That night, after the house was quiet and everyone but Mama and I had gone to bed, we sat at the kitchen table with the lights low, drinking tea, I finally asked. “You went up before, didn’t you? With him. Before I was born.”
“Yes,” she said. “And you saw him.” It was a statement, but there was a question behind it.
I nodded. “A couple of times. Our first meeting wasn’t very pleasant. I heaped a pile of burning coals on his head and then told him to get out.” Mama didn’t flinch, but her eyes gave away her inward wince. “But then, when I was stranded on the island, I started thinking. He could have handled things differently—he should have, for all our sakes—but he was trying, as best he knew how, to make things right. I respected that. And then, when I woke up in the hospital, he was there sitting by my bed.”
“He was?”
I nodded. “And then he came twice more. Once with Colonel MacDonald, when they told me I was being discharged, and then again on his own, just before he had to leave New Guinea. He didn’t stay long, but I think he just wanted to say good-bye, to make sure things were all right between us.”
“And are they?” Mama asked.
I thought for a minute before answering. “Yes, in a way. At least as all right as they can be. I’m not angry anymore, if that’s what you mean, but I don’t expect to see him again. He has a family and children. There’s no point in adding their hurt to ours, is there?”
Mama’s eyes were thoughtful, but she didn’t answer me.
“And you know, I’m grateful to him. If it hadn’t been for him, they never would have found me. And, I can’t be sure, but I think that new instructor’s job that’s waiting for me is his doing, too. There are plenty of able bodied military pilots lined up around the block for those jobs. It’s a cushy assignment compared to combat. Somebody must have pulled some strings to get it for me, and I think he was the one.”
“Well, it’s about time,” Mama said bitterly. She poured more tea into her cup and stared into it as she stirred the brew, making the spoon clink hard against the china surface. “You’re his son. I guess you deserve a little something from him. You deserved ...”
I just shrugged and traced my finger around the rim of my cup, waiting for her to go on. She was upset, that was clear, but I wasn’t sure who she was upset with or why.
“Did he tell you about it? About ... when he took me flying?” She glanced up at me and then quickly fixed her eyes back to the bottom of her teacup.
“No.”
“You know, I only flew with him that one time, and it was so brief. If ...” She paused, blushing a little. “If you hadn’t come along, it might have been easy to think I’d imagined the whole thing, but in some ways it was the truest moment of my entire life. I’ve never forgotten it.” She pressed the edge of the blue willow cup, part of the treasured set the church gave Mama and Paul as a wedding present, flat against her lip without drinking, remembering. After a moment she looked up at me and said plainly, “I should have told you about your father before.”
That was it, then. She was angry with herself. Well, maybe that was all right.
I took a breath. “I wish you had, Mama. It wouldn’t necessarily have made things easier, but I think it would have made me feel less distant from you. Growing up, I felt you were always looking for something, waiting for someone, that there was this hole in your life and that I was the cause of it.”
Her eyes teared as she reached across the table and took my hand. “Morgan, don’t ever think that. I did wait for him for so many, many years. I was so young. We both were. I didn’t understand that when Slim, the boy I fell in love with more than twenty years ago, flew off that day, I’d never see him again. How could we have known? Slim was swallowed up by Charles Lindbergh, a man more cautious, more calculated and cynical than Slim. He had to be. When Slim climbed into the cockpit of the Spirit of St. Louis and flew across the Atlantic, the world changed, and he was the one who changed it. He landed in Paris, into an era that hadn’t existed until he touched down at LeBouget Airfield.” She looked off into a distant place, remembering.
“I saw the pictures of him, surrounded by the mobs that screamed for him everywhere he went, always wanting more of him. But whatever he did or was, it was never enough. Every time I saw those photographs of him with this stiff, nervous smile pasted to his lips, and him surrounded by the crowds of clamoring strangers, I became more determined to be the one person who didn’t demand anything from him. That was how I thought I’d prove my love and how I’d bring him back to us, eventually. I didn’t understand—not for a long, long time—that Slim was gone forever. Now I think it happened that first day. When he stepped out of the Spirit and into the clutch of the crowds, they suffocated him. Slim was too innocent, too trusting to survive, so someone stronger and harder took his place, Charles Lindbergh. And no one noticed. Not even me.”
