The Aviator's Wife

“They are Jewish propaganda, deranged, and dangerous to the state. Mann is an exile. He is forbidden to return to Germany, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

I was not. I sat blinking at this fat man in a Nazi uniform, smiling dangerously in the bright sun, and I felt like a newborn chick just breaking out of her shell, trying to adjust her eyes to the confusing, blinding assault of life. Instinctively, I shrank back against the cold, hard stadium bench, touching Charles’s arm.

“What?” He didn’t stop looking at the ceremonies, going on below.

“Nothing,” Herr Goring said smoothly. “Frau Lindbergh, are you cold? You look pale.”

“No.” Turning back to the smiling faces, the waving flags, I shrugged off the cool shadow I felt fall on me just then. I let go of Charles and tried to lose myself in the frenzied gaiety of the moment, the proud parade of nations filling the stadium grass, the flags waving, the Germans in the stands cheering lustily, calling out “Sieg Heil!” with military regularity. Everyone looked well fed, clean, and happy. Everyone looked tall, fair. So like my husband, I realized with a start; usually he stood out with his clean Nordic good looks, especially next to my small, dark self. Not here, though; with his Swedish heritage etched in every lean line of his body, every golden follicle of his hair, he would have blended into the crowd of Germans gaily waving those strange Nazi flags.

No wonder he seemed so at home.

HOME. It was a word I no longer recognized.

Four years had passed. Four years, several houses, airplanes, countries, oceans, a passing array of acquaintances, none of whom was allowed to get too close—all were now between us and that gray, weeping spring. At times I felt it had been a lifetime ago; other times, usually as soon as I opened my eyes on a particularly gloomy morning, it was as if it had all happened yesterday.

To Charles, the events of ’32 were firmly in the past, never to be spoken of again. That’s how he always referred to the kidnapping: “the events of ’32.” As if it were merely a page in a history book, and I supposed by now it probably was. Under the entry “Lindbergh, Charles.” After the paragraph about his historic flight, there it would be: the events of 1932, which culminated in the death of his son and namesake, Charles Lindbergh Junior, twenty months of age.

One day, about a year after the baby was found dead, Charles came across me sobbing behind a tree outside Next Day Hill, missing my son so much I could feel it in every breath. I crept off like this every day, thinking he didn’t know. Yet suddenly he was there, looking down at me with one corner of his lip curled up in distaste. And he tore into me as if he had been hoping for this moment for months; he berated me, calling me weak, less; irretrievably broken.

I am! I wanted to shout. I am broken! Because he’s gone!

“What a terrible waste of time this is,” he continued, in that detached, superior tone of his. “Think of all you could be doing. Instead you’re still giving in to sorrow, letting it consume you, change you. What happened to that book about our trip? You wanted to write a great book, didn’t you? What have you done in the last few years, Anne? What?”

I followed you wherever you went. I brought life into this world. And then I saw it stolen from me. My tears wouldn’t stop; I kept weeping, my head bowed down with every scathing word, every woundingly honest phrase heaped upon it. He was right. I was unable to see past my own personal sorrow. I could never have accomplished what he had accomplished. I would have been too afraid, would have let others sway me as I was letting others sway me now—see how Elisabeth still coddled me, telling me I needed time to heal, to grieve?

I despised myself for letting him talk to me like this, and I never would have, before the baby was taken from me. All the fury I had felt during the ordeal, when I had no problem acting on my own—it was gone, obliterated as thoroughly as my baby’s body had been.

Charles never would have talked to me like this before, either. We were both changed, but at the time I couldn’t see what tragedy had done to him. All I knew was that it had wounded me so that always, I felt as if I was walking about on shattered limbs, held together by only the very wispiest of threads, too fragile to stand up to him.

But I dried my tears, and assured him I would not cry in front of him again. Then I went upstairs to our bedroom and found a suitcase—a blue suitcase, I recall—and methodically, as if I were packing for one of our flights, I began to fill it. First my lingerie, then a few day dresses, a nice suit, three nightgowns. I could send for everything else later; later when I had found an apartment in the city big enough for Jon and myself; big enough for my grief. But too small for Charles.

I would leave him. If fury had deserted me, calm rationality had taken its place. I would leave this cold man, this stranger who mocked my grief. I would start over with Jon, and maybe the two of us would have a chance. I would have a chance to mourn Charlie, which was my only chance to heal, I knew. And Jon would have a chance to live a life not darkened by his father’s shadow. I would find us a place near Central Park, so Jon could have somewhere to play. I would arrange everything myself, for I was a woman who had navigated by the stars; surely I could learn to navigate the subway. I would find just the right school for Jon, I would look up old friends, like Bacon, or make new ones. Friends who would want to know me, Anne; just Anne. I would cry whenever I wanted to. And laugh, as well.

I changed my clothes, put on a pair of black suede pumps that always made me feel taller than I was, and walked out the bedroom door, down the stairs, toward the front door. I would phone Mother later, from the city, and tell her when to bring Jon to me.

“Anne?”

I stopped, my heart racing, my face already hot with guilt. Then I turned around. Charles was before me, a pad of paper and pencils in his hand.

“What are you doing?” He looked at the suitcase.

“I’m—I’m going to visit Con, in the city. Just for the weekend.”

“Oh. I suppose that’s a good idea, to—get away for a little while.” But he frowned, not really understanding.

“Yes, I think so. Would you tell Mother I’ll phone her later?”

“Yes. Now, Anne, when you get back, I have a suggestion.” He held out the paper and pencils, like an offering. “I think you need to start over. I mean the book about our flight to the Orient—start that over again.” He smiled, a coaxing, almost bashful smile I hadn’t seen in years. “I can’t do justice to it, and it should be written about. You’re the only one who can do it. You’re the writer in the family, Anne. Not I.”

Unable to meet his gaze, I looked out a window. Mother was pushing Jon in his pram, up and down a garden path. Even from this distance, I could see Jon’s expansive Viking forehead, his blond hair; just a shade darker than his father’s.

“I’ll think about it,” I told Charles.

“Good. Have a nice weekend.”

“I will.” Turning to leave, I felt a hand upon my arm; Charles bent down to give me an unexpected peck on the cheek before taking my suitcase and following me down to the car. As I was driven away, I turned back; Charles was still standing with the paper and pencils in his hands, watching me. He didn’t wave. Neither did I.

I was back on Monday morning, exhausted from two nights spent tossing and turning and not sleeping in Con’s guest room, the bed too big for just me. I was back, despite my certainty that never again would I be able to talk about our shared tragedy with my husband, and my uncertainty about what that would mean in the long run. I was back, knowing that I would never be able to look at my son without thinking of his father.

I was back, because of a pad of paper and some pencils.

I knew that Charles thought he was being supportive in his own way, providing me a path out of my maze of grief, and I was touched by that. It was the most he could do for me, and that had to be enough, for now. But it was never over for me; I never quite found my way out. Sorrow was my constant companion, even though I no longer wept. It was the shadow that followed me on sunny days, the weight pressing down upon my spirits on cloudy ones.

I had even seen it, trailing after me while I walked down the gangplank the day we first arrived in England, almost a year ago, now. Jon was only three years old; Charles carried him in his arms while I pushed his pram