On Wings Of The Morning

by Marie Bostwick

  “And did you?”

  “Well, I still have moments of doubt, if that’s what you mean. I think everyone does. But I just started thinking how it all must look from God’s perspective.”

  Georgia let out a little puff of exasperation. “You mean like one great big mess?”

  “Sure, sometimes, but that’s not what I’m talking about. You’re a pilot. You know how completely different everything looks from the air? How individual people, and buildings, and trees all get smaller, but somehow they become bigger because they are melded into this amazing, limitless landscape that has more beauty and more meaning than any of those things possesses separately? I think that’s maybe a little bit of how God sees the world. Sometimes we get so focused on the small pains and tragedies of life, and even on the enormous ones, that we forget to see the larger goodness and beauty in life. For us, death is the ultimate punishment, but it must be different from God’s perspective. Maybe God sees it more like a gift. Who knows?” Georgia’s face grew dark and angry when I said this.

  “And for the people who get left behind? What about them? Where’s their gift?”

  “No,” I agreed. “Not for them. I don’t have a father. He died when I was little,” I said. It wasn’t true, but explaining my parentage would be too complicated, and, besides, I reasoned, I was probably never going to see this girl again. She didn’t need to know every detail of my life. “But my grandpa was like my father. He died when I was eleven. It was so hard on Mama and me. He was the one who’d held us all together, and when he died I felt like I’d just fallen into this big hole and couldn’t climb out. He was my best friend, and I think Mama felt the same way. They were real close. On top of that, it was the middle of the Depression. Young as I was, I knew we were in real danger of losing our home.”

  “And you weren’t angry with God for taking your grandfather just when you needed him most?” Georgia asked, the challenge in her voice apparent.

  “Of course I was. Who wouldn’t be? But that’s my point. I could only see things from my own perspective, and as far as I could see, we were all going to fall apart without Grandpa. But we didn’t. We were stronger than we realized. Maybe it was part of the plan for helping me to be able to stand on my own two feet—and my mother, too. She’s as shy and quiet as anything, but when Grandpa died, she had to kind of hitch herself up and get on with it. Mama is so strong, but if Grandpa had lived another twenty years, would she have known that? Would she have figured out how to take her talent for quilting and turn it into a means of supporting us? Would I have found the guts to leave the farm and become a pilot? Maybe. Maybe not. I think Mama feels about quilting the way I feel about flying. It’s like oxygen to us; we need it to live. But if our lives had turned out even a little bit differently than they did, taking a few turns we felt were the better at the time, we could have missed the things that bring us our greatest happiness.”

  We reached the door of the visitors’ barracks and stopped near the front stoop. “Don’t you ever think it’s funny that we all question and complain about why God lets bad things happen to us that we don’t deserve, but we never think to ask the same questions about the good that comes our way that we don’t deserve?” Without the accompanying beat of our feet crunching gravel as we walked, my voice sounded louder, embarrassingly so. I suddenly realized that I’d been talking for a long time.

  “Anyway,” I mumbled. “Sorry for going on like that. But it’s like I said at first, Georgia, you’ve got to think it out on your own. I don’t think there’s any other way. If going to this church is helping you find some answers, then don’t let anybody talk you out of it.”

  She just looked at me, and I couldn’t tell if she was thinking about what I’d said, or feeling grateful I’d finally shut up, or waiting for me to kiss her good night. I was pretty certain it wasn’t the last, but with the moon behind her, spilling light over her hair and shoulders like a halo, just an arm’s breadth away from me, I wanted to do just that. And even though a vision of Virginia Pratt lurked accusingly on the edge of my mind, if I’d spied the least hint of an invitation in her eyes, I would have. As it was, I stood my ground and waited.

  Finally she said, “Well, it’s pretty late. I guess I should let you get some sleep. You’ve got a long trip tomorrow.” She lifted her hand in farewell and started to walk away, but I reached out a hand to stop her.

  “It’s pretty dark out here. Can I walk you back to your room?” She smiled.

