I shrugged it off, fastened the safety harness, flipped a switch, and opened up the throttle.
Slowly I began to taxi, surprised, at first, by how the propellers cut my vision; I’d forgotten that, about old planes, with the propellers on the noses instead of the wings. Gradually, it all did come back; I pulled on the stick, accelerating, holding my breath, and then it happened—that lovely, balletic, suspended moment, and I had no fear. Why should I be afraid? I was nearly seventy years old, and had begun giving too much consideration to the various ways an elderly person can die. Crashing in an airplane seemed a reasonable alternative to most of them.
But I will not crash, not this cloudless, windless day. I am in total control of my aircraft, taught by the best pilot there ever was, and I keep a gentle tug on the stick, nosing the plane up, up, up, over the house—Diane is just a doll now, waving her hands over her head—over the trees, catching the wind, and then soaring out over the ocean. My ears pop, and I realize I have forgotten to bring any chewing gum, and for a moment I inhale the sharp, cool scent of spearmint—the flavor of gum that Charles always had on him.
The engines are so whiny, so loud—I’ve forgotten how loud! Even in an enclosed cockpit, they aren’t muffled, at least not to my sensitive elderly ears, and I marvel that we were able to carry on any kind of conversation on that endless afternoon, when we were burning off fuel.
I bank the plane due left, flying north now, recognizing some of the houses below; the dunes, the outline of the beach, although of course things have changed since the last time I flew over this spot. There are more houses, smaller and closer together; strip malls; highways now, segmenting the land into neat, orderly squares.
I have a moment where I want to fly inland to see what else has changed, but then I remember why I’m aloft in the first place, and head the plane out over the water.
The white waves keep up their steady, relentless assault against the shore, and I nose down a bit lower, trying one more time to imagine what it was like for him flying alone with only this cold, hard slab of water beneath him for almost the entire trip to Paris. I can’t; after all these years, I still can’t put myself in his place and see myself doing what he did. I still can’t stop admiring that boy’s bravery, his astonishing daring. I still can’t stop marveling that this same boy chose me; and I’m glad that I can’t, for we should rejoice in being seen, needed. Loved.
But it’s not the foundation on which to build a life, a marriage, and it never should have been. I wish I hadn’t taken so long to understand this in life, although I suppose I should be happy that at least I was able to imagine it on the page.
Peering over the propeller to my right I see it, a lighthouse on a strip of land curling out into the water, and I know I’m almost there. I reach into my pocket.
He dictated, in one of his last lists, that I was to be buried next to him in Hawaii. He never asked me if this was my wish, and I never told him that it wasn’t. I let him die thinking that he would lie beside me; I let him die thinking I was honored that he had chosen me, and me alone, for this privilege.
But I will not be buried next to him. When I die, I told my son on the long, sobering flight back from Hawaii, after we laid Charles in the ground beneath several slabs of stone, his grave crudely marked so that strangers couldn’t find it, I want to be cremated. And I would like my ashes to be scattered, among various places dear to me—my garden in Darien; the shores of my family’s summer home in Maine; over the sound, at a point about two miles offshore.
About where I am flying right now. I peer out the dirty side window and see the lighthouse far below, and a calm, blue harbor of water. Right—here—
I pop open the window with my elbow, bracing myself against the onrush of cold air, and I kiss his wedding ring, then let it fall from my hand, hoping that the weight of the gold will allow it to cut through the currents and fall over the waters of the sound, near where we honeymooned.
Near where the ashes of our firstborn were scattered.
I still don’t understand why Charles did what he did; why he had to father other children, have other families. Perhaps we both kept looking for our lost child. I did, by scanning the faces of every little boy I saw, every little boy about eighteen months with blond hair, blue eyes. By searching in my surviving children’s faces when they were around that age, looking for some gesture or laugh that might remind me of him.
Maybe this was Charles’s way of looking for Charlie; by trying to replace him, over and over and over.
Whatever his reasons, I don’t want to lie next to him when I’m gone and I’m not sure if my children understand. I know that if I explain what their father did to me—to them—they might. But I won’t do that. I won’t do that to him. I won’t do that to them.
I won’t do that to the generations of schoolchildren who will learn about him in history books, and marvel, and be inspired to try astounding feats of their own. I won’t do that to the brave, primitive monoplane hanging in the Smithsonian, ever empty, ever waiting for him. Just as I once was.
I’ll keep his secrets for him.
I bank the plane, and I close my eyes, just for a moment, and I think of Dana, back in the city. He is a good man. A kind man. We ended our physical affair a few years ago, tamping the flame into a warm, comfortable friendship—much like a marriage, I suppose. But I know that if I asked him to he would leave his wife for me, no questions asked.
But I won’t ask him, or anybody else, and it’s not out of any misplaced widow’s loyalty.
Dana taught me what it was like to be loved, to be equal. But Charles taught me how to be alone, long before I ever wanted to be.
But now, I do. Now, I’m ready.
I turn back toward land; the airplane has no radio, of course, so there’s no way for me to be in contact with anyone on the ground. And unlike Charles, I want to be. Charles was of the air, but I am of the earth. Most of us are.
I’ll never forget what he taught me. I’ll never be rid of his legacy; for the rest of my life, I know, I’ll be invited to dedicate statues, airports, schools, in his name.
I will take my duties seriously, just as seriously as I once navigated as his crew. I will be the bridge between who Charles was, and who he was assumed to be. The keeper of the flame. The guardian of his reputation, for much of it deserves to be remembered. And it’s up to me, as the aviator’s wife who was once an ambassador’s daughter, to decide how much.
I will go wherever I’m invited, whenever I’m asked in his name, alone. I will leave there, alone.
I will fly, alone. Wearing my own pair of goggles, my view of the world just as unique, just as wonderful, as his was, but different. Mine.
Alone.
The horizon is blurring into the darkening sky, and I need to get back, before the day is gone. There are people back on the ground, waiting for me.
But if I don’t get back before the sun sets, I can always look to the sky and navigate by the stars. That is one of the many things he taught me, back when I longed to be taught. If I ever get lost now, on my own, I won’t panic, I won’t flail. I know how to find Polaris, and I can always steer by that.
For it is the one star in the sky whose bright, unwavering gaze reminds me most of him.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
WHEN I FIRST HAD THE IDEA TO WRITE a novel about Anne Lindbergh, I found that people all had the same reaction: a gasp of recognition, followed by the inevitable, “Oh, I
So I went off to write the book—and ponder the question that wouldn’t let me sleep at night as I began to corral all the research into a manageable novel: “Just what
There’s the name recognition, of course; everyone has heard of them, from either history books or their collective body of writing. But as I began to assemble the threads of the story I wanted to tell, I realized that while everyone has heard of Anne Lindbergh, the nature of that recognition varies widely. The majority of people know vaguely about Charles’s importance in the history of aviation, but not many really understand the astonishing
