Aviators

The tapping of John’s cane echoed in the cool morning air. Ada threw aside the drape and waved. He paused to nod at her and smile, his full mustache quivering upward. Ada’s heart skipped painfully as her eyes followed his halting steps toward town.

She had been so harsh in her silent criticism of him, so quick to call him weak and faint‑hearted. She bowed her head, resting it against the frosted windowpane. She felt bullied by the current of emotions that ran hot and swift. She had come to understand so much about herself, so much about them all. She thought she might have preferred her ignorance, to have loved them without pain or guilt.

Slowly, as if she herself were crippled, she edged her way into the kitchen and retrieved Rodger’s letter. Her pounding heart finally eased as she settled herself comfortably at her sewing machine. She took a seam ripper and tore the envelope open.

The rain began. The wind picked up the shutters, slamming them against the house. Ada jumped up, spilling pages upon the floor.

She rushed about, grabbing at her coat and overshoes, flinging herself outside into the storm. She struggled to get the ladder between the windows so that she could lean to one side and snatch the flapping shutters and hook them down. Although exasperated, she found an odd sort of pleasure in being outside with the warm rain pelting against her cheeks, streaking down her glasses, and dripping from her fingertips.

She worked her way around the house. Just she finished, the rain stopped and sunlight filled the yard. Ada cautiously eased down the ladder, wrestling it to the ground so that it lay against the house. She paused in a pool of sunlight and peered through her glasses, raindrops catching colors from the light, distorting her vision.

Off a little ways, she saw John coming back from the bank. He inched down the sidewalk until he came to her gate and leaned against it.

Ada greeted him with a cheerful “Hello! I thought it was going to shower all day. But look!” she threw her hands high into the air. “Sunshine and rainbows.”

John’s smile soured. “Isn’t it funny how hard-pressed you can be to get one thing done, and a few minutes later, it doesn’t even matter?”

She shrugged. In spite of his ill-humor, she felt alive and magnanimous. “Won’t you come in for lunch? Maddie took the girls shopping.” She had come to him, the gate between them.

John straightened. “You mustn’t feel obligated to take care of me anymore, Ada,” he replied curtly.

She placed a hand on his forearm. “I’d love the company of a good man. I have a letter from Rodger.”

The wrinkles in his brow unfurled as the tension left his face. He pushed the gate open and followed her with labored steps into the house. She felt the warmth of their friendship spreading over her like a gossamer veil.

“Let’s sit out on the patio, shall we?”

John paused, leaning heavily against his cane. “Perhaps you would share a ripe tomato with me, my fair Eve.”

Ada held the door open for him. “You’d better be mindful of who you go about tempting, my friend. Your ribbing could be costly.”

John grunted. They laughed together as they went through the living room and out the kitchen door to the covered patio. Ada took tarps off the chairs and waited until he seated himself in his own awkward way.

“I’ll get the letter.” She hurried back into the sewing room, flinging off her overshoes and coat, and scooped up the pages.

She sat opposite John. He pointed the top of his cane at the garden.

“Ada, you’ve enough produce for the whole neighborhood.”

She laid the letter in the middle of the white wrought iron table. He turned to examine her.

“You really miss Rodger, don’t you?” He tapped the letter with the cane. “Anymore about those refugees he spoke of sending home?”

Ada licked her dry lips. “Rodger said that two new mechanics arrived, and he finalized the papers. I’ll know in just a few weeks when the arrival date is for Mary Elizabeth and her father, Lin…,” Ada grabbed the letter and scanned it, “LinChing. They should be on the next transport.” Ada looked carefully at John.

He leaned on his elbow across the table, whispering. “Do you really want them to live with you?” His eyebrows knitted together, emphasizing the deeply etched wrinkles. “You’re taking on quite a load. I sure hope you know what you’re doing.” He reached for her hand and held it.

She felt as if his words had hooked her, and he was reeling in the line ever so slowly.

She jerked upright. “Why don’t you like the idea?”

He held fast to her hand. “I’ve just lately realized how involved in our family you’ve become.”

Become! Become! She screamed inwardly. Rodger had sucked her into his life so long ago. She had nurtured him then, and would yet. Her anger dissipated suddenly. She had gotten as much as she had given; perhaps she had been a careless gardener, refusing to prune a prolific bush, letting her involvement with this family grow beyond sensible boundaries.

“Rodger and I always had our own kind of understanding, something that made our friendship special.” Maybe it was John’s candor and the warmth of his touch that made her rush on. “He was so much different from Stevie or Dan, so I don’t think it could have been a means of replacing anyone.” Ada stopped short. It was as if Madeline stood between them, judging them by their words.

