The Secrets of Flight

by Maggie Leffler

  Moving back toward the stove, I put on the kettle without even asking if she wants tea. “Once Sol has finished his training, we’ll be able to move to Wakefield—still the Bronx, but there are three-bedroom houses with yards. I already saw where she’ll go to grade school. And I put in an application at Queens College. When I finish my degree I can get a job teaching English.” This is my new, practical plan since piloting is no longer an option.

  Mama sinks into a kitchen chair, slides some bobby pins out of her hair, and removes her hat. When she doesn’t say anything for a while, I wonder if she’s still thinking about the unmade double bed in our room or how we will all fit. Sol has half a mind to ask if Rita can stay with Mama and Uncle Hyman a few more years, just until we move out of the city, but I’m afraid that if we put it off, she’ll never let my niece come join us.

  “Where is Sol?” Mama finally asks, glancing around.

  “The library. He has to study all the time,” I say, slipping my hands into my pockets to hide their sudden trembling. “He’s really looking forward to having Rita come and live with us. He wants to have a big family.” I turn and meet her eyes. “How is she?”

  At least that gets her talking. She chats about Sarah’s daughter, who loves to read and draw and wants to be a writer someday. Frankly, I’m distracted. At any moment Sol might come striding through the door, and I want to warn him up front that Mama is here. She might wonder why his old clothes are spattered in paint and Sol, never inclined to lie, might tell her he’s been helping the Lutherans paint their new fellowship hall, which still strikes me as odd: enlisted to work for the church on their Sabbath? When do they rest? I sit down next to my mother and let go of the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

  “You look well,” Mama says, without a trace of scrutiny in her voice, which makes me relax for a second, until she adds quietly, “Your neighbor, the woman in the hall . . . why did she call you Mary?”

  “I—don’t know.” The kettle starts to howl, so I jump up to take it off the burner. “I introduced myself when we first moved in, and she must’ve misheard me, and—I keep meaning to correct her but it seems too late now. She’s been calling me Mary for months.” From the cupboard, I take the saucers down before rattling the teacups into place on top.

  “And Sol? Has she been calling Sol ‘Thomas’ for months as well?”

  My heart seems to stall in my chest. I swallow and turn.

  Mama reaches down into her pocketbook then and takes out a letter—addressed to her and Uncle Hyman—which she hands to me. It’s from Sol’s mother and in it, she reveals everything: how Sol changed his name to get into medical school, how ever since we eloped and moved to New York we have been acting as gentiles, and how they are in despair. Sol is dead to them; they have lost their only son, and Hannah, the older brother she looked up to. “Is this true?” Mama asks, and finally I understand why she’s shown up unannounced: she wants to catch me in the lie of my life—unless it’s the opposite, and she’s here to reassure herself that there isn’t a bit of reality in that letter. Either way, she has to see for herself.

  I shake my head, but my eyes are giving me away, wide with fear and guilt and shame.

  “Because I can’t have Rita wrapped up in your lies.”

  “Nothing’s changed,” I say. “It’s just a name on a paper to get around the quotas.”

  “They’re lifting the quotas now!” Mama says, which makes me think of Sol telling me just last week about the clinical trial for streptomycin. What good is a cure when she’s already gone? “You do read the newspapers, don’t you?” Mama adds, reminding me of my sister. “You realize the Jews were kept in camps, marched into—”

  “I don’t want to hear about it! I don’t want to talk about it!” I say.

  “Who are you?” Mama says, leaning forward. “What is your name?”

  “You know who I am,” I say, looking down at my hands.

  “Think of Papa,” Mama says, her voice quiet and pleading.

  I think of my father. In my mind, he is young again, building the sukkah for the festival of Sukkot, working outside in his undershirt. How young and strong he looked, wielding his hammer for hours in the hot sun. When he finally finished, we drank lemonade under the flimsy roof covered in green branches, and I showed him the story I’d just written about a little girl who could fly through the seasons without a plane. He read without pausing and then looked up from my pages. “I built a flimsy little hut,” he said, pointing to the walls of the sukkah. “But you, Miriush—you’ve built a whole house with your words.”