  “No, I’m all right. Other than you, there isn’t a man within five miles. I’ll be fine walking alone. Thanks for offering, though. Good night.”

  “Good night. Thanks again for all your help. I’d have been in a jam without you.”

  “That’s all right. I enjoyed getting a closer look at your plane. She’s a beauty. It was nice to meet you, Morgan. Really. Maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime.”

  “Maybe,” I answered and watched as she walked away.

  As soon as I finished my training they’d be assigning me to a new unit. It might be in Europe, or it might be in the Pacific, but one thing was for sure, it wasn’t going to be within a thousand miles of Sweetwater, Texas, or any other place Georgia might be stationed.

  If you’ve got any brains at all, I said to myself, you won’t waste any time or energy thinking about her.

  She disappeared around the corner. I stood for a long time, staring at the spot where she’d been a moment before, waiting for the imprinted memory of the kiss I hadn’t dared to take to fade from my mind. It was no good. When I took off the next morning the memory of her followed.

  19

  Georgia

  Avenger Field—April 1943

  “Georgia! Fanny! Look what just came in the mail!” Pamela, with Donna Lee close on her heels, burst into the room holding up a brand-new Brownie camera. I left my half-packed suitcase and came over to check it out.

  “Graduation present from dear old Dad,” Pamela explained. “He made me promise to take a picture of the whole gang of us so he can put it on his office wall at the bank. Say cheese!” she commanded cheerily.

  Fanny complied, sticking out her chest and putting a hand on her hips in a mocking Betty Grable pose. “Here I am, Mr. Hellman! The First Bank of Darien’s own personal pinup!” Pamela snapped the picture as we all giggled.

  “Here,” Donna Lee said and reached for the camera, “Let me take one of the three of you.”

  “No! We all have to be in the picture. I’m going to run next door and see if Doris will come take one for us.” Pamela tossed the camera to me and started to leave in search of one of our neighbors.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “We should wait until tomorrow, after graduation. You don’t want to waste the film. Think how much better the picture will look when we’re all dressed up in our uniforms, with our new wings and our hair fixed. Right now, we all look a mess.”

  “Speak for yourself!” Donna Lee protested.

  “Oh, don’t be so frugal!” Pamela said. “I’ve got lots of film. We’ll take one today and some more tomorrow after the ceremony.”

  “No! Wait!” I cried and grabbed Pamela’s arm.

  She turned around and gave me a look. “Gosh, Georgia! What’s got into you?”

  I wasn’t sure myself. “Nothing. I just think we ought to wait until we actually graduate. It’s silly, I know. Donna Lee has finished everything, but I’ve got a last meteorology test today, and you and Fanny still have your final flight checks to pass. I just don’t want to jinx anything by celebrating too early, that’s all. Besides, Doris left about ten minutes ago. She’s got the flight check right before yours. She dropped by and asked if she could rub my lucky penny before she took off.”

  Pamela laughed, and the other girls joined in. “Boy! You really are superstitious! I always knew it.”

  I chuckled gamely, but no matter what Pamela said, it really wasn’t like me to give in to superstition. Maybe I was just worried about passing meteorology, but som
ething inside me felt uneasy, as if we were dangerously close to tempting fate. “I know, but just humor me, all right? The second graduation is over I’ll pose for as many pictures as you want.”

  They teased me about it but agreed. I finished my packing and sat down to do some last-minute cramming before my test. Donna Lee said she was going to do her laundry. Pamela and Fanny hurried off to the ready room to meet up with their instructors and go up for their final flight checks.

  About an hour later, as I was trying to memorize various mathematical formulas for predicting atmospheric circulation, I heard my name being called. Donna Lee ran in the door, out of breath and sobbing, on the verge of hysterics. I grabbed her by the shoulders and begged her to calm down, but the only intelligible word she uttered was “crash.” It felt like all the blood had drained from my body, and I was afraid I might faint. All I could think of was Pamela and Fanny.

