by Amy Seek
* * *
We claim rooms and settle our suitcases into them. The family room is gigantic, with couches, a fireplace, and a big telescope stationed in the corner, and each of the second-floor bedrooms has windows overlooking it. There are speakers in each room, an intercom system Jonathan, Sarah, and Andrew experiment with excitedly as they run up and down the spiral staircase, slamming doors and yelling at one another across the living room void.
In the morning, we get up early and have breakfast outside on the terrace. My father asks Jonathan if he has any questions in preparation for his flight. I can see how excited my dad is, but the kids are just excited about being in a new place, with a big yard, and trout ponds, and a creek. It is easy to see how much he’s suffering just from the exertion of getting up and smiling and speaking.
I should be grateful we are all assembled here, my mother and father, Paula and Erik and the three kids. But little things frustrate me: that my father can’t speak loud enough to be heard, that everyone doesn’t notice his struggle and so he settles into silence. That Paula and Erik are exhausted from the trip. That my mother is preoccupied with cooking and making sure people are fed instead of sitting down and talking. That my son is too afraid of river monsters to walk the creek the way I used to. That my sister isn’t there because of her four kids and that they are always the excuse for everything. That my brother was supposed to be on his way hours ago and probably won’t arrive until nightfall. That when he does finally arrive, he regrets not coming sooner, and he says that the bedroom windows overlooking the living room are the perfect launch site for a paper airplane contest, and I’ll forever mourn the paper airplane contest we’ll never have. That, remembering the astonishing moment I first saw the landscape of the moon through a telescope, I take the telescope outside with my son and find that the moon has already slipped behind the tall mountains that surround us.
As always, I am the only one who knows how precious this moment is. I am scrambling, an invisible facilitator, trying to connect my son directly to my father, erasing the mistake of me, the mistake of giving up my son. I am drawing everyone together to try to make them stick. And I should feel something restored, that my father and mother, though they don’t say anything, are demonstrating it isn’t over for them any more than it is over for me. Unmitigated disaster, averted. No, the unmitigated disaster is ongoing.
Everyone says that the weekend is turning out to be perfect, and that infuriates me. I am mourning all we’ve already lost and the inevitable disappearance of everything else. We pile into the cars and drive to the glider field. Big Lick is tangled among the other planes, and it’s a geometry exercise my dad didn’t anticipate to get it out of the hangar without damaging it. Kids run around, exhausting him, and people aren’t listening to him, or can’t hear him, as he directs them to lift that wing, or roll that plane back. Paula and my mother chat carelessly in the corner. I worry we won’t get to fly. I’m mad that I’m the only one worried. But finally, we get the plane out, and our day of flying begins.
* * *
My dad kneels beside the body of the plane, genuflecting to physics, leaning in to speak to my son. I’ve helped Jonathan strap in, all five belts latched into the circular buckle.
“On takeoff, I won’t be talking, I’ll be real quiet,” he says to Jonathan. “I’m going to be totally focused on flying the plane. After we get up, we can chat a little bit.”
Jonathan takes the controls and pushes them left. “That’s going to make you turn left,” my dad says. “What would you do if you wanted to go straight?” Jonathan slowly releases the stick back to center.
“Yeah. That’s it. That’s exactly it.” He turns to me. “You’ve got a smart kid here.” I think he thinks he may finally have a taker.
“What is all this?” my son asks.
“What is everything, okay. This is the dive brake. Pull that out, that gets you to go down faster. We’ll use that during landing. This knob releases us from the towplane. This green knob, you don’t need to worry about that, that’s—that’s called a trim.”
My son points to a dial.
“That’s a thousand feet. We’ll probably go up to almost three.”
“Is this the speed?” my son asks.
“That’s the speed. Sixty knots, eighty knots. Hundred knots is one hundred fifteen miles an hour. We won’t go that fast. Not intentionally, anyway. These two tell you how fast you’re going up and down. Like when it says four, means you’re going up four hundred feet a minute.”
My dad has developed the slow speaking rhythms I remember in my grandmother. The infinite patience and gravity of a storyteller. Every word a stone that sinks deep and certain to the bottom of the riverbed.
Neither one of them talks. The towplane is positioning itself; other pilots are making preparations around them. The other pilots refer to my son as my son and assume Erik is my husband. But then they realize he’s Paula’s son. They assume Paula is my sister. What is certain is that Jonathan is my father’s grandson, because my father has referred to him that way. Probably as much for expedience as anything.
My dad and my son wait. At the end of a period of silence, he asks whether Jonathan has any other questions. It seems he doesn’t, except it seems he should.
“Is this—?”
“—That’s an air vent … That’s closed, and that’s open.”
“Do I want it closed or open?”
“You want it open.”
Some things my dad didn’t explain because they have certain, stable answers.
Jonathan notices that there are pedals in the front, but not in the back.
“—Oh, I’ll work the pedals. What I’ll do, I’ll use them to try to keep the yaw string straight. You don’t need to—you can fly anywhere you want to just with the stick.” Some things it seemed my father just couldn’t explain.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, that’s a compass, and I’m not sure what that does; I don’t think it’s anything important.”
My son looks at me, smiling. My dad has so little energy, I’m glad Jonathan can detect levity in him. I’m glad there is still levity left in my father. He’s never felt any obligation to admit he was kidding.
And who taught my son what a compass is? When? That he knows it so well he can know it would be a joke not to know what a compass is.