“I honestly believe, Ada, Madeline wouldn’t have been able to cope with my weeks of recuperation without you.” He squeezed her hand. “Neither would I.”

Ada silently studied John’s long, sensitive hand upon her own.

“You’re so…,” he wavered, considering her for a moment, “generous.”

He went on as though he were discussing a fine point of an abstract. “Maddie’s hidden inside of herself, more layered.”

Like an onion, thought Ada.

Picturing Madeline as an onion made Ada chuckle. Then in trying to suppress it, she burst out in loud gasps of laughter. John sat shaking his head. He was so serious, making it all the funnier. Ada laughed until the tears spilled from her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hands, sobering up. John had turned away to stare at the upturned rows of weeded tomatoes and overgrown cornstalks.

Ada jumped up and walked briskly to the corn, plucking the top ears from five of the first row. She pulled up her apron, cradling the ears, and walked back to John.

“I’ll put these in a sack for you.” She leaned inside the door and took a bag. “You ought to pull your chair out into the sunshine and enjoy it.”

“I think I’ll go home and take a nap.” John shuffled towards back gate. He held the sack a little ways from his body, rocking on his cane. “Won’t you join us for supper?” Ada would have liked to reach out and steady him, but she must always pretend he was no different than the man he used to be. As he righted himself, he grimaced. Ada stepped away from him. She, too, grieved for him, for what could have been for them.

“No, thanks, John. I have the house to spring clean for my guests.”

She stood still, only turned her head sideways to watch him inch along the fence until he reached his own gate. Her phone began ringing, but she made no move to answer it until she saw Madeline’s car pull into the driveway and the girls tumble out, clamoring for their father.

She didn’t hurry as she usually would have done. When she finally picked up the receiver and heard Kyle’s voice, rivulets of shock coursed throughout her body.

He paused. There was an embarrassing long moment before she could answer him. Chicago would be a whole day’s venture.

“I’d love to go. I’ll be ready.”

She hung up the phone and paced the kitchen. Then she went to the bedroom and flung the closet doors wide, pulling out dresses and shaking them. “No, this one will never do,” she scolded.

In the midst of the culling, she stopped. She was committed to spending tomorrow with John and the girls!

Crumpling her favorite dress against her, a gauzy, voile floral in red and brown tones, she sat upon the bed pondering her dilemma. She shouldn’t worry about Madeline’s reaction.

It was John she would hurt. And for a moment that was more than she could imagine doing.

“I should have said no, damn it!” The sound of her own voice echoing down the hall, disrupting the silence, disconcerted her. The clock pealed five.

With sudden firm resolve, Ada raced to the kitchen phone and dialed Madeline.

“Maddie, how are you? I have to let you know that I’ve had a change of…”

“Oh, Ada, I’m so glad you called! We’ve gotten the cabin on the lake for a long weekend. John, the girls, and I are leaving after supper. I hope you don’t mind?”

Ada could barely contain her delight. “No! I think that’s wonderful!” She wondered if Kyle had arranged that. “Do you need extra bedding?”

“Oh, heavens, no! You’re always so kind!” Madeline’s words rushed out. “So much to do, I really must run. Thanks ever so much, Ada.”

Ada replaced the receiver and clapped her hands. “Voilà!” she sang out loud, tripping lightly across the floor into her sewing room. “What this lady needs is a new dress!”

She rummaged through her fabrics until she came upon a bolt of unused lavender chintz printed with violet and crimson swirls. She took to her bedroom and held it up to examine her reflection in the full‑length mirror. She touched her cheek. With a bit of rouge and a touch of lipstick, it would go well with her graying hair.

She laid out the cloth, began cutting, methodically working until midnight tolled. She was done. Satisfied and happy with herself, she slid between the sheets and immediately fell asleep.

The morning hours vanished. Ada re-pinned her topknot and applied a little more Raspberry Kissproof Indelible Lipstick ™ just as she heard Kyle’s two short raps on the front screen door. As she greeted him, she quelled the nervousness in her voice.

“Did you order this beautiful morning, Colonel Mansard?”

Kyle stood holding open the screen door. “It would seem if anyone could command this, you might, Ada.”

In a moment of horrible silence, they stared at each other. Ada had a chance to study his face for the first time and take in just how well-proportioned his features were, without blemish or scar, and how his gray-streaked hair lay short and neat. His crystal-blue eyes were highlighted by his walnut‑hued tan.

Immediately self‑conscious, Ada looked down at the floor, unable to stifle a giggle. She felt as though she had sidestepped her real self to become Cinderella. Kyle touched her arm and they moved off together toward the car.

“You look lovely, Ada. I better tell you that while I’m thinking of it. I’m much better at commanding than I am complimenting.”