Mama wiped away a tear with the heel of her hand and sniffed before going on. “No, that’s not really so. Part of me knew, but I didn’t want to believe it. I just wanted so much for the dream to be true. But, Morgan,” she said, gazing at me squarely, her voice suddenly deeper and more serious, “you were the part of the dream that was true and the best thing that ever, ever happened to me. If I have suffered any slights in my life, any disappointments, or hardships, they were worth it ten times over because of you. I have been foolish and fearful, and you’ve suffered because of it. I’m sorry. I thought I was protecting you, but maybe I was just protecting myself.”
She started to apologize again, but I stopped her. She’d said all she needed to. “It’s all right, Mama. I know. You loved him so. I’ve always known that.”
“I did,” she affirmed. “At that moment I did, but it couldn’t last. Your grandpa used to say that real love was with someone who’d be there when the crop fails and your sight grows weak, that you could count on it like the earth under your feet.”
In my mind, I could see just how he would make this pronouncement to Mama, his love-struck daughter, his finger a bare inch from her face as he labored, unsuccessfully, to make her hear him.
“Oh,” Mama said with a sigh, “I didn’t know how right he was.”
“Until Paul?”
“Until Paul,” she answered. “I love him so. When I think of all the years I wasted, pushing him away, I could kick myself. That might have been the most foolish thing of all.”
I couldn’t deny it, so I didn’t say anything. Mama looked at me and smiled, knowing what I was thinking.
“Well, as Grandma would say, there’s no use crying over spilt milk. But, how about you?” she asked casually, in the tone she used when she wanted it to look like she wasn’t prying even though she was. “After our breakfast in San Diego, I figured we’d be seeing a lot of Virginia Pratt once you came home, but ...” She shrugged, holding out empty hands.
I shook my head, “No, Mama. We had a ... well ... an interest in each other for a while. But it wasn’t love, not for either of us. I knew that right from the beginning, and she did too, but I think we both wanted to be wanted, so we let it go on a lot longer than we should have. I liked the idea of having someone waiting for me, but I wrote her and broke it off right after I left San Diego. I was wrong to keep her waiting so long.”
Mama lifted her eyebrows “Well, from what I heard, she wasn’t exactly waiting. Ruby told me she’d been writing to six different servicemen, trying to wrangle a proposal out of one of them.”
I smiled. “And did it work?”
She nodded, “She’s going to marry George Sanderson when he comes home for his Christmas leave. I’m just glad you already ended it with her. I was worried that I was going to have to tell you all about it and break your heart.”
Mama was obviously scandalized, but I just laughed. After all those love letters, all those months, all the anguish and guilt I’d gone through, worried that I was keeping Virginia from finding love ... Fountain was right, a girl that looked like Virginia wasn’t going to be
lonely for long.
“Nope. You’re off the hook, Mama. Besides, when it comes to heartbreak, it’s too late. Somebody beat Virginia to it.” I was still smiling, but I’d surprised myself. I hadn’t intended to tell Mama about Georgia, but it was too late now. I had to let her in on my secret. Maybe I’d wanted to all along.
“I met a girl during my training. Her name is Georgia. She’s a pilot, and she’s ...” I pushed back the kitchen chair, jumped to my feet, and started pacing, too unsettled to sit. “Mama, she’s just the most wonderful girl! I never met anyone like her. No one has ever made me feel this way, and it’s not just something physical, Mama. With Virginia, she was so beautiful that it took every ounce of self-control I had ...” I stopped, suddenly remembering that it was my mother I was speaking to, but when I looked at her, she seemed unperturbed, just inclined her head a little, encouraging me to go on. And I wanted to tell her. I had to, because Mama was the only one in the world who would understand.
“What I mean is, Mama, I know the difference between love and lust. And I love Georgia! I know that now. But we’d spent so little time together, and I was worried. I didn’t want to tell her anything that wasn’t true. I’d already been through that with Virginia. I didn’t want to do anything that might end up hurting her later, but that’s what happened anyway.