“… Do I have a parachute?”
“No. No, we don’t fly with parachutes.”
My son looks at me again, to see if he should smile. That was not entirely a joke, I think, but I’ll never know.
“Oh, you’ll need to help me look out for aircraft.” My dad remembers an important part of copiloting. My son points his arm forward and says, “Twelve o’clock, one o’clock, two o’clock,” as he rotates it clockwise. This is how he will indicate the location of the other aircraft. We went over this at breakfast, but my son had already learned it, maybe from Paula’s father, who was a commercial pilot.
“Six would be right behind you. Straight back. You won’t see anything at six.”
My dad taught me to tell time, using a clock by the side of his bed whose entire face glowed pale peach. It seemed to me deeply illogical that for one hand, you take the clock at face value, but for the other hand, just because it’s longer, you multiply the values it points to by five. And then you put them together or reverse them in a whole variety of acceptable ways. I remember my father’s frustration and my own, and I try to imagine the knowledge of the face of the clock still rather new for my son.
“You’ll be able to see from nine o’clock to three o clock,” I offer.
My dad cups his head in his hands.
“Dad, you feeling all right?”
“—Oh yeah. I’m just resting.”
My knowledge about my dad’s condition is like my knowledge of God. I know that my dad is dying, but I don’t know what to do about it.
“—What if they’re below us, then what do I say?”
My son is no
t bothered by my dad’s weakness. He’s always looking for the exception that makes the system fail. The single structural weakness that will make the entire bridge collapse.
A plane comes in for a landing and my dad takes advantage of the interruption to get up and inspect the canopy. The towplanes are always zipping around against the grain, to pick up gliders that are ready to go. I push a hat through Jonathan’s little window as my dad lowers himself in and fastens his straps. I ask whether he’s had enough to drink. He says he has a drink somewhere. He’s not supposed to be drinking Gatorade; too much potassium and too many carcinogenic dyes, but his doctors say he can have whatever he wants now. I hand him the Gatorade that’s sitting to the side of the plane. He breathes deliberately, audibly. Like someone who’s getting ready to lift a heavy weight.
“All right, Andrew, I won’t talk—”
“Jonathan!” I say.
“I won’t talk much until after takeoff.” My dad is already too focused on flight to correct himself, but I want to make sure he knows who his passenger is.
* * *
Soon, I’d be struggling to understand the meaning of my father, the way I’ve always tried to make sense of my son. I’d be drawn to him like a lover, compelled to press my hand against his heart, feel my own rhythms moved by the power of its beat; it pounded hard, like he was determined to stay. Like I’d so often studied my son, I’d read the slightest shift in his eyebrows, to say he wanted something he didn’t have the energy to ask for. I’d massage his neck for hours, a feast of forgetting myself. I’d want to touch the cold stillness creeping up on him, starting at his toes, and I’d pursue togetherness, perpetually receding into the cool, vast mystery of a separate body. We’d sit at his bedside, sending happy things afloat in his imagination; our beloved stories against the groundlessness of night. I would see him sorry to leave, death imparting no special wisdom to make it easier to let go. I’d press my hand to his heart until its last beat, and, still, the weight of his ashes would feel like a lover’s touch, resonant with potential. And I’d find my heart doing leaps and bounds as it tried to make sense of an overwhelming new affection for him—butterflies for my dead father.
It shouldn’t surprise me that my heart malfunctions in these ways, with everything I’ve done to test it.
* * *
The towplane pulls up. One of the other pilots, Ron, runs to grab the rope. Over the noise of the propeller, I hear my dad saying his prayers: “straps tight, controls free and clear.” He has his head in both hands. I walk to the wing and hear Ron say, “Perfect day!” as he approaches the canopy with the towrope. “Good as it gets,” my dad says, and smiles up at him. Ron makes a fist to tell my dad he has the towrope in place. “We lucked out,” my dad says. “It’s not luck,” Ron says as he lowers the canopy, and my father sends both red latches forward. My dad and my son, my furthest extents, strapped tightly together in the tiny glass canopy, closed and locked.
My dad has shown me how to run the wing. I’ve done it many times, since I was little. Sweeping my arm in small arcs till the slack of the towrope is out, and then, when he gives the thumbs-up, in full circles. The towrope pulls taut, and I run alongside the plane, holding the wing level as the rubber wheels squeak and bound across the field. I’m running to keep the wing steady, running to weigh it down. I’m still running as it leaves my hands.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a true story, though some names and details have been changed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have many people to thank. My sister, for her patient rereadings. Paula Crossfield, for her relentlessness in reminding me to write this story. The many friends who alternately supported me and forgave my absence, most of all Miya, Tatiana, Heather, and David. My editors, Courtney Hodell and Alex Star. My physical therapist, Stephen Rodriguez, for making running and writing almost painless. My son’s family, who are always, everywhere, doing immeasurably more than the least they could do. And everyone represented here, for being a part of this story.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amy Seek is a landscape architect. She lives in London and New York. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 0
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2015 by Amy Seek
All rights reserved
First edition, 2015
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seek, Amy, 1977–
God and Jetfire: confessions of a birth mother / Amy Seek. — 1st Edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-374-16445-4 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-374-71382-9 (e-book)
1. Open adoption. 2. Motherhood. 3. Families. I. Title.
HV875 .S375 2015
306.874—dc23
[B]
2014044643
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