  I tell Mama that I think of Papa often. “I imagine them together—Sarah and Papa. I’m sure they’re together.” Then my cheeks burn when Mama glances up at me. She knows. She knows there’s a cross under my shirt.

  “I don’t want you taking this road,” she says, and her eyes are shiny with tears, which reminds me of the last time she almost cried—in the weeks after Papa died, when she’d found a library book that I’d drawn a picture in. “Look what you’ve done, Miri,” she kept repeating, her voice breaking with disappointment. “How are we going to pay for this?”

  She never loved Uncle Hyman, I realize now. She married him so we would still have a home after Papa’s death. Then she gave up her own dreams, whatever they were, to send me to college and then to flight school. Surely she wanted more out of life than a clean house. Look what you’ve done, Miri.

  I want to cry in her arms and be held. I want her to promise me that I will be safe no matter what my name is. But of course I don’t, and she can’t.

  “This is just a means to an end. It won’t last forever.” I don’t tell her the whole truth, which is that I don’t even know what I believe anymore. I am caught in the shadow of two worlds, feeling cold and uncertain.

  “Some choices are irrevocable,” Mama says.

  I DON’T FULLY APPRECIATE THE WEIGHT OF HER STATEMENT UNTIL after she’s gone back home and the envelopes, scrawled with my own handwriting across the front, start to arrive one by one—unopened and marked “Return to sender.” It must be Uncle Hyman’s idea to cut me off, I decide, which makes me more determined. Every Wednesday, I send out another letter like a heartbeat, letting her know I’m still alive. I imagine Rita prying open the mailbox and the thrill of seeing her own name, so I address one to Margarita Glazier. Inside, I write that I love her, and I can’t wait for her to live with me, and for two, whole glorious months the letter doesn’t come back, but then a box arrives from Pittsburgh. In it I find my beloved Patsy doll, every card I’ve ever made for Mama, the letters I sent to Sarah from flight school, and the last eight weeks’ worth of correspondence. The letter I wrote to Rita is right at the top of the stack, still sealed.

  I WAIT UNTIL JUNE OF THE FOLLOWING YEAR, 1946, TO TAKE THE train back to Pittsburgh. Sol offers to go with me for moral support, but I need to go alone, to make Mama forgive me and to claim Sarah’s little girl for my own.

  Walking from the trolley on Forbes to Murray Avenue, I pass the candy store, and the butcher, and the five-and-dime, noticing glances and smiles along the way from the shopkeepers and pedestrians, anyone who likes the sight of a young pregnant woman in a sundress. I smile back as if I’m still wearing the uniform, hoping that motherhood is what I’ve been missing and not just the sky.

  My last flight took place a year and a half ago on a sunny day in Houston. (How often is life like that, where it’s only after you look back that you realize it’s over—that no matter how many times you walk outside on a clear day and think, Today is a good day to fly, you’ve already taken that final flight?) I round the corner of Beacon Street where boys are playing stickball and swinging their yo-yos and mothers are walking their baby carriages, and girls are playing hopscotch and then I huff and puff up the hill toward the narrow, falling-down, three-story colonial that, in my mind, is still home.

  After unlatching the metal gate, I make my way down the sidewalk to the front porch, when a harried blond woman sees me
and gasps.

  “Miriam?” she asks, stricken, as she lays a hand over her heart.

  “Mrs. Byrd?” I ask, equally startled. Have I wandered into the wrong yard?

  “You’re . . .” she trails off, speechless, looking me up and down.

  My hands fly up to my pregnant belly. “Almost six months along—I’m married now,” I quickly add. “We just had our year anniversary in May.” It occurs to me that is the longest conversation I’ve had with my former next-door neighbor.

  “Congratulations,” she sounds out slowly. When she nods, her hair swishes back and forth. “I was just leaving some ginger bread for your mother,” Mrs. Byrd adds hastily, as if I’ve just caught her leaving some Christian literature wedged in the screen door. “Is this a surprise?” she says, finishing her descent down the front porch steps.

  “A—surprise?” I ask, with a glance at my belly, before I realize she’s talking about my visit. “A bit of one, yes.” On both accounts.

  “Well, it’s wonderful to see you looking so—well!” She rushes past me, down the walk. “Tell Rina I’ll stop by another time. I didn’t want to wake her up.”