“She came to see me before I shipped out. Things got pretty passionate, and I ended up pushing her away. Not because I didn’t want her, but because I did want her, so badly. But I didn’t want to end up hurting her. I was trying to protect her!” I cried.
I stopped my pacing and grabbed on to the top rung of the wooden chair, facing my mother. “I kept thinking about you, Mama. I didn’t know about Lindbergh then, but I did know that someone a long time ago must have made you fall in love and then left you.”
“Oh, Morgan,” Mama whispered.
“I thought I loved her, Mama, but I wasn’t sure. Everything was happening so fast! And if I did love her, that was all the more reason to hold back. I was only hours from shipping out. I just couldn’t take the risk. I didn’t want what happened to you to happen to Georgia, but she ran off before I could explain. I should have gone after her, but I was so mixed up.” I loosened my grip on the chair and held open my empty hands. “I let her go.
“I told myself that it was for the best, that it was no good falling in love with a girl who was thousands of miles away, especially when I was about to go back into combat. I tried to forget about her, but I just couldn’t.”
“Morgan,” Mama chided gently, “if that’s how you feel about her, you should tell her. The war is over for you. There’s nothing holding you back from falling in love now, if there ever was.”
“I know, Mama,” I said. “Believe me, I know.”
Frustrated, I rubbed my face with my hands. “When I was stuck on the island I thought about her so much. I realized I loved her. I did from the first minute I saw her.”
Mama smiled. “Seems like you did a lot of thinking out on that island.”
“There wasn’t much else to do. I promised myself that if I ever got out of there, I would tell her the whole truth. And I did. As soon as I was well enough to hold a pen, even before I got back to the States, I wrote her a letter, explained everything, and told her I loved her. That was months ago, but I’ve never heard a word from her.”
Mama got up from the table and came to put a comforting arm around me. “Well, you should write her again. Morgan, you were halfway across the world when you sent that. Anything could have happened to that letter. Maybe she never received it.”
I shook my head. “I thought of that. I wrote again from the hospital in San Diego. That was weeks ago, and nothing.” I shrugged hopelessly. “No answer. Or rather, that is her answer—nothing. She wants nothing to do with me. She doesn’t love me.”
Mama wrapped both her arms around me. And I let her. “Oh, Morgan,” she said. “Morgan.”
37
Georgia
Liberal, Kansas—November 1944
How did I get myself into this? I asked myself as I peered in the mirror and I wiped the color off my lips with a tissue before applying a different, hopefully more suitable shade of lipstick. I pressed another tissue between my lips to blot the color, peered at my reflection again, and groaned. Too orange. How had I gotten to be twenty-three years old and still not own a tube of nice, pink lipstick?
If Fran were here to witness my frantic and clumsy attempts at cosmetic application, she’d have teased me mercilessly. “See?” she’d say. “All those times I tried to teach you about makeup and fashion, you made fun of me, but now I’ll bet you wish you would have listened.” Yes, Fran would have had lots of fun at my expense, but in the end, she’d have pulled a pink lipstick from the depths of her purse and saved the day. Too bad she wasn’t here.
I heard the crackle of rubber tires pulling into the gravel driveway of my landlord’s house. I’d have to wear the orange lipstick. At least my new dress looked nice. It had been a splurge, but I couldn’t very well eat Thanksgiving dinner in a flight suit; and, besides, in just a few more weeks I wouldn’t be able to wear uniforms all the time. I was going to have to get some civilian clothes. I buttoned, unbuttoned, and rebuttoned the top button of my dress, deciding that modesty was the best policy, then donned the hat that the woman in the shop had assured me looked perfectly elegant with the dress. A quick look in the glass convinced me to take it off again. The big pheasant feather pinned to the side made me look like a relative of the main course. Maybe I should wear my WASP beret? Nope. Wrong color.
I heard a car door slam. Panicked, I ran to the window and pulled back the curtain to confirm my worst fears. I was hatless, petrified, and out of time. Morgan was here to pick me up for Thanksgiving dinner with his family.
How did I get myself into this?
