Coast to Coast (4 page)

He pushed his chair back from the table and knelt on the floor. He began laying out the maps, spreading them with his long hands, shifting them until the red line stretched from the kitchen table to the door of the dining room, across eight maps.

“We only use the tip of this map … Tucson … Blythe—that’s where we’d cross into California …”

Birch could see the vision in his eyes. She dropped onto her knees beside him. “Pop!”

“We hadn’t decided for sure where we’d cross the San Gabriel Mountains … probably along about here—”

“Pop!” Birch glanced in the direction of the dining room and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

His jaw set like concrete. “I’m not thinking about anything but where me and Dwane were going to cross the San Gabriels.”

“Yes, you are too. You’re thinking about flying to California—probably tomorrow.”

“I am not,” he said, childlike.

“You are too!”

“Well, maybe the thought flitted into my mind. When you get my age, you don’t think sensibly all the time. But there’s no way I can do it.”

“Why?”

“For one thing, I sold the airplane.”

“You didn’t get the money.”

“Birch, I want to look at these maps in peace. I don’t want to look at tools and books and I don’t want to listen to your foolishness. All right?”

“I will disappear into the living room.”

“Don’t you go in there and tell your mom I’m going to the Pacific Ocean. She’s making my life miserable enough as it is.”

“I’m not going to tell her anything. She makes me miserable sometimes too. But, Pop, before I go, can I say one thing?”

“What?”

She swallowed. “I came across a box of Granny’s poems today. And so—so ever since then I’ve been thinking about poetry, and life, and all. And …”

She paused. He waited.

“And a lot of times I don’t understand poetry.”

Still he waited.

“There are even courses that help you to understand poetry, which I haven’t taken yet.”

A slight frown of puzzlement creased his brow.

“But I just thought of this one poem and I do understand it. It’s by Emily Dickinson.”

She held one hand over her heart. She swallowed. “I gave a report on her in Poetry Club. That’s how I know this poem.

“We never know how high we are

Till we are called to rise;

And then, if we are true to plan,

Our statures touch the skies.”

She watched for his reaction. When there was none, she stepped forward. “Don’t you get it?”

He sat bewildered in his sea of maps. He shook his head.

“Pop, this is what it means. It means that we—you and me—
we
are called to rise. It means that our statures—yours and mine—
our
statures are going to touch the skies. It means, Pop, that you are going to California and I am going with you!”

B
IRCH SAT IN THE
bathroom, on the edge of the bathtub. She stared at the air in front of her. The box of poems lay on her lap.

Her grandfather’s house was quiet but the kitchen light was still on. Its reflected glow lit up the bathroom window. An occasional moth fluttered against the screen.

After the excitement of thinking she and Pop were on their way to California had come the letdown, that final, “That’s enough! And hush about it!”

She felt now that going to California would have been her salvation. She could have looked at whatever it was from a comfortable distance, the way she had looked down at the earth that afternoon.

Now all she had were these poems. She opened the box and lifted one of the sheets of paper. At the top of the page, the thin spidery handwriting read “For Earl.”

If I could have written

My poems in the sky—

White on blue

Letter by letter

Would you have looked up

And liked them better?

Birch let the poem fall back into the box, as if it were heavy. She closed the lid. Slowly she worked the ribbon back into place.

She had not read the birth poem since morning. It was still on the bottom of the pile. But its powerful effect lingered, giving her the feeling that it marked the end of something—her carefree girlhood, perhaps.

She repeated the poem to herself, moving her lips as she remembered the words.

The baby took one fluttering gasp

Two …

Three …

Each softer than the last.

Four …

One more …

Passed. All past.

The last line echoed in her brain.

Suddenly the bathroom door opened.

“Birch, what are you doing sitting there in the dark?”

“Mom! I’m not in the dark. I can see from the window.”

“Are you still poring over those poems?”

“No! Well, yes, I can’t seem to stop. I want to, Mom, because they’re sad, a lot of them, but I get back in bed and I keep thinking about them.”

“Those poems …” Her mother paused.