  Since when is my mother “Rina”? I wonder, glancing at my watch. And it’s ten in the morning.

  Inside, the house is shockingly quiet, save for a multitude of clocks measuring out their discordant ticks as I step from room to room. “Hello? Anyone home? Mama?” Still clutching Mrs. Byrd’s ginger bread, I make my way up the stairs to Mama’s room thinking, She’s sick, she’s dying, she never got my letters—it was Hyman who sent them back. Except that inside her room, the bed is empty and neatly made, and her night table is free of medicines; there’s only a deck of cards for playing solitaire. Fanning myself in the stuffy air, I move across the hall and push open the door, as thoughts of Sarah come flooding back. “This was our room,” I whisper to the baby inside me. It’s still set up for a girl: the pink carpet, Sarah’s Patsy doll on one of the bedspreads, the paintings of rainbows and horses. I think of our nighttime whispers in the dark, during the air raids, and the secrets we exchanged and kept. I consider leaving the journal and stuffed bear I’ve brought for Rita on one of the beds, until the sound of footsteps overhead startles me into leaving.

  I head back to the hallway, just as Mama comes down the attic steps. Even in her housecoat, I can see that she’s thinner than the last time I saw her. She stops short when she sees me. “Miriam?” she asks, unmistakable horror in her voice. “Did anyone see you?” It’s only then that I understand why Mrs. Byrd was so shocked: she must’ve been told I was dead.

  “No one except Mrs. Byrd,” I say, holding up the ginger bread. “She seemed to think you’d be sleeping.”

  “Sleeping, ha! I don’t have time to sleep.”

  “Where’s Rita?” I ask, and then—thinking she’s going to hit me with the broom in her hand—flinch as Mama moves toward me.

  “That’s none of your business now, is it?” she says, hurrying past.

  “I brought her something—I’d like to give it to her,” I say.

  “She’s at day camp,” she says, over her shoulder, taking the second flight of steps, and I rush to keep up. “Keep your treats, Miri. And you need to leave before anyone gets home,” she says.

  “Mama, look at me, please. This is your grandchild I’m carrying,” I plead, breathless, and she stops on the landing and finally turns to meet my eyes.

  “You don’t exist to me anymore. That baby does not exist to me,” she says, jerking her head toward my belly, and never have I heard her so cold.

  “But Sol says as soon as he graduates, we can move to Wakefield and raise her Jewish—”

  “You joined a church, Miriam. A church!” Mama says in a scary hiss. “You made your choice. Don’t call. Don’t write. Don’t confuse Rita. Leave her alone, Miri—leave us alone.”

  EVEN WHEN I GO, WEEPING INTO MY HANDS, I DON’T REALLY believe it’s over. But three months later, when the baby I’ve carried for nine months emerges lifeless and blue, with a cord wrapped around its beautiful neck, I think of my mother’s words and give up. I made my choice, and these are the consequences. My baby doesn’t exist, and Sarah’s daughter will never be mine.

  For a long time, I don’t exist to me, either.

  CHAPTER 24

  Miri, Found

  It was amazing how quickly the transformation had occurred: in one moment I’d walked in, fully dressed, to the preoperative holding area and less than a half an hour later, I’d been stripped—my Mary Janes replaced by socks with treads, my clothes by a checkered gown, and my dignity tucked into a plastic bag and placed somewhere out of reach. Thank heavens I possessed my own teeth. Climbing aboard the gurney as if it were a rowboat being cast out to sea, I felt different suddenly, lost and uncertain. I was a patient now.

  “Retired?” asked a young woman, after confirming my insurance information for her computerized records.

  “Retired pilot,” I said pointedly, mostly just to get her to look up. It worked. Her typing fingers paused, and her rosy face finally met my own for the first time since she’d scooted over to my gurney on her rolling stool.

  “No kidding! How cool!” she said, with a genuine smile before quickly reassuring me that it would be just a few more questions, and then she could let my friends and family back to wait with me.