Ten days before, I’d been pacing back and forth in my empty classroom, waiting to meet the man who was to take my job. All morning I’d felt like a pot simmering on a stove, just on the edge of boiling, and as afternoon and the introduction to my replacement approached, I became even more agitated. Ever since I’d let loose with that “Good thing you aren’t in charge” barb in Hemingway’s office, he’d made my last days as a flight instructor as miserable as possible, assigning every dimwit or malcontent on base to my class, suddenly deciding that my classroom should be made into a conference room and moving me to the smallest, mostly poorly lit and poorly heated space on base, then denying my supply requisition when I asked for a portable heater! And though I couldn’t prove Hemingway was behind it, I certainly had my suspicions when my paycheck was mysteriously “lost” by the accounting department and it took them three weeks and thirty pounds of paperwork to issue a replacement check.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. What had I ever done to deserve this besides leave my home and business behind to serve my country?
Donna Lee had called it right: the days when newspapers ran glowing, glamorized stories about selfless, patriotic WASP pilots ably pitching in to help in the war were long gone. In its place were nasty letters to the editor and derisive newspaper stories that referred to the WASP as “powder puff pilots” and claimed female pilots were less qualified, cost more to train, and had higher accident and fatality rates than the men, all of which were outright lies. And the closer we got to a vote on the militarization of the WASP, the worse it got.
Shortly after Pamela’s bridal shower, Donna Lee sent me a newspaper article from the Galveston Gazette that summed up the situation perfectly.
Ground Those Glamour Girls! Say Jobless He-Man Pilots
Today, the fiercest campaign in the historic battle of the sexes is being fought in the air. Thousands of well-trained male pilots complain that they are jobless, while the WASP continue ferrying planes, towing targets, tracking and doing courier work for the Army at $250 a month.
Members of Congress have received mountains of mail from unhappy male pilots, most of them f
ormer instructors with the now defunct Civilian Pilot Training Program. Reports from the Capitol say that few Congressmen are willing to take up the cause of the WASP, especially in light of the campaign mounted by male pilots’ associations calling Jacqueline Cochran’s WASP “glamour girls” that are more expensive, less well-trained, and less experienced than the men.
Some of the masculine comments are far from gallant. “Thirty-five-hour wonders” is one tag they’ve pinned on the lady fliers.
“This program is just bleeding the taxpayers dry,” said one disgruntled male. “Costs $7000 to train every female. It’s the most expensive way to ferry planes.”
Another said, “If these girls had a shred of patriotism, they’d resign.”
“It just doesn’t make sense,” sighed one baffled pilot. “Not when we have so many qualified men who are grounded.”
Those in the know on Capitol Hill say that the men won’t go down without a fight and will keep on the pressure until the ladies holler “uncle.”
I wrote a letter to Jacqueline Cochran, asking how long we were going to sit there and take this, and why didn’t she counter with some press releases and interviews of her own that would let the public know the truth? Eventually I got back an officially worded letter advising me that as head of the program, she felt it was best for the WASP to take the high road, that the accomplishments of the program spoke for themselves, and that it would be best to wait for the furor to die down. I knew that she and General Arnold had been pushing for a bill that would finally militarize the WASP, giving us the military pay and benefits that our male counterparts enjoyed, and between the lines, I felt she was saying that we couldn’t afford to rock the boat and irritate Congress just as the legislation was coming to the floor. Wait it out; that was her strategy. It was the ladylike strategy, and it was wrong. The boys were playing hardball, and we should have done the same, but we didn’t, and now it was too late. The WASP had been shown the door. I was infuriated by our summary dismissal, but I was even more infuriated by the unanswered attack upon our record. The women of the WASP had helped win the war with the same attitude of sacrifice, dedication, and patriotism as any combat soldier, and thirty-eight brave and skilled women had selflessly paid the ultimate sacrifice in the effort, but no one would ever know it. Unless someone corrected the record, the public would forever think of the WASP as the “glamour girl” pilots who did little more than joy-ride around in Piper Cubs wearing pink lipstick and five-hundred-dollar custom-tailored uniforms while looking for marriage material in the form of officers and good-looking male fliers.
On Wings Of The Morning Page 29