It was a strange admission, leaving Ada without any rejoinder. One beat off, she managed, “Thank you.”

Time slowed, but as Ada watched the snapping images of countryside flash past, she felt serene. Idle thoughts drifted through her consciousness. Kyle said little on the way to Chicago, which suited her. She enjoyed being in the company of this self-possessed man, who reminded her of Rodger in so many ways.

He pulled out into the main stream of traffic. “Would you like to go to the Art Institute? I checked and they have a limited collection for viewing.”

The hours they spent wending through the corridors went too quickly. Ada didn’t feel any need for small talk, just a comment or two, a few vague generalizations about the Impressionists as they toured. She tried to watch him through sidelong glances, wondering if his long, intense look meant a judgment upon her.

As they were leaving through the doors, they were momentarily separated, Ada pushed off to the side while Kyle pressed onward with the crowd. She spotted him by one of the bronze lions. His head twisted from side to side, and the alarmed expression on his face pleased her. When he caught her eyes, he motioned her to come to him. Waiting for a break between the huddled mass of people, Ada exhaled deeply and willed herself to relax.

“God! for a moment I thought I’d lost you to some avant‑garde painter in there!”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I think I belong in Rubens’ era.”

He twined her arm over his, bent close to her face. “Don’t you find something alive in the turn‑of‑the‑century artists? Like an expression of dissatisfaction with the status‑quo?”

She sucked in a deep breath, vainly searching for an answer. She could only reply with the truth. “I’m afraid that you have gone beyond my simple understanding of art. I liked maybe two of those hundreds of paintings.”

That seemed to have pleased him as he hugged her arm to him. “Well, my dear, perhaps you are the discriminating sort of connoisseur.”

They were strolling along the sidewalk, arm in arm. His arm felt solid and strong beneath his uniform.

They passed by the Hutchinson Wing. Kyle stopped. “Shall we eat lunch at the garden restaurant?”

The sun shone brightly; there were smiling faces all around. “That would be lovely.” Ada smiled and upon being seated, discreetly slipped out of her shoes.

Kyle wiped his face with the linen napkin and set it beside his plate. “Would you like to walk up Burnham Park?”

Ada raised her index finger. The moments were slipping by too fast. “One more cup of coffee, please.”

The waiter appeared at her elbow. He poured coffee and cleared away the plates.

“We’d better take the car.” Kyle had evidently spied her shoes off. “I must remember we’re not on a company hike.”

Ada worked her shoes around so that she could stuff her swollen feet into them. She was glad to get back to the car and savored the respite before they started walking up 56th Street. They were drifting together in their silence.

Kyle halted, easing her hand into his. “Look, Ada, the park has rowboats. Are you game for a short glide upon the lake?”

Laughing, she nodded, picking up the tempo of their walk. As she stood aside while Kyle arranged for the small, wooden boat, shivers raced up her spine. She frowned down at her new dress. She would have to step carefully and seat herself prudently.

She caught the strains of someone lowly humming “In the Good Ole Summertime,” and looked to see it was Kyle. He had extended his arm for her. Grinning, she exaggerated her movements, throwing her head high as if adorned with a wide‑brimmed hat and arranging her make‑believe parasol.

Wordlessly they positioned themselves. Ada found herself charmed by this man. But, perhaps she had made this outing into something more promising than it actually was.

“Dark thoughts crease the brow of my lady.” Kyle set the oars so that the boat flowed effortlessly in the water along a straight path.

“I was thinking of Rodger. Sometimes I feel like I’ve lost him, that I only know the boy and not the man.” Had she said too much? Perhaps she assumed that he knew Rodger better than he did.

Kyle looked at her intently. “I thought it awfully curious that he would ask you to take in those foreigners. It seems a bit much. Or is it?”

He had gotten to the core of her concern.

“No, not entirely. Rodger can trust me. He knows that I will love that Chinese man and his daughter simply because he does. I don’t know if I’m flattered or what.” She burst out suddenly, “But I know that I am confused.”

She had said too much. Kyle looked long and with knitted eyebrows at her.

“I don’t what it is, but I can’t make myself clean up the bedrooms.”

“Are you jealous?” Kyle arched an eyebrow. “You haven’t had to share so much of Rodger’s affection before.”

Ada looked at him, horrified. How would he know so much about her relationship with Rodger except through Madeline?

Kyle leaned forward, his eyebrows knitted together. “I didn’t mean to be presumptuous, Ada. Rodger told me you were more a mother to him in a lot of ways than Madeline.” He picked up the oars and began to row. “I’m not making a judgment on Maddie, but there is no love lost between the two of them.”

The three of them. The thought flashed through Ada’s head, along with instantaneous guilt. She blushed. Tears welled up in her eyes, so that she averted her face from Kyle, looking toward the shoreline where the children played.