“Birch, those poems were your grandmother’s thoughts. You’re looking at her thoughts. That was how she expressed herself. And in the course of her life, she had sad thoughts like everybody else. I’ve had about a hundred and fifty sad thoughts in the past week, if you want to know the truth, only I didn’t write them down on a piece of paper for my grandchildren to worry over. Now come back to bed.”

“Just let me—”

“Come—to—bed.”

Birch followed her back to the bedroom they were sharing. This had been her mother’s room when she was a girl. Birch lay down in the twin bed. She gave the top sheet a shake. The sheet billowed and then settled lightly on her tense body.

Thoughts rolled around and around in Birch’s mind. Sleep was impossible. She wanted to fly out of this bed and away from her thoughts. And Pop could help her do that … Only he wouldn’t.

She turned over so roughly that the bed springs rattled.

It had been especially painful to watch Pop folding up his maps after supper, putting them back in the box, lowering the lid as if it were the lid on his own coffin. And hers!

She threw back the sheet and came up on one elbow. She slung her feet over the side of the bed and, watching her mother in the opposite twin bed, felt for her sandals. Her mother did not move, and Birch slid her feet into her shoes and quietly crossed the room.

She was at the door when her mother lifted her head. “Birch, where are you going now?”

“Nowhere, Mom, just downstairs for a minute. I’ve got to tell Pop something.”

“Dad’s asleep.”

“No, he isn’t. The kitchen light’s still on.”

Her mother clicked on the bedside lamp and looked at her watch. “Birch, it’s twelve-fifteen. I have got to get some sleep. The garage sale is in the morning, and people are going to start coming at dawn. Get back in bed.”

“I have to tell Pop something, Mom. It’s important. I’ll be right back.”

“Birch—”

“Mom, I have to!”

“Then tell him whatever you’ve got to tell him and come back to bed.” Her mom snapped off the light with such force that the lamp rocked in place.

“Thanks.”

Birch ran down the long staircase. The pictures had been removed from the wall, and the pale rectangles where they had hung gave the stairway a ghostly look.

She pushed open the kitchen door. “Pop?”

He didn’t hear her. He was dialing the telephone, then waiting for an answer. Ace lay under the table, at Pop’s feet. Ace lifted his head and yawned. When he saw it was Birch, he dropped his head back between Pop’s shoes.

Birch watched Pop from the doorway. He didn’t look pitiful now. He adjusted the notepad in front of him and wagged a pencil impatiently between his fingers.

Birch gave him a curious look. Silently she let the door close behind her.

Her grandfather spoke into the phone. “This is Piper three oh three six two. I’m departing John’s Island at thirteen hundred zulu, going to Atlanta VFR at low altitude.”

There was a silence as he listened. He copied some numbers on the notepad. Then he said, “Terminal forecast for Atlanta and Birmingham?”

More numbers.

“Do you anticipate any early morning ground fog?” He listened, then asked, “Winds, surface and at three thousand?”

He wrote more numbers down. “Thank you,” he said. “Piper three oh three six two.”

As he hung up the phone, Birch said, “Who were you talking to?”

Her grandfather jumped as if he had been shot. “What are you doing up? I thought you went to bed.”

“I did, but I came downstairs. I wanted to try one more time to talk you into going to California, but I guess I don’t need to do any persuading. Who were you talking to on the phone?”

“That’s not any of your business.”

“I think it is.”

“Birch, go to bed.” A frown grew on his face. “And don’t wake up your mother. I have had all of her and her garage sale I can take.”

“You were talking to flight service about weather, weren’t you?”

He glared at the table.

“I know you were because I’ve heard you talk to them before. And I know why you were talking to them. Because you’re getting ready to take off for the coast, aren’t you?” With two steps she closed the distance between them.

“I was talking to flight service,” he said in a reasonable voice, “because I intend to fly locally tomorrow.”

“Huh! It didn’t sound local to me—Atlanta—Birmingham. I wouldn’t call those local.”

