the sky.

  It had been such innocent fun, such a simple, ordinary act. Why had everyone laughed at her? Her colleagues had gazed at her with shocked surprise, as if she had done something completely out of character. Was her life so predictable, so dull, that the ordinary act of flying a kite seemed extraordinary when she did it? Suddenly, in their reactions, she saw herself as she really was. Wilhelmina Brewster was not someone who had fun.

  “I’m an old stuffed shirt,” she said aloud, and though she wished it weren’t true, she knew that it was. Anyone acquainted with Mike Dolan wouldn’t have been surprised to learn he had won the contest. Mike enjoyed life to the fullest, what little of it was left for him.

  She recalled her failed efforts to give him the tracts, picturing the somber cover that promised hellfire to the unbeliever. Then she saw herself—Wilhelmina the pompous stuffed shirt—coldly handing it to kind, smiling, dying Mr. Dolan. She grabbed her purse and yanked out both tracts, then tore them into tiny shreds, not even caring that the pieces scattered all over her kitchen floor like confetti.

  “O dear Lord,” she whispered, “I don’t want to be
this way!”

  When had she stopped having fun? Or had she ever begun? Her entire life had been rigidly disciplined and structured around a sense of duty, leaving no room for spontaneity. Wilhelmina picked up the trophy again, the only prize she had ever won for something other than music, and walked into the living room with it, carrying it like a sacred object. She cleared a space in the center of the mantelpiece, pushing aside her grandmother’s antique marble clock, and set the gaudy trophy in its place. She stepped back to look, smiling faintly through her tears.

  Chapter 5

  Friday, September 25, 1987

  Wilhelmina rang her brother’s doorbell and waited. The drive down to New Haven had seemed longer than usual, but an evening spent with her dynamic younger brother would more than compensate for the tiring trip. She had come with the hope that Peter could offer her some sound advice for the problem that she had carried in her heart all week—Mike Dolan.

  Peter flung the door open with customary exuberance, taking both her hands in his. “Mina! It’s wonderful to see you! Come in, come in!” He smiled his broad, warm smile that reminded Wilhelmina so much of their mother. Peter strongly resembled the Scandinavian side of the family, Mother’s side, with his fair skin and ruddy blond hair and beard. His smile, with the tiny space between his two front teeth, was Mother’s smile, soothing and warm. Wilhelmina had inherited their father’s stern, Puritanical, New England features.

  The moment she stepped into the apartment, the savory aroma of her sister-in-law’s cooking made Wilhelmina’s mouth water. As they talked about the weather and the traffic in New Haven, Wilhelmina’s eyes feasted on the exquisitely decorated rooms. Peter was headmaster of an undergraduate residential college at Yale, a sophisticated version of dormitory parents. His spacious apartment was comfortably integrated into the Old World architecture of the university, with tall, arched windows of leaded glass; broad, golden oak woodwork; a white fireplace of imported Italian marble. It wasn’t the sort of apartment you would trust to amateur tastes, so Peter had hired a professional decorator, who had achieved the desired effect with lots of original artwork and European antiques.

  Peter’s wife, Janice, floated in from the kitchen and brushed Wilhelmina’s cheek with her lips. Her bangles and bracelets tinkled faintly as she moved.

  “How are you, dear? We’re so glad you decided to come down.” She was slim and very fashionable, a woman Peter could proudly display on his arm at faculty parties, a sensational hostess, and an expert at university politics.

  They all moved into the elegant dining room for what Janice had insisted would be just potluck. But Janice’s idea of potluck was crab in clamshells, fresh cream of asparagus soup, watercress and endive salad, and ragout of pork with chestnuts.

  As they dined, Peter talked about his latest crop of scholars and his schedule of courses, while Janice brought Wilhelmina up to date on their two children and five grandchildren. When they’d finished their cheesecake, they took their coffee into Peter’s study. It was a comfortable man’s room with warm walnut paneling and deep leather sofas and chairs. A massive bank of shelves, tightly packed with books, dominated one wall. Peter’s antique desk was barely visible beneath mounds of paper and a sprawling computer.

  “This is the only room in which Jan lets me indulge my fondness for an after-dinner pipe,” Peter said. He sank into his favorite armchair and began fiddling with his tobacco and pipe tools. He usually spent more time playing with the pipe than actually smoking it, and Wilhelmina suspected that Peter performed these rituals because it suited his image as a professor rather than from any dependence on nicotine.

  “So, how’s everything at dear old Faith College?” he asked when his pipe was finally functioning.

  Wilhelmina stared at him. “Peter, you know that I’m retired now.”

  “Well, not altogether, are you? I thought you were only slowing down to part-time.”

  “I thought so, too, but it didn’t happen that way.” She hoped her voice wouldn’t break and betray her. “I moved out of my office last spring, and that’s the last I’ve heard from anybody.”

  Peter nearly dropped his pipe. “What!”