  I grabbed Donna Lee and shook her, trying to get more information from her, but she was beside herself. “Come on!” I commanded and clapped my hand around her wrist, dragging her with me.

  Whatever it was that had happened, word had already sped through the base. Scores of girls were streaming to the ready room, some with tears running down their faces, others dry-eyed but wearing expressions of panic and disbelief.

  Don’t let it be true, I thought as I ran up to the door of the ready room, but I already knew it was true. There had been a crash, a bad one.

  I opened the door, and the look on the faces of the girls who were whispering together in groups or comforting their crying classmates told me at least part of what I needed to know. There would be an empty chair at our graduation tomorrow. The crash had been fatal. Still dragging the sobbing Donna Lee behind me, I started going from group to group, searching. Where were they? Please God, I begged, don’t let it be Pamela or Fanny. Please!

  Finally, across the room I spotted the back of Fanny’s head. She was standing in a circle of girls, and from the way her shoulders were shaking I knew she was crying. I pushed through the crowd to make my way to her. Grabbing her by the arm, I pulled her around to face me. “Where is Pamela?” I demanded.

  “I’m here.” Pamela was coming toward us through a side door and smoking a cigarette. Her hands were shaking, and her face was drained of color, but her eyes were dry.

  “Oh! Thank God!” I cried and threw my arms around her. Relief flooded my mind, but only for a moment. The image of the empty chair flashed in my mind. “Who was it?” I asked, releasing Pamela from my grasp.

  She inhaled deeply and blew out a sighing column of smoke. “Doris,” she said, and her eyes began to tear. “Nobody knows what happened yet, but they went down about twenty miles from base. There was a fire. Dave was with her. No survivors.”

  “Oh, Pam!” She had never talked about it openly, not even to me, but I knew that she and Dave had been seeing each other in secret. One afternoon she had showed up at dinner wearing a new gold locket and a smile. I was sure it was a gift from Dave and figured a ring wouldn’t be long in coming.

  “Oh, honey! I’m so sorry.” I reached to put my arms around her.

  To my surprise, Pamela pushed me away. “Don’t,” she said coldly and then softened a little. “I’m sorry, Georgia, but I just can’t. I can’t afford to fall apart right now. None of us can. Most of these girls still have tests and flight checks to finish. Me included.”

  “What are you saying? You think they’re still going to make us keep flying today? Even after this?”

  “If this was a base full of men and there was an accident, training would continue on schedule no matter what happened. This is the army, not a sorority. We’ve got to go on just like the men would. We could still wash out—the whole lot of us. If that happens, it would be more serious than just us not getting our wings. Some of the higher-ups might use it as an excuse to say women are too sensitive to fly. It could jeopardize the whole program. We can’t let that happen, Georgia. Stop crying. We’ve got to help these girls—and Doris, too.”

  I started to ask what she meant by “Doris, too,” but Pam wasn’t listening. She dropped her cigarette to the floor and crushed it under the toe of her shoe, then breathed in deeply, trying to collect herself. “Come on, Georgia. I need your help.”

  Grabbing me by the arm, she pushed her way through the crowd of girls. The sobbing was growing louder and more intense with every minute and threatened to burst into a deluge of uncontrollable keening and grief as the news of our classmate’s crash and horrific death by fire spread through the mob.

  Using a chair for a stool, Pamela climbed on top of the nearest table and motioned for me to follow. “Help me get their attention,” she commanded. I started clapping my hands along with her, and we both shouted, “Ladies!” over and over again. Finally, the room quieted. More than one hundred pairs of eyes looked at us, waiting. Pamela, her voice strong and steady, spoke.

  “Girls, I know we are all devastated by the news about Doris Fredlund and Dave Kalinowski. It was a terrible accident and a terrible loss for everyone here.” She paused for a moment and let her eyes pass slowly over the sea of faces. While the news of Pamela’s relationship to Dave wasn’t exactly public knowledge, there were certainly rumors. The hush that had started among the girls became a respectful silence as they listened to Pamela speak, knowing that she had more reason for tears than anyone.