She struggled to keep the tears out of her voice. “Maddie had her hands full with the babies. She found Rodger a difficult child.” She gestured to the mothers and children on shore. “It was lucky for us all that I lived next door.”

“Lucky indeed for Rodger. It is too bad that he and John had a falling out. John thinks it’s over that incident with the Cajun man, Big Red.”

Ada was taken aback. These little facts so innocently spoken were like great waves upending her. Maybe Fate sandwiched messages in chance meetings.

She forced herself to meet Kyle’s penetrating stare. Coolly, she managed, “I’m sure it isn’t about that.” Kyle shrugged, waiting for her to continue. “Perhaps it has more to do with John’s guilt than Rodger’s indifference.”

Ada brushed her hand across her lap, wanting to get past this. “Rodger still writes home often enough. He’s trying to get leave to come home. I’ll drop a hint or two in my next letter that he might write more often to John.”

“Soon Ada.” Kyle heaved the oars, as if to emphasize his warning. “I don’t think John has time on his side.”

Anger rose in Ada, retorts tumbling one over the other. The doctors had been optimistic about John’s recovery. Everyone said he had begun to look like his old self. How could Kyle be so arrogant as to think he knew so much more than anyone else? But with a jolt, she realized Kyle had verbalized her innermost fear.

The sun, nesting behind a twilight cloud, burst forth, dazzling Ada. She placed a hand to shield her eyes, to no avail. It brought to mind Tiresis, the blind Greek soothsayer, the reluctant teller of truth. She leaned forward as Kyle steered the boat toward the shore.

“Have you noticed the gorgeous sunset?”

“Yes, but it’s merely landscape to compliment you.”

Ada blushed, conscious of his stare. She closed her eyes, imagining the pastel sky overhead. Ever so low came Kyle’s humming again. She could play his lady, if only for the night. It would be easy, should they lay the truth to one side and bare only their naked bodies. What would there be for them but a night walk through a graveyard of half‑dead desires?

She feared he was more than a man who sought gratification of his lust; he extracted something from those around him, though they be willing or not. Knowing this, she need not be his victim. But should he want more from her, oh! if he asked her a Tiresisian question! She would be bound to tell him the truth, ripping away the façade. Right now she could at least have this man, though he would not stay. It wasn’t that she didn’t need more from him, but she wouldn’t ask. Desire gnawed at her and, in his presence, grew to an overwhelming passion to have him.

She would fulfill a fantasy and be nothing more. For too many years she had used her memories to pad the sharp edges of reality. Indulging in memories was like sitting down before a banquet of waxed foods—so appetizing, yet unable to satisfy one’s hunger. It might be a sin to indulge her carnal appetite, but right or wrong, she was starving.

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The whole crew and LinChing lolled about the front room. Rodger stared at the war-savaged countryside through the kitchen window, aching hands clasped behind his back. He shook out his arms, flexing his fingers before turning towards Mary Elizabeth. She went about her kitchen chores ignoring him.

He cleared his throat; the muscles in her back twitched.

“Mary Elizabeth!” he demanded. “We have to talk.”

She jerked around, a wide‑eyed look distorting her pretty features. She shook her head, wringing the tattered dish towel in her hands.

“No. Must clean up breakfast. Maybe later.”

“Mary Elizabeth, now.” He could see she was not going to budge. “We’ll talk here, then.”

She remained standing in the same spot, her head bent, eyes fixed on her wriggling toes.

“All right,” Rodger moved around so that he blocked off her view of the front room. “I’ve made arrangements for you to stay with the nice nuns at Tiandong.”

Mary Elizabeth recoiled like he had slapped her. He reached out to her, but she would not let him touch her.

“We’ll come and visit you—at least once a week.” Rodger swallowed hard. “And your father, too, as often as he wants.”

Without lifting her head, she murmured, “No. I must stay here. Have work to do. You go ’way now.” The dish towel dangled from her hand.

Rodger reached over and pulled her wrist. He bent over so that he was face to face with her and whispered savagely, “I can’t let you die in this God‑forsaken hovel! You’re going, and that’s all there is to it!”

She wrested free, surprising him with her violent strength. Her black eyes blacker, she snarled, showing even white teeth as she hissed, “I not go. This is my home here. Get the hell outta here yourself!”

LinChing had slipped through the doorway and stood beside Rodger. He placed a restraining hand on Mary Elizabeth’s shoulder, speaking softly to her in Chinese. Still she protested, until the sounds of “no…no…no” dissolved into a wrenching sob. She threw off her father’s hand, pushed between them, and flung herself into her bedroom. The furious echoes of her slamming door caused each man’s head to snap up.