  Friends and family, I thought with a sigh, as I rearranged my blankets over my legs. I’d been trying not to fret about Elyse’s silence since her return from Key West the Monday before and trying not to think the worst when she’d skipped last week's meeting of the writers’ group. I even felt foolish for packing her a gift, simply because, weeks ago, she’d promised to be here. Surely, between her parents’ divorce and her mother’s shaky career, the girl had more important things to worry about than me.

  At last, the young woman finished typing my demographic information into the computer, at which point a nurse popped her head in to ask for my preoperative paperwork to pass on to the anesthesiologist. As I handed over the forms, I couldn’t help thinking of my uncomfortable conversation with Gene Rosskemp the night before, when I’d asked if he would be willing to act as my medical power of attorney.

  “That’s what you’ve got Dave for,” Gene reminded me, and, with great reluctance, I admitted that Dave couldn’t be my power of attorney, because he had actually stopped speaking to me over a slight miscommunication.

  “Who is Hannah Bergman?” Dave had asked me during our final conversation. He was calling with news from Seattle: Baby Tyler had cut two teeth and was just learning to walk, Carrie was almost finished her first year of teaching, and Dave had just gotten a job with a start-up company doing computer software.

  “I don’t know. You tell me,” I’d said, as if it were a game. “Who is Hannah Bergman?”

  “Some lady who wrote me a letter. She says she’s Dad’s sister.” I had inhaled sharply, as if stabbed in the gut, when he added, “Her maiden name was Rubinowicz.”

  “I have no idea,” I said, my voice off-key.

  “She wrote a bunch of stories about Dad that sounded legit—stuff he told me about growing up in Texas, and his father’s mango tree in the backyard. She knew he hadn’t gotten into medical school three times . . .”

  I’d clutched the phone harder, as if it might steady me.

  “She says Dad’s name wasn’t Thomas. She says it was Solomon, and that he changed it to hide his religion. Is this true, Mom?” Dave had asked, and for a moment, I just stood there swaying, my heart rattling inside my rib cage. “Am I really Jewish? Is that my last name?” Dave added.

  “Your last name is Browning. Check your birth certificate,” I’d said sharply, my teacher-self returning.

  “What about the ‘secret love language’?” he asked after a moment. “What was that really?”

  I should tell him it was Yiddish, I thought. “I told you. Just something Dad and I made up,” I heard myself say.

  “An entire language.” Dave’s voice was
grim.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why won’t you tell me the truth?” he’d shouted, startling me. My son was never a shouter.

  “The past has nothing to do with you,” I said.

  “How can you say that? I’m your son! Your history is my history!”

  I told him I wouldn’t be spoken to that way, that I was deserving of his respect, and that if he continued to yell—

  “I want to know who I am!” he’d shouted again, and with hands trembling, I hung up the phone. After three weeks of silence, before I could apologize, before I could tell him why we told the lie that became our lives, Dave and Carrie and Tyler were gone.

  Remembering this now, alone in the preoperative holding area, made my throat clench and my eyes blurry. How could I have explained? We abandoned the past for the sake of our dreams, which included Dave’s limitless future, unmarred by hate. But that didn’t change the fact of my cowardice.

  “Mrs. Browning?” asked an uncertain voice from somewhere behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see none other than Elyse herself, peeking from behind the curtain that surrounded my bed. I sat up straighter, wiped the corner of my eye, and managed a watery smile.

  “How are you, my dear?” I said, reaching out a hand to her. I could hear the flush of delight in my own voice.

  Elyse answered with a shrug. “Better than you, I guess, right?”

  But she didn’t look better than me. There were circles under her eyes, and her shoulders were hunched again. Perhaps she was cold, I decided, in her thin jersey shirt and jeans, so I offered the present I’d brought along specifically to give her—my leather flight jacket. I pointed to a plastic bag on the lower metal rungs of the bed. “Go ahead. I brought it for you,” I said. I watched her mouth gape a little, when she realized what it was, and then I smiled as she slipped it on. “Check the pocket,” I remembered, and she pulled out the Dictaphone and snapped it open.

  “No tapes?”

  “Oh dear. I must’ve forgotten them. But here, let me see you,” I added, and she stood up straighter, the jacket transforming her hunched posture into a straight-backed, self-assured pilot. She could’ve been a fly girl, right then. She could’ve even been me. “It’s perfect. You keep it.”