Flight (22 page)

“I love horses!” Trevor cries, a spontaneous burst of enthusiasm. His shriek is immediately lost in the barn’s emptiness.

“This room is where we brought the hay in for them to eat,” she says, leading him into the large tractor room. Above them, the
hayloft windows let in a fraction of the day’s white light. The air seems to be filled, even now, with tiny motes, particles of hay perhaps, so that everything looks slightly out of focus.

“We can go up in the hayloft!” Trevor breathes.

“I don’t know if we should do that,” Leanne says. “It’s dirty up there, and it’s dangerous for little kids. You might fall down.”

“I won’t fall down. I’ll be very
very
careful.” He is almost whispering, as if telling her a secret. Leanne eyes the hayloft ladder. It’s not a ladder, really, just thick planks nailed to the wall, entering the loft through a small square cut in the floor. Going up it was always scary—you emerged into the hayloft and reached your foot over from the plank ladder to the hayloft floor—but going down was worse. Then you had to reach one foot out over the square hole in the floor and let it fall onto the plank. For one dizzying moment, you were stepping onto nothing.

The first time Leanne went up to the hayloft, she refused to come down. She remembers seeing the hole in the floor and knowing there was no way she was going to take that step. The ground was so far down she couldn’t even see it. Her cousin Eddie was there, and he and Margaret made fun of her, but she wouldn’t budge. She was going to stay in that hayloft forever. Eventually, Eddie’s stepfather, Uncle Rem, came up and got her, hefting her over his shoulder like a sack of wheat.

“That ladder is difficult,” she says. “It’s really only for grown-ups.” Trevor looks up at her and his face is filled with disappointment.

“There’s nothing up there to see,” she tells him.

“I really,
really
want to see the hayloft,” he says, pressing his lips together and squinting at her as if he’s sorry to have to break it to her. Leanne almost laughs.

“Oh, all right,” she says. “But you’ll see, it’s scary.” It will serve him right if he gets just as terrified as she did.

She follows him over to the ladder and gets him started on the first rung, which is high off the ground. His stubby arms and legs begin climbing so quickly that she has to hurry and get on herself so
she can stay right behind him.
This is really stupid,
she tells herself. What if Trevor falls and breaks his arm? Margaret would be furious.

“Be careful, Trevor,” she says.

He slows down when he reaches hayloft level. The ladder keeps on going; there’s another level above this one, stretching toward the other end of the barn, but Leanne doesn’t tell him that.

“Stop there,” she says, and then she climbs up so she’s right behind him, her feet on either side of his on the same rung. “Take my hand,” she says, and he does. He holds her hand and reaches a leg for the hayloft floor. It’s just barely long enough to reach. With one leg on the floor and one leg on the ladder rung, he starts to feel scared—she can feel his body tighten and his motions grow jerky.

“Wait, wait,” he starts to say, but she lets go of his hand and pushes his butt to shove him into the hayloft. She pushes a little too hard, and he stumbles forward onto his hands and knees. Quickly, she steps over to the hayloft floor herself.

“There, look at you!” she says, before he can get upset. “You’re in the hayloft now!”

Trevor stands up and looks around, satisfied. “Wow,” he breathes. He heads for the edge.

“Don’t go anywhere near that edge,” Leanne says, surprised at the command in her tone.

Trevor freezes and looks back at her. “Please take me over there so I can see over the edge?” he asks.

That’s Margaret’s training,
Leanne thinks, and for once she’s grateful for her sister’s bossiness. “Sure,” she says, catching up to him. “Here, hold my hand.”

They walk to about two feet from the edge and look over. A few farm implements are parked below; she recognizes a disk tiller. Farther over, there’s a red canoe hanging between two of the barn’s rough-hewn posts and a small sailboat under a tarp. There was a short period when Carol decided the girls should learn to sail, but all the lakes in the area are small and don’t get much wind, so they quickly lost interest.

“We’re up high,” Trevor says.

“Pretty high,” Leanne answers.

“But buildings are higher.”

“Yes.”

“Chicago has the Sears Tower,” Trevor says. “That’s one of the tallest buildings in the world.”

“That’s right,” Leanne tells him. “They built that when I was a baby.”

“New York had the Twin Towers,” Trevor says. “But some airplanes came and knocked them down.”