Rodger slumped against the door frame. LinChing touched his arm. “All right. I see to her. We’ll be ready in one hour.”

Rodger glanced at his watch, considering that it would be almost noon before they left and nodded. “I’ll help if you want.”

“No. We need no help.”

The words stung. He felt drained, emptied, except for his anger. He wanted to undo what he had just done and bring them all back into harmony. There was movement behind him as the men in the room busied themselves, hurriedly starting a poker game. Rodger stomped off to his bunk and packed his knapsack with overnight gear.

LinChing had slipped into Mary Elizabeth’s bedroom. The door eased open, and he dropped a bundle onto the floor. What few possessions the child had peeked through holes of a ragged sheet. Rodger thought of his sisters with armloads of doll clothes that couldn’t be stuffed into a single suitcase.

Out from the dark interior of Mary Elizabeth’s room whizzed a flying object. Only when it plopped against the chair next to Jimmy did the men recognize the missile as Mary Elizabeth’s doll.

Jimmy picked it up, holding it gingerly, as if it were imbued with life. Mary Elizabeth appeared, staring at them all fiercely. Her reddened eyes, swollen cheeks, and disheveled hair gave her the appearance of an exotic, caged bird on the verge of an escape.

Jimmy and Ted beckoned her. Ignoring them, she went to stand beside her father, not touching him, her head bowed so that her hair cascaded over her shoulders and covered her face.

Rodger walked over and jerked the doll from Jimmy’s hands and stood in front of Mary Elizabeth. He gently squeezed her shoulder until she looked up.

“We’re going to put her here on this shelf. That way, no one enters or leaves this house without your blessings. Just like when we leave the debriefing room.”

He slowly stepped over to the shelves and put the doll, with its grimy face and threadbare dress, on the end of the middle shelf, ever watchful of the kitchen and front door.

“Now it won’t seem like you’re away at all.”

She watched him. A smile played about her lips, softening her despondent countenance. A spurt of hope ran through Rodger.

With a toss of her head, she pointed to the doll and, locking eyes with Rodger, said in a beguiling voice, “I stay. Send the doll.”

The room exploded with laughter. Rodger embraced Mary Elizabeth, smoothing down her hair, brushing away the bangs so that he could kiss her forehead with a loud smack.

All the men ringed around her, each giving her a brief and solemn kiss good‑bye. Jimmy patted her head, then his large hands cupped around her face as he kissed her cheek. Ted held his hand open, palm up, offering her a pack of gum.

Mary Elizabeth paused, pinched the green foil pack in her right hand, then bent and kissed Ted’s palm. She faced Rodger, an outstretched hand before him.

“Please, give back ivory marble.”

Reluctantly, Rodger dug into his pocket, pulling out the marble, fingering the intricate design a last time before handing it to her.

“Thank you very much.”

Much to his surprise she kept it gripped tightly in her hand. Then she pirouetted and quickly left through the front door to climb into the jeep Rodger had parked out front. A group of Chinese workers squatted along the side of the building watching the drama play out wordlessly, smoking pipes, the sweet smell of tobacco and opium wafting in heat waves streaming off the ground.

LinChing scooped up the tattered bundle and followed. Weary, Rodger hefted his knapsack over his shoulder and made the V sign to the men in the room as he left.

As he drove, Rodger looked over to LinChing and Mary Elizabeth. No one spoke. LinChing’s long hair, done in a queue, swayed as they bounced along and Mary Elizabeth sat upright with the wind whipping her hair into a tangled mess. The hot dust choked them and the sun poured mercilessly over them. Rodger weaved around the potholes and planted land mines.

Two hours later with the late afternoon sun behind them, they approached the mission from the backside, where the garden and courtyard lay. Rodger leaned back into his seat, slowing the jeep and pointed. “Look at it. Isn’t it beautiful? I mean, look at it! They’ve done a hell of a job making something beautiful here.”

He eased the jeep to a full stop in front of the mission. He waved as he saw Father McBride and felt some of the tension lighten as the tall man smiled and waved back.

Father McBride walked briskly over to the jeep. “Good day.” He shook hands with Rodger and bowed his head to Mary Elizabeth and LinChing. “Honorable guests.”

Like Chinese fire dogs, the two nuns guarded the doorway, silently observing them. Mary Elizabeth turned sideways when Rodger introduced her. LinChing tugged at her, but she edged behind his back.

Rodger growled at her. “Let’s go look at the garden.”

They waited for her, but she would not move. Rodger took her hand and pulled her along, through the gate to the lush enclosure. Sunlight played through the thick and overgrown leaves; lengthening shadows danced on the swept dirt path. The pungent perfume of flowers and the buzzing insects stirred the air as they moved along.

