Rachel Van Dyken (2 page)

He laid his son on the bed and sat beside him for a moment
,
stroking his golden hair. Something needed to be said. Some words to comfort him, to let him know his father understood his pain, but none came to mind. When David opened his mouth to speak, the words caught dry in his throat, choking him. He coughed and stood to leave.

As he walked to the door, the on
e
thing he could manage to say was, “Get a good rest,
son
. School tomorrow.” Then he turned and stalked
back down the stairs
cursing himself.

David couldn’t even convince himself they were going to be okay. How w
as he going to convince his
eleven-year-old
son?

****

Detroit,
June 1940

“Blaine!” David pounded on the
door. “Come on, Blaine! You’ll be late for school!”

There was silence on the other side of the door. A frigid silence, like the kind that haunted David at night when he was alone. A sudden fear shot through him, and he grasped the knob and forced the door open. “Blaine?” he pleaded with his heart in his throat. The lump under the quilt shifted slightly. David exhaled in relief at first, but his confrontation with the fear catapulted him into a rage.

“Boy! If your dogs don’t hit the kitchen floor in one minute, I’m going to take the belt to you!”

A groan floated out in answer. David grabbed all the bedding and his son together in one fell swoop and delivered him
blankets and all
to the cold wood floor.

“Dad! Come on! I’m joed. Let a fella sleep, would ya?”

“No, sir! School!”

“School
!” he flared, jumping to his feet. “School!
Are you kidding me? Nobody cares about school, Dad! Most of the guys my age have left to work at the plant. The only people left are the dames and the
brains.”

“I don’t care about what anybody else does
.
You ain’t quitting school! Now get going
.
You’re wasting time, and I’m not listening to your trash! You’re making us both late!” The situation was teetering o
ff
the edge of control. If he didn’t
defuse
, this would be another blow out. Something he had noticed was occurring more
often the last few weeks
. “Let’s just calm down…”

But his efforts were already too late.

A hot fire leaped into Blaine’s
steel gray
eyes, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his neck with thick emotion, like he was swallowing back his fury. His hands were balled into tight fists, the knuckles whitening before David’s eyes.

“N
o
!” Blaine exploded.
“No, Dad! I’m done
calming down
! You don’t ever listen to me! And now I don’t need you to tell me what to do either
.
I’ve been taking care of myself for five years! Ever since Mom died.

“You do remember Mom, don’t you? The woman you buried one day and forgot about the next? You didn’t give two cents then; you don’t give two cents now… other than whether or not I’m late for school!
Hang school! – And hang you!” With that he grabbed his
blue
jeans off the edge of the bed and stalked out of his room slamming the door. On the other side of the door
,
he could hear Blaine hopping around on one leg, struggling to pull on his
blue
jeans
. He heard the clomp of his boots and the screen door slam.
David was left alone in the sudden quiet.

Quiet. But not peaceful.

His heart wrenched inside
him
,
and he slumped to the floor under the weight of his anguish.
Oh, Emily. Emily, if you were here…
H
is heart wept. But she wasn’t, and he had made a mess of this by himself. The old indignation threatened to swallow him again.
See, God? You don’t do nothing but take from me!

It was the last time he saw his son.

When David arrived home that night,
Blaine
was gone, and the note said, “Now you don’t have to worry about me being late to school.”

Boston,
November 19
50

“
Logan Tower, flight o
ne-seven-November-two-Bravo requesting permission to land.”

“This is Logan Tower, Captain. You are c
lear to
land.”

Captain Blaine Graham banked to the left and brought the plane around into position to bring her safely onto the landing strip. The sun
filtered
over the eastern horizon, reflecting off the water surrounding most of the Logan Int
ernational Airport.

It was good to be home again. Blaine had been out on a week long flight schedule
and this last flight was an all-nighter. He did love to fly, but after a week of it, he was ready for a rest. Of course, as a pilot
, he was “home” so seldom, he used the term loosely.
H
ome
was wherever he was sleeping that night. Today it happened to be Boston.

Within minutes, the plane pulled up
to
the terminal and Blaine cut the engines.
As the passengers disembarked, he and his co-pilot went through the terminating protocol quickly.

“Long night. Be glad to get home to the wife,” his co-pilot mutt
ered behind a yawn. Blaine stretched his arms over his head then stood, still stooped over a bit, because his full six-foot-three frame didn’t quite fit in the
cramped
plane
.

“I’ll just be glad to get back to my ow
n bed.
”
The exhaustion started to set in as he unrolled his white shirt sleeves and buttoned them, then lifted his blazer from its hook and slipped it on. Grabbing his overnight case, he turned again to the other man. “Sounds like it’s empty out there. You ready?”

“Just let me grab my cap.”

A light knock on the cockpit door told them the cabin was clear.
Blaine ducked out through the little door and came face to face with the stewardess. She smiled sweetly, looking straight into his gray eyes. “It was a smooth flight, Captain.”

“Thank you.” She was still gazing at him, as if she expected him to say something more. Nothing was coming to mind. Not that he was much of one for talking, but exhaustion made small talk next to impossible for him, and conversing with women had never been one of his strong suits.

Behind him, the co-pilot seemed to understand his loss for words. “Yeah, ‘Old Cool Hand’ we call him. Smoothest pilot I’ve ever flown with.” He slapped Blaine on the back and a broad grin swept across his face.

