white race was currently divided in this war, when the true enemy was the “Asiatic influence.” His wish was that somehow Germany could have been appeased, and allied with us against Japan, China, and Russia. He closed by restating his desire to fight for his country, no matter what. “I’m an American first,” he said, and I winced.
Soon after this, he heard from the Pentagon. His request to be reinstated was denied. For the duration, former colonel Charles Lindbergh’s services were not required.
Devastated, and so honestly surprised I almost cried, Charles then turned to all the commercial airlines he had helped form, almost from the dust of the fields that, with his name attached, they had been able to turn into giant, gleaming airports and factories now busy with war work. He returned home from several meetings enthusiastic and optimistic. But when the phone did not ring for him the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, he sank into a despair I had never before witnessed, not even when the baby was taken.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered, sitting erect in his chair, even then. “I have more knowledge of the German air force than anyone. I traveled around our airfields when I first came back, helping them to modernize, teaching them fighting tactics I learned in Germany. And one would hope that now, more than ever, differing opinions about the world would be welcomed, for only the best research comes from a result of all different points of view.”
My heart broke for him, seeing what no one else did—the naive farm boy instead of the hero. Statue that he was, monument to his own beliefs, he was no match for wily politicians. Washington wasn’t interested in what he knew; it was interested in how he was perceived by a public that would probably have to elect a president in the middle of a war.
But I did not have time to soothe him, for overnight I was forced to deal with ration books and gas cards and rubber drives. The girl I had in every other day to help clean left to work in a factory. The cook—for I had never learned to make more than scrambled eggs and grilled cheese sandwiches—did the same. With a copy of
I had no time to go on walks with him, as he suggested coaxingly, almost flirtatiously, for the first time in ages—since before we’d come back to America. It pained me to have to say no to him. But there was always a meal to prepare; it astonished me how frequently my children required nourishment, now that I was the one to provide it.
And there was no time to sit in the den with him at night and listen as he read from drafts of speeches he wrote but had no opportunity to give, for there was always a child to cajole into bed, a glass of water to fetch, the last bit of a story to read. If I had a minute to myself, I was darning clothes and letting hems out, for everyone was predicting a clothing shortage.
“I despise seeing you like this,” he said one day, and he sounded sincere, which only made me angry, busy as I was—and as he was not. “I despise seeing you waste your potential, no better than any other housewife, worrying over casseroles and coupons. What about us, Anne? What about
“Well, I’m not enjoying it much myself, but I don’t see any alternative,” I snapped, and went back to the preserves boiling on the stove, studying them closely, wondering why on earth they wouldn’t
So I was grateful—almost to the point of hysterical laughter—the day I picked up the phone and heard a wheezy voice say, “Henry Ford here. Is Colonel Lindbergh home?”
If there was one man capable of defying Roosevelt and giving my husband a job, it was Henry Ford. Despite Ford’s own isolationist—and more obviously anti-Semitic—background, the government needed him. Or, rather—it needed his factories. Detroit was being turned into a wartime machine, and Ford was calling to ask Charles to help oversee the aviation operations, which would be responsible for building bombers, B-24s.
Charles left the next morning, a blustery March day, and drove straight through to Detroit on a special gas card issued to him by Ford; essential war work, it declared. I rose at dawn to see him off, and I admit I felt relief at seeing him go, despite all the work ahead of me—closing up this house, packing, finding another in Detroit, moving the household, finding a new doctor for me, one for the children, dentists for us all, schools….
But mostly, I felt relief. Not only at being parted—there was some of that, I had to admit; his presence in the house had been oppressive these last few weeks, an annoying, spiteful shadow nipping at my heels wherever I went. But mainly, I rejoiced at the knowledge that for once, we were like everyone else. Not heroes, deified; not demons, vilified.
Just a man and wife saying goodbye because of the war, unsure when we’d see each other again, because housing was difficult to find in Detroit—and Charles made it clear to Mr. Ford that we were to be given no special favors. We would exchange letters, call occasionally when we could get a long distance line. I would take photographs of the children so that he did not miss anything. I would encourage them to write to Daddy, and help them sign their names in cursive, even though they did not yet know how.
As I waved goodbye to Charles, I had tears in my eyes. Tears of pure, soul-cleansing joy, for I felt an honest happiness in sending my husband off to war—as if this one small sacrifice could somehow make up for all the wrong I had done, in both our names. Yet at the same time, I also felt the lightness of anticipation, believing that somehow, the worst was behind us. And that from now on, Charles and I had only good times to look forward to together. Strange, I know, to think that; to feel relief, not sadness; happiness, not horror.
Especially against the backdrop of a world split asunder by war.
CHAPTER 15
“MOMS?”
I looked up, startled. I was writing a letter to Charles, using the thin, small V-Mail sheet I abhorred; I always ran out of room before I ran out of things to say. Jon was standing in front of me, just home from school. He was neat and tidy as always; Land was the one who always had a slingshot in his pocket, a half-eaten apple in his hand. The only sign that Jon was a normal eleven-year-old was his new vocabulary of slang that he sometimes tried out. “Hi-de-ho” for “hello,” “creep” for his brother, “Moms” for me. Although his father was never “Pops”; even to his children, there was something about Charles Augustus Lindbergh that did not lend itself to slang.
“Yes, dear?”
“The teacher was telling us about Father’s flight to Paris today. It’s in our history books, you know.” He blushed; so scarlet you could see a rosy glow beneath his fine reddish hair. So this was why he had been uncommonly quiet in the car on the way home. “It was kind of embarrassing, because everyone looked at me. Even Polly Sanders.”
I stifled a smile; Polly Sanders had hit him in the school yard yesterday. A declaration of love if ever there was one.
“But then the teacher started talking about a kidnapping. She said that Father’s first baby was stolen and died. Charles Lindbergh Junior. And when I told her she was wrong, that I was the oldest, she got real quiet, then she shut the book and told me to go home and ask you about it.”
“Oh.” Without thinking, I tore up the letter I was writing to Charles. Writing to him was my lifeline, as it was his; I often felt we were courting again through V-Mail, sharing our fears, our hopes—everything that we hadn’t been able to tell each other in person. Forced to live apart now, after so long huddled together against various storms, the war had given us a chance to tell each other who we were again. To reinvent ourselves, even. On the page, I sounded strong and resourceful.
He sounded reflective and kind.
Even though I missed him so much that I had taken to sleeping on the chaise in my bedroom just so I didn’t have to see his pillow every night, I was suddenly, violently furious with my husband. Why was he not here to