The feeling of dread that had dogged Rodger lifted, freeing him from Mary Elizabeth’s overbearing presence in his thoughts. LinChing spoke to her in soothing, lyrical tones, but she would not respond. Rodger figured Mary Elizabeth might thrive with the beauty of this garden and the attention of these good people and have a little bit of security here. If only she would give an inch. Perhaps Father McBride could get through to her. At least Rodger hoped the kind-hearted man might work his own small miracle with this sullen child.

“Sister Grace and Sister Pearl have fixed us supper.”

Father McBride waved them into the mission, past the nuns with hands shielding their smiles. “They have grown the rice and vegetables, tended a garden of what you might call ‘a blessing of necessity.’”

Rodger appreciated the wry humor of the grey‑haired priest and was disappointed when Father McBride didn’t join them for supper as they sat at a wooden table with benches in a sparsely furnished room. Rodger noticed immediately how the polished wood shone and the floors showed only the tracks of their dusty shoes.

“This place is really nice and clean.” He smiled broadly at the nuns who blinked at him without any discernible expressions as they placed the platters of roasted onions, peas, eggplant and steamed rice upon the table. “I’m impressed. The food is great! Mary Elizabeth, maybe the nuns will let you cook for them, too!”

He was exasperated trying to elicit any response from this motley group, crowded around a small, rectangular, roughly built table. After the simple meal was blessed twice with words he could not comprehend, they ate in silence.

Mary Elizabeth sat before her plate, one hand holding onto chopsticks, her other hand staying clenched in her lap. Rodger tried to catch her eye to wink at her, but she would not look up.

LinChing spoke after a bit in Chinese to the nuns. Smiling at him, the sisters began to clear the dishes, leaving the still laden plate before Mary Elizabeth.

Father McBride appeared in the doorway. “Major Brown, why don’t we go into my office while Sisters Grace and Pearl show LinChing and Mary Elizabeth to their rooms.”

With welcome release, Rodger followed the priest into a cramped room, divided down the middle by pale sunlight pouring in from an uncurtained window. Father McBride sat down at a battered wooden desk and pointed to a lumpy, green easy chair “Have a seat, Major.” He extracted a bottle of whiskey with two mismatched jelly jars from the bottom desk drawer. “Would you care for a shot of whiskey?”

“Yes, but…” Before Rodger had a chance to finish, Father McBride had poured the liquor and shoved the glass toward him. Leaning across the desk, he offered a cigar from a nearly empty wooden box.

Rodger rolled the cigar between his fingers. “New method of conversion?”

“Just since I’ve been here.” Father McBride drummed his fingers on the desk top. “Small pleasures.”

He turned in his chair and stared out the window. “It’s the stark contrasts that drive a person crazy. The beauty and the war. You try to live as if nothing unusual is going on around you, but tomorrow you know you could be dead. And you have so very little choice or say in the whole matter.”

He faced Rodger again. “I suppose you of all people know what I mean.”

“No, Father, I don’t. I chose to be here. There’s a big difference.”

The priest edged his glasses off, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t get a choice, I was assigned here.” He shrugged. “I shouldn’t have made waves. At least not in papal waters.”

“Over here, it could be a tidal wave before any of us gets wet. We’re pretty much out from underneath brass thumbs.”

“Major, the way I see it, God set up this game board, laid out the rules, and threw in a factor of chance—or free will—and divided his men into two teams of equal strength. The unknown reward is for the winners.”

“Father,” Rodger began as he sipped the whiskey, then leaned forward on the desk. “It’s a poker game, at best. Win, lose or draw, it’s a matter of luck and a little skill. You bet against the odds that you’ll lose your life.”

“But the rules, Major. Even your game has rules.”

“Well, hell, even the good players break a rule now and then,” Rodger swallowed the rest of his whiskey. “Sometimes the pay‑off’s worth it.”

Smiling into the last of his whiskey, Father McBride drawled, “And I’ll wager sometimes it’s not.”

A rustling outside announced that the nuns were making preparations for bed. Rodger stood, extending his hand.

“I’ll not keep the good sisters waiting up for me. I have a feeling they’d stand there all night until I was ready to be shown my room.”

“Do you play chess?” Father McBride pointed over to a corner where grey dusky shadows fell across a small table set with an ivory board and chessmen.

“Yes, some. But the sisters…” Rodger arched an eyebrow toward the door.

“I’ll see to it. Why don’t you set up the board?”

As Rodger finished arranging the chairs at the table, Father McBride padded in and sat down. Rodger swiveled the board around so that the right‑hand corner squares were white.

“Strictly by the book, eh, Major?” Father McBride scraped his chair closer to the table, his owl‑like eyes wider in surprise.