  “Well, they do send my pension checks every month.”

  “What’s going on up there?” he asked sternly, as he got up from his overstuffed chair. “I’ll give Dean Bradford a call right now.” He moved toward the telephone on his desk.

  “No, Peter. That’s not necessary.”

  “The Brewster family helped make that college what it is today. They can’t just throw you out like that!”

  “Peter, listen to me. How could I face everyone if I had to claim family privilege to beg for my job?”

  “But they have no right—”

  “I know, I know. I was angry, too, at first. But it’s OK now. Really. I’m retired, and I have other things to do.”

  “Anyone for more coffee?” Janice hated any kind of conflict, real or imagined, and Wilhelmina knew from the faint tinkling sound that she was wringing her hands. Peter waved her away.

  “Listen, I know you, Mina. This job was your life. You can’t lose your career overnight and tell me it’s all right, that you’ve found something else to do. What else is there for you to do?”

  The truth hurt. Tears sprang to Wilhelmina’s eyes. She was furious with herself for revealing her weakness to her brother, for tarnishing the image he had of her as a strong, independent woman. “Just forget it, OK, Peter?”

  “All right. I’m sorry, Mina. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Promise me you’ll stay out of it.”

  “If that’s what you want.” He sighed and sank down in his chair. “Anyway, I should talk. My time is coming, too, in another three years.”

  “What will you do?” Wilhelmina was grateful to shift the spotlight off herself.

  Peter motioned to the overloaded shelves behind him. “I’ll be busy for 20 years trying to read all the books I want to read. And there are at least eight or nine books rattling around in my head that I want to write. An editor friend from Yale Press is nagging me to write one of them this summer.”

  “We want to spend more time with the children too,” Janice added. She appeared relieved to return to a neutral subject. “And our grandchildren, of course. How’s your work for the Cancer Center going? Are you still involved with them?”

  “I’m on their board of directors this year. And my friend, Carol, talked me into doing volunteer work with the Hospice Association this fall. Which brings me to one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you, Peter.”

  “Oh? What’s that?” He sat forward attentively, puffing little clouds of aromatic smoke.

  “Well, one of the terminal patients I met confided that he’s not going to wait for cancer to kill him. He plans to kill himself.” Janice gasped. “I don’t know . . . what do you think, Peter? Is that so wrong?”

  “From a Christian perspective? Yes, of course. Absolutely.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, at first. But lately I’m not so sure. He said that if he’s going to die anyway, what difference does it make when or how? He’s trying to spare his family a lot of pain. You know what a long, horrible death cancer can be. Remember how much Mother suffered? And how hard it was for us to watch her die like that? He’s got three little grandchildren who love him dearly. Is it wrong to want to shield them from his suffering?”

  “I’ll get more coffee.” Janice slipped from the room, her bracelets tinkling delicately.

  “Are you certain he isn’t trying to spare himself the pain and not just his family?” Peter asked. “Maybe he’s looking for the easy way out.”

  “I can’t blame him for wanting that, can you? People say suicide is the coward’s choice, but I think it would take a good deal of courage to steer your airplane into a mountain.”

  “Is that what he’s planning to do?”

  “Something like that.”

  Peter sighed and laid down his pipe. “The Bible says that the
re is a season for everything, a time to be born and a time to die. It’s not up to us to choose the time or the manner in which we die. That decision belongs to God. Our Christian heritage teaches that suicide is wrong, under any circumstances. Christians sometimes get confused, however, because the Bible also says in Philippians that death is gain for a believer, and to be with Christ is better by far. We’re taught to look forward to it.”

  “Well, that’s another problem. He isn’t a Christian.”

  “Then he’s not going to escape any pain by killing himself.” Peter hesitated. “But where do you come into the picture, Mina? I thought your involvement with the Cancer Center was on an administrative level. I didn’t realize you would actually have personal contact with patients.”

  Something about Peter’s attitude stung Wilhelmina. His tone was disparaging, as if working with patients on a personal level was extremely distasteful. She recognized it as an attitude she had shared until recently. Until Mike Dolan.

  “I don’t know how I got involved, but I am. He’s a very nice person, but he isn’t a Christian. I would like to talk to him about God, but I don’t know where to start. That’s a terrible confession, coming from someone who has been a Christian nearly all her life, but it’s true. I was hoping you could help me. How do you convince someone to believe in the existence of God?”

  “Ah! Christian apologetics! It’s one of my favorite subjects.” As he switched into his role as professor, Peter couldn’t stay seated. He rose from his seat and soon lost himself in his subject as he began to lecture. “The arguments for the existence of God can be grouped into three main categories. First, the belief in the existence of God is intuitive; both necessary and universal. And according to Kant those are the infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge. That it is universal is shown by the fact that even primitive cultures espouse some beliefs in a Supreme Being or beings, albeit primitive ones. And it is necessary in that to deny the existence of God is to do grave injustice to the laws of our own nature.”