Leanne looks down at him. “That’s right,” she says. “That was very sad.” It feels insufficient. Suddenly, she wants to cry. How would it be for a four-year-old to know such awful things about the world? Leanne has never before considered what an exercise in uncertainty being a mother must be. It must be hard for Margaret.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Trevor says.

Leanne laughs. “Okay,” she tells him. “Come on. I’ll put you on the ladder.”

Trevor is surprisingly calm about going back down. Leanne gets on the ladder first, then reaches out to take his hand, and he steps easily over and starts right down. He must really have to go.

On their way out, she notices that the tack-room door has swung open again. She’s about to shut it when she sees a sweatshirt lying on the floor inside. It’s the one her father was wearing earlier; he must have taken it off out here and forgotten it. When she picks it up, an envelope falls out of the pocket. Leaning over to retrieve it, she sees the return address: Cathay Pacific Airways.

He must have bought some tickets. A surprise for her mother perhaps, to celebrate his retirement. The thrill of being in on a happy secret flickers through her. She turns the envelope over. It’s open.

She’s surprised to see that the contents are pages and not tickets. Before it occurs to her that she shouldn’t be reading it, her eyes have flicked over the first paragraph.

We are pleased to offer you the position of first officer at Cathay Pacific Airways. Please call Jim Chan in our New York office to discuss the details of your assignment …

No one expects her father even to consider flying past retirement. They all expect him to retire and settle in on the farm, as he has always said he couldn’t wait to do. And Cathay Pacific. Is he planning to move to Asia? Obviously, her mother doesn’t know anything about it.

Leanne’s heart pounds. She never should have looked. Quickly, she stuffs the letter back in the envelope and the envelope back in the sweatshirt. Her hands shake slightly. She rolls the sweatshirt up in a ball and puts it under her arm.

“Okay, let’s go,” she says to Trevor, who is pacing back and forth like a tiny basketball coach. He follows her eagerly. When she opens the barn door, she sees that the hard rain has started again. She holds the crumpled-up sweatshirt over her head for protection, then reaches for Trevor’s hand.

“Come on, run!”

THE FRIDGE IS TOO FULL. CAROL REARRANGES A FEW jars, but there’s really no hope. She won’t be able to squeeze in any of the things Will is bringing home. She’s going to need the bottom shelf, which is currently being taken up by leftover gumbo. She’ll have to freeze it. Shutting the fridge door, she goes to collect a stack of plastic containers.

A low television hum emanates from the family room. Kit is in there, watching CNN. He said hello to Carol when he came in, seeming slightly distracted. She asked him where Leanne was, and he said, “Outside, with Trevor.” That’s a good sign, Leanne getting to know her brilliant nephew. Leanne has always been good with kids.

Carol takes a deep breath. Margaret is upstairs on the phone. At least Carol was able to talk her into making some calls—right now—to find herself a lawyer.

Carol stops and steadies herself against the counter, one hand on her forehead. It’s too much. Leanne’s wedding, all these people coming over, the bed-and-breakfast, and now this. And of course, she’s the only one who knows about it. Margaret was quite insistent about that, and Carol can see why. Leanne would be upset if she knew what Margaret was going through at her wedding, and Will—who knows how Will would react. These things are easier for a mother to understand.

And yet what things, exactly, is she being asked to understand? The first and most important thing is that David is being a jerk. That much Carol gets, and in that she is entirely on Margaret’s side. That he would even think of threatening to take custody of Trevor from Margaret—the thought is too terrible. She looks at the phone on the kitchen wall and considers picking it up. It would be for Margaret’s own good, so Carol could understand what was going on and be in a better position to help her. But she knows it would make Margaret furious. And since Carol is her daughter’s only ally right now, it’s best if they stay on good terms.

She begins to unload glassware from the dishwasher. She started running them through this morning, but they’ll all need polishing with a clean dish towel. She can’t be putting out glassware with soap spots at a cocktail party. She goes to the linen closet for a clean rag. Returning, she takes up the first wineglass and begins polishing. Her daughter doesn’t need oversight, she tells herself. She needs understanding. Even if she’s not exactly admitting what needs to be understood.