Rodger paused, enjoying the unsettling effect he had on the priest. “Playing by the rules makes the victory sweeter.”

“You choose your color, Major.”

“I’ll be Black, you’ll be White.”

Rubbing his hands together and smiling broadly, Father McBride replied, “It’s amazing how everyday things can be read as symbolic. Let us begin the battle.”

The first seven moves, Rodger played it safe, or seemingly so. Father McBride played skillfully, once in a while eyeing Rodger severely.

At one point, Father McBride whispered, “J’adoube,” then reached over and straightened his Queen.

On the eleventh move Rodger lost his Bishop. Father McBride waved a long, gnarled finger at him, admonishing,
“Prudence, young man, prudence!”

By the twenty‑second move, Rodger had sacrificed his two Rooks, then forced Father McBride into taking the Black Queen. That left Rodger with a single Pawn and checkmate. Father McBride sat back against the chair, stunned.

“So you see, Father, prudence doesn’t always win the game,” Rodger leaned back, stifling a yawn. “I admire your skill and judgment, though. You gave me a run for my money.”

“And you, Major, sacrificed all your men for the ultimate victory—on a long shot I’d play it close, too. You’ll end up a general before too long.” Father McBride stretched, his bones cracked audibly. “Shall we retire?”

“Another game next time,” Rodger offered his hand to Father McBride. “I’ll be bringing LinChing as often as possible to see Mary Elizabeth.”

“Yes, yes. Goodnight.” Father McBride released his grip on Rodger’s hand.

Customarily, Rodger knew, the men would sleep in separate rooms away from the main quarters. As he walked down the corridor, Sister Grace fell in step with him. He pointed to a room he presumed was Mary Elizabeth’s, raised an eyebrow, and stopped before the door. Sister Grace shook her head sternly. Rodger ignored her frown and tipped the door open.

Mary Elizabeth sat huddled in the corner on a mattress, hands clasped about her knees, head bent into her folded arms, rocking herself back and forth. She seemed, in a way, to be meditating.

“Goodnight, Bright Eyes.” Rodger shut the door, moving quickly away from her room into his own. Her eerie silence had unnerved him.

He had a hard time closing off his mind from the last image of her. All through the night he dreamed of desperately crawling through one tunnel after another, never finding the end. He awoke before full break of dawn, glad to shake off the nightmare.

He shaved, then searched until he found LinChing. LinChing sat deep in meditation on the patio ground. Rodger hesitated, remaining still until LinChing stirred, then eased himself down onto the ground as quietly as possible.

“Do you think we can move out early?”

He should have noticed the difference in LinChing’s demeanor: his total composure, his smooth brow and his pursed lips should have been the tip-off.

“I must stay with her.”

“Look, I know it’s tough for you. And her. But, without a mechanic, we’re grounded. You know that.”

LinChing raised his arm, then let it fall. “For her, sun will set and eternal night come.”

Rodger could chew that kind of logic to bits and spit it out right between LinChing’s eyes. He stood.

Towering over LinChing, he murmured, “I’ll be back in three days to get you.” He stepped away. “Tell her I’ll bring her something.”

He bolted down his breakfast of hard crusted bread and coffee. Father McBride and the nuns were weeding the garden when he looked out the kitchen window. He acknowledged them with a wave that he was leaving. He snatched his knapsack and left. Alone, Rodger drove fast and recklessly the next two hours back to the base. The mid‑morning heat sucked away his perspiration. He forced his thoughts on the next sortie, getting off the ground, into battle.

Gunfire rumbled in the background, making Rodger uneasy. Orders meant nothing to outlaw flyers, to Aces. Especially to someone like McGree.

Rodger leaped from the jeep and sprinted to the revetments. Two planes gone. McGree and Summers.

Rodger let the door slam behind him. Jimmy sprung out of his bunk, ready on the defensive.

“What the hell are they doing?” Rodger boomed.

“Uh, sir, McGree’s out. Uh,” Jimmy ran his hand through his hair, “Will an’ Ted went out just after you all left. Summers bought it.”

“Damn.” Rodger turned away. “I can’t leave any one of you bastards for a minute that you don’t think you’re bigger and better than God Almighty.” Rodger threw his gear down.
“So what the hell is McGree doing?”

“Lookin’ for spare parts from Summers’ plane.” Jimmy shifted from one foot to the other. “We’re gonna pick ’em up late tonight.”

Rodger heard McGree’s plane rumble in. “Tell him I want to see him immediately.”

“Yes, sir.” Jimmy hastily put on pants and ran outside.

When McGree ambled through the door, Rodger looked up from the maps spread across the table. “This better be good.”