She slipped into the chair across from him. He avoided her eyes by putting one freckled hand to his forehead.

“You really are going, aren’t you, Pop?”

He leaned back in his chair. He shifted his notepad on the table.

“Answer me.”

“I’m going to try it,” he admitted.

“Take me.”

“Birch, you’ve just flown in the J-3 for twenty or thirty minutes. It’ll be at least thirty hours of flying to’ the coast, maybe forty, and a lot of waiting around airports—I may be sleeping on the ground.”

“I can sleep on the ground. I did it at camp.”

“It’s going to be noisy. The J-3—”

“Noise doesn’t bother me at all. I’ve been to rock concerts.”

“And uncomfortable—the air was smooth today—it’s not always going to be like that.”

She had her answer ready. “I like uncomfortable air.”

“And the main reason, Birch, is that your mother would never forgive me.”

“She would.”

He shook his head. “She’s not going to like it that I’m going, but if I took you—no, she would never forgive me. Closing up the house has made her … irrational.”

“I could explain it to her later. I could make her understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand.”

“Yes, there is. Pop, I’m not going to be able to explain this to you because all my life, I’ve had a hard time explaining things. But I am telling you that I have to go.

“Now I know you are going to say what adults always say, ‘Oh, no, Birch, be reasonable, Birch, you don’t
have
to do anything, Birch.’ But I do have to do this. I have to, Pop. Just for once in my life, treat me like a person and believe what I’m saying.”

Her grandfather looked out the window where the kitchen light lit up the azaleas.

Birch stretched out her hands, reaching for his. “Please, Pop.”

He turned his notepad in a slow circle.

“Birch,” he said, “what good sense I’ve got tells me not to do this. No matter what arguments you give me, no matter how many times you say you have to—my good sense tells me no.”

“Pop!”

“But …”

She waited.

He looked up and studied her face. His eyes were bright blue. She felt as if she were seeing him when he was seventeen years old, looking up at the sky at that yellow airplane pulling a Freedom banner only he could see.

She drew in a breath. She felt as if the whole world was holding its breath along with her.

“But,” he went on, “if everybody in this country had used good sense, we wouldn’t even have a country to fly across, would we?”

She shook her head.

“So. If you need to go as bad as you say you do, I’ll take you.”

Birch flung herself across the table and hugged him. The zeal of her kiss knocked off his Pearle Vision aviator glasses.

B
IRCH OPENED HER EYES.

Bright sunlight came through the Venetian blinds, making stripes on the bedspread. She stretched, yawned, then stiffened as she heard the sounds of the sale in the yard below.

She threw back the cover and sat up.

Birch had spent the night wide-eyed with excitement. Her grandfather’s last words, “Soon as you get up, pack your backpack—your mom’ll be suspicious if you take a suitcase—just pack a few things and slip it in the truck.”

“I will.”

“It’s not going to make any difference what you and me have on.”

“I’ll just take a toothbrush if you tell me to.”

“We’ll have room for more than a toothbrush. Now go on upstairs and get some sleep.”

“I’ll try.” She had slipped upstairs noiselessly and into her twin bed. “Did you tell Pop?” her mom asked, half asleep.

“What?”

Her mom raised up on one elbow. “I don’t know! Whatever you went downstairs to tell him!”

“Oh, yes, that. Good night, Mom.”

“Good night!”

Birch had stared up at the ceiling. She knew sleep was impossible. She wasn’t even going to try to sleep. She would just lie here and think of flying away, of leaving the world behind.

Then, when the darkness began to thin, Birch had fallen into such a deep sleep that she had not even heard her mother get up.

In one movement she jumped out of bed and reached for her clothes.

She knew Pop was up. Pop was an early riser. He was probably downstairs, waiting impatiently, and he hated to wait. Maybe he was already in the truck.

Hopping toward the door, she pulled on her shorts. Her thoughts darkened.

Maybe Pop had gotten tired of waiting. Maybe he had left for the airport. Maybe he was at this moment taxiing toward runway nine, revving up the engine, turning onto the runway, opening the throttle—