  “We are here because there is a war on. And just like thousands of other units stationed at bases in Europe, in the Pacific, and all over the world, today we lost a friend in the fight. We’re feeling sad, and lonely, and scared. That’s natural. But just like the men who are flying combat missions overseas, we are at war, and wars have casualties. We all knew this day would come. We are sad, and we grieve the loss of Doris and Dave. But it won’t be the last time we grieve.

  “No matter what happened today, we are still at war, and we still have a job to do. If Doris were here, she’d be the first to tell you that. Her death is a tragedy, but it would be an even greater tragedy if we let ourselves be so overcome by our grief that we don’t finish the job all of us, Doris included, came here to do—earn our wings, and do our part to end this war quickly and victoriously.”

  As Pamela spoke, I was watching the faces of the listening girls. The few who were still crying were trying to dry their eyes. They were calmer and, suddenly, determined. I sensed that all through that room, women were making silent vows to pull themselves together, to fly better and more courageously than they ever had, as a testament to Doris, our first fallen heroine, and to all those that would come after her. I was so proud of them. It was everything I could do not to start crying again.

  But I was caught off guard when Pamela said, “Before we dismiss and get back to our work, I think we should all be silent for a minute. Then Georgia is going to lead us all in a prayer.” She turned her back to the girls and nodded to me.

  “Pamela!” I leaned toward her and hissed urgently. “I can’t say a prayer in front of all these girls! I don’t know the first thing about it!”

  Pamela hissed back. “You’ve been to church every Sunday for the last four months. You must have picked up something! Besides, you have to do it. I already said you would.”

  She jammed an elbow into my ribs and shoved me forward. Facing the rows and rows of solemn, waiting women left me feeling absolutely tongue-tied, but I knew I had to do something. I cleared my throat, asked them all to close their eyes and bow their heads for a moment of silence and did likewise.

  With my eyes screwed shut I silently said, Please God, I’m not sure that you’re there or if you can hear me, but if you can, let me know it. Help me. Give me something, anything that would give some peace to these women. If you give me a message for them, I’ll share it. Anything. Just a word. They’re all torn to pieces inside, and I don’t know how to help.

  I stood there with my eyes closed for a long minute, waiting, hoping, wanting but not quite believing, and suddenly there it was.

&
nbsp; I hadn’t seen Morgan for a month, not since that night when we’d walked from the hangar to the barracks and I’d listened as he’d explained his understanding of God. He had suffered terrible losses, not one father but two, and yet he came to believe that everything, the good and the bad together, was part of the same majestic, ultimately liberating landscape, even if we didn’t have the heart or perspective to recognize it from inside the envelope of grief.

  I’d probably never see him again, yet I’d thought of Morgan every day since we’d parted. But not, I reasoned, because I was attracted to him personally. Meeting Morgan so soon after that life-changing flight of resurrection was more than chance, I was sure. It was a confirmation that I was on the right path, that it was time to put off the suffocating cloak of mourning I had worn for so long, and that in doing so, I wasn’t forsaking my husband but keeping his memory alive. I would never love anyone like I had Roger; I was sure of that. But the memory of that night with Morgan, the picture of his eyes as they burned with a steady, certain flame of conviction, stayed with me. When he’d talked about seeing the world as coherent and replete with meaning when viewed from the heavens, my heart had burned inside me. My mind and soul had whispered, Yes, there is something to this. There must be.

  I was reaching upward. It was like when I was a little girl and Charles Lindbergh flew over, only feet above my outstretched, yearning grasp. I didn’t really know that famous aviator, he was not part of my world, but somehow I knew we were joined by risks, longing, and visions that other people didn’t even try to imagine. It was like that with Morgan. Though we were strangers, I recognized him. His words spoke to some undefined longing inside me, helping me lay a fingertip hold on things beyond me.

  Raising my head to look over a reverent field of bowed heads, I realized that I understood more than I knew. So did they.