Blaine breathed a sigh of relief and laughed softly with him.

“Y’all ready?” the dark-haired man gestured toward the hatch and nodded to the stewardess. “After you,
m
a’am.”

A brief glimpse of disappointment seemed to flash in her brown eyes, but she hid it well behind her polite smile and led the way down the stairs to the ground.

“Thanks,
m
an,” Blaine whispered.

“A brother in need,
s
on,” drawled the co-pilot. “
I think she’s got a torch for
you.”

“
You think so?”
He glanced at her
walking a few steps
ahead of him. She was a pretty girl.
Particularly
from this angle.

His companion poked him in the ribs and chuckled. “Oughta ask her dancin’.”

The girl
inclined her
head
slightly,
as if she had heard
the
comment. Blaine looked at the ground in embarrassment, though the
early
morning dusk
offered adequate cover to hide
him
from her view
. “Shhh,” he warned, but her pace seemed to slacken, perhaps in hope Blaine would take his co-pilot’s advice. He caught up to her without meaning too, and she fell into step beside him.

Blaine’s mind whirred frantically. He had spent so little time with
women;
any proximity to one flustered him. His mother had died when he was eleven
. W
ith the onset of puberty, the lack of a female influence had made him awkward and shy with the girls, and his old man had never been any help in any capacity, so he relied on his buddies. Their often misguided suggestions
had
a tendency to
ma
k
e matters worse
.

T
he silence seemed to suck the moisture from his mouth
. Finally she broke in, “Are you stationed in Boston, Captain?”

His voice caught somewhere in his throat, so he
coughed gently to clear its way
. “Yes.” She glanced at him again, expectantly
. Blaine hated this part of
conversation. If she would just keep asking him questions, he would have something say; otherwise, his mind was a blank.

“Okay,” whispered the saving grace from his other side. “I know it’s been a long night, but this is r
idiculous.” Blaine didn’t
know his co-pilot very well. It was only the second t
ime they had flown together, but he had an easy-going confidence with the dames Blaine wished he had.

“Old Cool Hand here is a smooth fly-boy, but he ain’t so cool with the ladies, Miss Bell,” the man chimed. “I reckon if he could talk, he’d say ‘Miss Bell, I’d sure love to take you dancin’ some time.’”

The stewardess laughed and played along. “And then I’d say, ‘Why, Captain Graham, I’d be delighted.’” There was a mischievous twinkle in her eyes as she cast a sidelong glance back to Blaine.

“Well, I’d say that settles the matter. Are you game, Sir?” His companion nudged his arm questioningly.

Blaine shrugged
and
offered an uncertain
,
awkward smile
to Miss Bell. “Sure. I’d like that.”

“You’ll have to excuse him, Miss Bell. He’s a million laughs in the cockpit, but ‘comes downright taciturn whenever he leaves the safety of the flight deck.”

She giggled again and la
id a petite hand on Blaine’s bi
cep. “Don’t worry, Captain. I’m a wonderful dancer, and I promise I don’t bite.”

Her lingering touch
did little to settle the knots in his churning stomach, and already
he was regretting the concession to take her out.

“So all’s settled but the shoutin’. When and where, Miss Bell?”
Fate
seemed to be in the hands of the co-pilot now, and his current was sweeping away Blaine’s sense of control. He started to interject, but his two companions stepped closer together to work out the details of
his
“date
.
” If there were a guarantee he wouldn’t
have to see either of them
again, he would duck out now and forget the whole
thing.

****

When the taxi pulled up in front of
the
brownstone
boarding
house
, it was close to
eight o’clock
in the morning. Blaine’s exhaustion was bone deep, and his movements were slow and deliberate as he slung his overnight bag
across
his shoulder
s
and dragged himself up the st
e
p
s
to the front door. He rang the buzzer, and waited for
the land-lady,
Mrs. Callahan
,
to let him in.

The old Irish woman broke into a wide grin when she saw him standing in the frigid morning
,
h
is breath a cloud of steam against the
November chill. “Ah,
it’s
yerself, i
s
i
t, Captain Graham?
We’ve been missin’ ye ‘round here.” He felt like he would drop where he stood and must’ve appeared
as such
. “Well, come in, come in! Can’t have ye fallin’ asleep on the stoop now, can we?”

Mrs. Callahan was a warm,
maternal woman
;
her
fiery red hair dusted with a smattering of gray
was always pulled up in a loose bun in the back of her head
. She ushered him in the house and guided him to his room on the second floor.

“To bed with ye, Captain Graham, and never fear, I’ll wake ye fer yer supper.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Callahan.” He offered her a weary smile and shuffled into his room.

“Ah, yer a good lad, Blaine Graham.” She pulled the door closed behind him, leaving him alone in the quiet.

Her
maternal
affection always warmed him from the inside out, a balm which soothed his aching soul – the one thing he’d been missing since his own mother’s death.

Slowly, he hung up his uniform in the closet and changed into a clean pair of pajamas from the bureau. Thankfully, Mrs. Callahan had filled the pitcher with fresh water in anticipation of his arrival. He poured some into the basin
and
scooped
up
a handful to wash his face.

And then he fell into bed. His bed. He sank deep into the feather mattress and pulled the patchwork quilt up over his head, darkening the world around him. Sweet sleep possessed him,
to which
Blaine was happy to surrender.