The Aviator's Wife

“Weak?” I met my sister’s gaze head-on; she was the one who looked away first, her cheeks flushing prettily.

“No, of course not, Anne. Just sweet, and eager to please. What Connie and I are really saying is that you’re in such an important position now—you, on your own. Think what you could do with it— how much you could help others.”

“I had planned on an Irish nursemaid,” I repeated weakly—or, rather, sweetly.

Connie sat on the sofa, looking at me, her thick eyebrows arched in amusement. At that moment, I despised her solid self-righteousness. I also quaked at the idea of hiring a girl with no training, from a questionable background, to look after my baby.

“I’ll consider it,” I finally said, desperate to get away, to rush back to my refuge—back to Charles, who would be waiting for me. We always dined together; it was a rule. If one of us had to leave the house, we were always back in time for dinner unless we both went out; he said it was important for a husband and wife to establish this habit early. I agreed, of course. Why shouldn’t I agree to my husband’s desire to spend time with me? It was what I wanted, too.

“Fine, that’s all we’re asking,” Elisabeth said, as she walked me to the door. “I’ll see you back at home tonight.”

“No hard feelings, now, mind you,” Connie added. “You know I think you Morrows are the tops.”

“Good. Then take care of Elisabeth, will you? Make sure she gets home in plenty of time to rest.” I couldn’t help it; I wanted to treat my sister as childishly as she had treated me. Although I was worried about her. She seemed so delicate, so temporary, somehow. So wispy that even memory couldn’t hold her.

I hurried away from the two of them, standing side by side, framed by the doorway. Rushing down the hall to the reception room, I was truly worried now; I was going to be late for that appointment.

Just outside the window, Henry and the Rolls were waiting to whisk me away in luxury. I wouldn’t have to worry about a taxi. I never had to worry about a taxi. Or the subway. Or even dinner—of course, it would be waiting for me when I got home. I never had to worry about anything these days.

Our flying trips, when I had been so strong, so independent—so vital—seemed like a dimly recalled dream to me now. Could Charles and I be true partners only when we were in the sky, cut free from everyone else’s expectations?

I suddenly stopped in the middle of the crowded, stale room, and I made myself look around, meeting the gaze of every woman there. I needed to look at these women, these normal, earthbound women, with lives so very different from my own. I needed to see what they were like; who I might be if I were one of them. And I needed to see through my own eyes, not Charles’s. I was so used to seeing the world from behind him, or beside him; our view was always exactly the same. It was as if there was only one set of goggles between us.

So I took in the old-fashioned dresses, the head coverings, some tattered lace, others simple black. Most had dark eyes, thick hair, sallow skin; there were a few fair Irish-looking faces. But they were all women, tired women; women simply wanting help, wanting more for their children. Just as I would want for mine—with a warm flush of recognition, I felt a kinship with them that I could never feel while flying above them, looking down.

My coaxing smile only made them uneasy; most looked away. The few that did not stared at me with unconcealed resentment flickering in dark, hungry eyes. A couple looked frankly at my stomach; one wagged her head and said something that I couldn’t understand—and then she laughed.

“What’s she doing here?” I heard someone else mutter. “She’s rich.”

“She’s Colonel Lindbergh’s wife,” another whispered. “What’s she want?”

“I should go visit her,” a woman said loudly. “I bet they don’t have nits in their house!”

Several women burst into knowing laughter. I was rigid with mortification. There was no way I could walk outside the door and get into the Rolls now, for everyone would see that it belonged to me, and I was sick with shame for it; shame for who I was. Elisabeth and Connie ridiculed me for being a wife; these women ridiculed me for being rich.

Was it any wonder I stayed safely in my husband’s shadow, where, if anyone noticed me, they only admired me for keeping up with him? Was it any wonder I took refuge in the clouds, where I was strong and capable, more myself than I had ever been, could ever be, here on earth?

And what did two spinsters know, anyway? If I were married to a physician, I would be Mrs. Doctor. If I were married to an attorney, I would be Mrs. Lawyer. No married woman had a separate identity, not even my own mother, with all her education and energy. She was the senator’s wife, first and foremost. That I was married to an aviator made me different but no less dependent on my husband. That was one thing these women and I knew that my precious sister, with all her education and lofty ideals, did not.

Spurred by this discovery, I spun around and marched back to Elisabeth’s office. Without knocking, I opened the door.

“Elisabeth, what you don’t understand is—”

I froze, unable to speak; unable to absorb the scene before me.

Elisabeth was sitting in Connie’s lap, their arms about each other, their lips—their lips—upon each other’s. They didn’t spring apart—oh, why didn’t they spring apart? They remained where they were, only turning their heads to look at me for the longest moment. A moment in which I gasped, my insides lurching and plummeting as if I had just plunged down an elevator shaft. And I felt that I must have; I must have fallen into another world, another reality. This was not my sister. This could not be my sister.

And yet even as we three gazed at one another, and Elisabeth finally slid off Connie’s lap, her face scarlet, her body trembling, so many things suddenly made sense. The secret looks they always shared, the insouciance with which Elisabeth had always treated men, as if she had no use for them at all—and now, I saw, she hadn’t.

What I had assumed to be her jealousy at my marriage to Charles I now realized was her distaste for him, pure and simple. The strained awkwardness, the brutal shifting of our relationship, was not because I had stolen something from her that she wanted. But this realization was accompanied by a childish sense of disappointment. For deep down, hadn’t I enjoyed thinking that I had?

“Anne, please,” I heard my sister say, in a voice that sounded a million miles removed. “You mustn’t—”

I never heard what I mustn’t do; I turned and stumbled blindly through the lobby and out the door. Henry tucked me into the backseat with a rug, as if I was an invalid.

As we drove away, my mind still reeled from the image of the two women so entwined. Elisabeth? Kissing a woman—Connie?

No irregularities, Charles had said that night, when we camped out under the stars. Our children will be pure. I laid my hand upon my unborn child; it swam within my flesh, restless, innocent—

Pure.

“Are you all right, Miss Anne? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!”

I shook my head. “Just drive, please, Henry.”

And I knew I could never tell anyone what I had seen. Not even—especially—Charles. Too many people could be hurt. For the sake of my child, my marriage, myself, no one must ever know. For the sake of my sister, most of all.

I had to protect Elisabeth as I had never been able to protect Dwight—but as I would have to protect my child when it was born. And I could. Like a magnet, I felt it pulling my thoughts and fears inward where they could be guarded, this strength, this steel that Charles had seen, that my mother had seen, but that had taken me so long to acknowledge.

And in acknowledging it, an unaccustomed contentment warmed my shaking limbs, calmed my rapid breathing, and I no longer worried about being late to the appointment, or whether or not Charles would be waiting dinner for me, or what those women in the reception room thought of me. None of that mattered, for I felt ready, now; ready for this baby.

Ready for motherhood; the one journey I must take where my husband could not accompany me.