The Aviator's Wife

the poor little thing,” and began to weep. Con rolled her eyes and went to comfort her; Violet was always rather excitable.

“Shhh,” I whispered to Charlie, still so blissfully unaware in my arms, babbling happy baby nonsense. “It’s all right. Daddy will take care of you. Daddy will always take care of you.” But I couldn’t prevent myself from imagining what might happen when Charles would not be there to take care of him, even with the policemen at the gate.

“Anne, dear?”

I turned; Mother was watching me, her eyes soft with concern.

“I’ll stay home with the baby and Betty,” she said firmly. “I’ll cancel my plans. Will that help, my daughter? Will that make you less fearful?”

I nodded, so grateful I wanted to sing for her, dance for her, do something unexpected and charming and grand. But I had to content myself with a soggy smile over my son’s head.

And I thought back to my childhood, to all the times I had missed her, all the times I had wondered why she had to rush out the door, late for an appointment. Nothing to compare to how long I was going to leave my own son, of course. But I had missed my mother, anyway, as all children do.

Now I wondered—had she missed me as well? All those years; had she missed her children, had she been forced into all those activities by her husband, too? Was she now trying to make up for it?

I smiled at my mother with new understanding, grateful to be old enough, finally, to have a second chance, to forgive, to reconnect as women, mothers. I kissed my son on the top of his soft, fragrant head; he smelled like Ivory soap and warm flannel. And I whispered a plea for his forgiveness, too.

For now, I could only look forward to the day when he would be old enough, wise enough, to grant it.

CHAPTER 8

“ANNE, ANNE—JUMP!”

The water, muddy and churning, vicious, rushed up at me. We were inside the plane, our trusty steed; one minute we were hovering over the Yangtze River on a rope, ready to be lowered onto the water so we could take off. The next we were listing dangerously to one side, water rushing up to entrap us in the plane, like a tomb. And I thought, more curious than terrified, Death by drowning. Of all the ways I thought I might die, this was not one of them.

Then my husband’s voice, commanding although not panicked, pierced through my drowsy rumination, and I jumped as he told me to. I jumped, just as I had the day the plane overturned. Survival instinct, my compliant nature; maybe a combination of the two. But I leaped, sprawling, out of the plane and hit the flood-swollen waters of the Yangtze, terrified I would be pulled down by the weight of the parachute on my back, my heavy flying clothes. Already praying because I knew that this time I would not survive. I would never see my baby again.

I swallowed filthy water, retching it up as I somehow, miraculously, bobbed up to the surface. Only to feel myself tugged helplessly down again by my parachute. The water closed over my face and I couldn’t breathe. Writhing in panic like an eel, twisting, I managed to shed the parachute and bob back up again, gasping. I thought of all the times I’d been so careful to boil the water before I brushed my teeth or washed my face.

Amid shouts from the men on the boat nearby, I heard Charles call my name.

“Over here!” I waved an arm, and paddled toward him.

Charles was treading water, his hair plastered down, his face splotched with mud. When he saw me, his eyes widened with relief, and he waved back.

“Get away from the plane,” he called over the wind, the shouting, the engine of the boat. I nodded and swam away, threading my way through swirling sticks and logs and other debris carried along on this raging river.

Our ship, our beautiful Lockheed Sirius, was on its side, one great pontoon rising up from the water, the other just below. Water was pouring into the cockpit, and I winced at the thought of my radio and transmitter shorting out, ruined forever. This plane had been our home for the last two months, since July 27, 1931.

That was the day the “Flying Lindberghs” were driven to an airfield on the East River just outside of Queens, New York. On a platform that ramped down to the river, our great black-and-orange Sirius perched precariously on two huge pontoons, waiting for us to board. In the pontoons themselves, each item scrupulously weighed, was everything we could possibly need for several months’ journey to the Arctic, the Orient, and beyond. Our few items of clothing, extra trousers, shirts, and a flying suit for each of us, as well as warm parkas. There were also tins of food; pots for boiling water; a first-aid kit personally packed for us by the chief of staff at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center; letters of introduction signed by President Hoover himself; an anchor, oars, an inflatable boat, extra parachutes, firearms, ammunition, fishing equipment, an extra radio, and blankets. Almost as an afterthought, we both carried brand-new passports.

Surrounded by reporters, photographers, and Movietone men with their whirring cameras, we waited as two mechanics made a final check of the Sirius. Charles was asked by male reporters about the technical difficulties of the challenging flight. I was asked by female reporters how I intended to set up housekeeping in a plane, even as my fingers nervously tapped out practice messages in the Morse code I had been studying for weeks— Engine failure. Send help. Location unknown. Not once was I queried about my technical skills, even though I was to be the radio operator on this trip. Waiting for me in my rear compartment was my radio and all its coils and tubes, the receiver perched on a shelf to my right, the transmitter a cold, hard presence at my feet next to the antenna I would slowly crank out of a compartment on the floor whenever I needed to transmit. The huge, noisy dynamotor was behind my seat, where it would occasionally give me a kick, literally, in the pants.

“Mrs. Lindbergh, what clothes are you taking on the trip?” “Are you going to show the new spring fashions to the Japanese?” “Do you think you’ll miss your son very much?”

“Yes,” I replied, in answer to them all—thanking God that it was time to leave. I waved goodbye with that jaunty grin that I could never recognize when I saw it in photographs. Charles had built a little ladder that enabled me to ascend the enormous pontoons; from there I could then hop up onto the wing, and then into the plane itself. We settled into our respective cockpits, Charles in front, me in back, and then Charles started up the plane. Nosing awkwardly down the ramps, we hit the water with a wallop that splashed waves all over the Movietone men, to my great delight.

Our first attempt to take off was cut short by a boat full of newsreel cameras that veered too close. Our second was successful, although I held my breath as Charles maneuvered our way through a flock of airplanes full of more newsreel cameras, some so close I could see the stripes on the bow ties of the photographers. (Newsreel cameramen, I had discovered, always wore bow ties, for reasons I could never fathom.)

Soon enough, we shook them, and we said goodbye with a jaunty little wiggle of the wings that was Charles’s signature. Only then did I see my husband’s shoulders relax; he turned to me with a jubilant grin that made me laugh out loud. We were on our way, just the two of us; on our greatest adventure yet, one for the history books. Charles hadn’t looked so free, so joyous, in months; since long before our son was born.

We would navigate across Canada, up through Alaska, over the Bering Strait, skirt Siberia, and hip-hop down the islands of Japan to China. Along the way, we would eat raw fish with Eskimos in huts, file into a mess tent with prospectors in Anchorage, sit on the bamboo floors of palaces in Japan to partake of ancient tea ceremonies. Everywhere we landed we were mobbed by the population, even if the population was only ten hardy soldiers on a remote island outpost. In the air, we were partners; I took over flying when Charles was tired, or when he needed to map out our routes. But on land, we were always separated; I was shuttled off to be with the women, where I was expected to be interested only in domestic duties. I lost count of the number of times I was asked how I kept the cockpit tidied.

Charles smarted at these questions on my behalf; I would catch his sympathetic head shake. Yet the only time he ever came to my defense was early in the trip, in Ottawa. Waiting for a banquet in our honor to begin, I found my husband seated on the floor of an anteroom, surrounded by fellow pilots.

Charles was a different person around pilots and mechanics; I had learned this early in our marriage, on our first barnstorming trip west. Suddenly the great aviator I had married became “Slim” to all his old colleagues and mechanics; the ones who had remained where they were, content to fly the mail and do tricks for air shows, when