Carol knows now that the phone call from the man with the accent probably has something to do with all of this. Margaret didn’t say so. She just insisted, categorically and unhesitatingly, that it was all over between her and her husband. Carol picks up another glass. What if Margaret
has
had an affair? Somewhat to her own surprise, the idea doesn’t shock her. She hates that word—“affair”—as if it were something involving tuxedos and engraved invitations. But if Margaret was involved with someone, it would hardly be surprising. Carol never really let herself think it, but somehow she always knew David wasn’t faithful to Margaret. Why shouldn’t she have retaliated? Even if David was a loyal husband, Margaret might have had a weak moment. Everyone has those.

What’s upsetting is that Margaret clearly feels she can’t talk to her mother. Perhaps she fears disapproval. And, Carol realizes with a pang of sadness, that makes a certain kind of sense. After all, Carol has always tried to set an example for her girls. She has never talked to them about her own weak moments. How does one talk to one’s children about things like that? She finds it hard even to think clearly about them herself.

There was, for instance, the spring early in the seventies when Will was laid off. He was part of a group of two hundred pilots that TWA put on furlough. Being Will, he didn’t do what anyone would expect him to do—sort out his finances, figure out a plan for economizing. Instead, the very day he was notified, he stopped at K-1
Auto on his way home, traded in their old Ford Fairlane, and bought a brand-new ’73 Buick Riviera, brown with a white leather interior. He drove the Riviera right off the floor and home, where he honked until Carol opened the front door. She wasn’t sure who it was. The car was shining like waxy new chocolate in a white haze of exhaust. After a moment, she saw Will.

“Get the girls!” he called to her from the window. “Let’s go for a ride!”

Margaret was six then, old enough to be interested. Leanne had just turned four. Carol herded them into the car. It was beautiful. The dashboard was leathery, the insides of the doors shiny imitation wood grain. Everything was as polished and sumptuous as the interior of a limousine.

“You got laid off, didn’t you?” she said, and Will grinned.

“This may be the last time in my life I could walk up to a car dealer with an airline pilot’s credit.”

Even thinking about it now, Carol experiences a stab of frustration, deep down and indistinct, like a mitten frozen in ice. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the Buick. It was seductive, a sable coat of a car. She had always wanted a car like that. But buying it in those circumstances—that was Will all over the place. Impulsive wasn’t even the word for it. Impulsive was buying an outfit on a whim, or deciding to go to a movie as you drove by the theater. Will had big thoughts and acted on them, with no regard for what anyone else might think. It was like that when he joined the Air Force, infuriating his father. Or when he bought the farm in Michigan, uprooting them from their nice Chicago suburb and signing himself up for a two-and-a-half-hour commute to O’Hare. Will wasn’t impulsive. He was driven to remake the world, for no better reason than that he could.

Carol picks up another glass and holds it to the light. She wraps the towel around her hand for a firmer grip. It’s a soothing task, watching the smudges disappear, the glass grow shiny and bright.

She always went along with Will’s latest impulse. When he signed on for fighter pilot training, she went along like a good Air Force wife, even though it landed him in Vietnam. They were lucky.
He was back in under a year, recuperating and planning to join TWA. She objected at first: why throw away a career he’d worked so hard for? But Will was determined. After his airline training, he decided they’d live in Chicago—she thought for good.

It might be easier for her girls if things were still that way. It’s not that she wishes women didn’t have careers and lives of their own. But just look at the mess Margaret has to deal with. There was something simpler about it when one person called the shots. Sometimes Carol wonders if she did her girls a favor by raising them to be independent. She told them all along to go and make their own lives, to be ambitious and focused, but how much could she really equip them to do so? She was like a ground squirrel raising baby birds, telling them they could fly without having the means to show them how.

But that’s not fair, she tells herself. She did her best. When Will got laid off, Margaret was in first grade and Leanne was starting nursery school early, so Carol decided to go back to college and get her degree. She signed up for two morning classes, two days a week at Plaingrove Community College. Will hadn’t liked it when she suggested it. “Colleges have turned into zoos these days,” he said. “Look at the mess at Kent State.” But Carol convinced him that Plaingrove was different, a community college mostly filled with housewives like herself. It had no dorms, no student newspapers, no teach-ins or SDS meetings. The few young kids there were biding their time until they could transfer to Western or MSU. Still, looking back, she supposes Will was right. Plaingrove was where she met Bryan.