“Well, sir, it was pretty routine up ’til we got to where the convoy was crossin’ the French-Indochina side. We sorta cleared the ground area. Nothin’ in sight—no planes or heavy stuff. Then three Nates came outta nowhere. It got pretty hectic, ya know, three against two. I got on Summers’ left wing. But one Jap stayed on our tails. I figure Summers was dead before he smoked out.”

“How is it you managed to evade three planes?” Rodger punched his pencil through his fingers.

“Flat out flew ’em”

“Did any follow you back here?”

“No, sir! I did some switchbacks.”

Rodger scrutinized McGree’s face, wanting to find a sign, any sign of a discrepancy. McGree was a crack flyer in a P‑40, but headstrong and heartless.

“Damned careless. No planning, no back‑up.”

Rodger tapped the pencil on the map. It was more likely McGree and Summers had gone their separate ways looking for their own sandbox to play in. Rodger gave up, knowing it was a futile attempt to convince McGree that everyone had to be a keeper of sorts. Out here, it was like running with a pack of wild dogs; God help the fallen leader.

“Find Summers’ plane while you were out there?”

“Yes, sir. Jimmy and me are gonna go out after dark for parts.”

“Not out of bounds, is it?”

“No, sir.” McGree stared back at Rodger.

Lying. Rodger knew it.

It would be risky taking the planes up without LinChing here, but Rodger hesitated only for a moment. “You and Jimmy fly wingman to me and Steve. We’re gonna have a looksee at the countryside.”

Rodger suited up. He checked his .45 automatic, fingered the leg‑zippered pocket for his knife, his side for a smaller pistol. He wondered if he could really use it if his plane were downed. It would just depend. But it was damned reassuring.

Rodger led the way to the revetments, shouting and waving away the coolies. Like a swarm of locust, they scattered.

“Off the field!”

Each pilot did a preflight, climbed aboard and taxied into position. The roars of engines deafened all other noises, and the violent vibrations were like a tuning process for Rodger that brought him and his plane in harmony. Pushing the throttle forward, he nosed the fine body around to face the wind. At the point of separation, the ground trailing underneath the wheels and wings, his head lightened, each thought riveted on flying. He felt like an eagle on wing.

Off to his left, Steve joined him. Maintaining radio silence, they flashed each other an “okay” hand signal.

Long stretches of the countryside showed no signs of wartime activity. The teeming vegetation was interrupted only by patches of rice paddies where short, bow‑legged men, women and children bent low to harvest crops.

At the sounds of their low‑flying planes, mothers on the run scooped up babies and tied them onto their backs. As Rodger and Steve flew past, they moved back into the fields.

“Damn,” Rodger swore under his breath. It meant these people recognized American planes.

It wasn’t much of a mission. There was no air warfare. Back on the ground, Rodger could almost touch the frustration in his men. They all wanted action. Any action. He suspected more than ever that McGree and Summers had created some of their own.

Under the black, cloudy night, the Japanese raided their base. Except for Will and Jimmy, none of the other Tigers made it to his plane in time to get into the air. The two airmen returned shortly after midnight. No one was hurt, but irreparable damage had been done to the buildings.

The men milled about, cursing at one another and the sky overhead. Rodger inspected the minor damages done to the planes. They would have to pack up and move.

Rodger would have to make LinChing leave Mary Elizabeth and return to base. He needed his best mechanic.

Pointing to an area map inside what was left of the briefing room, Rodger stabbed at a spot that was Bose, forty‑five minutes from Tiandong. “Like it or not,” he spoke harshly aloud, “LinChing comes back.” He assigned a crew to go set up a new base.

McGree hefted a crate, shifting his weight to turn around. “Tell him we got spare parts. From Ted’s plane.”

Rodger glared at McGree. His last sortie with Summers had been responsible for the Japs finding them. He had led them right here.

“Some peace offering that is,” Rodger grumbled. But at the moment, it was all he had to offer the old man.

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“Ada?” Adele’s cool voice echoed through the phone.

“Yes,” Ada answered, fearful without knowing why. “I was just outside watering. These afternoons are too nice to be inside.” She gave a breathless laugh, hoping to dispel her anxiety.

Adele paused. “Ada,” a silence that cut Ada in two, “it’s John. He’s had a stroke.”

Ada gasped, “My God! No!” She reached out toward the window that faced John’s house. “When? How is he?”

“Early this morning. He’s in intensive care.” Another pause. “I’ve got Heather and Rachel with me. Dr. Richards is confident that John will be coming home soon. He mentioned to Madeline that you had been trained as a nurse in homecare.”

Ada steadied herself against the doorjamb. “Yes, I worked for a while. When Steve and Dan were alive.” She didn’t mean to bring them into this. “I wouldn’t know what to do anymore.”

“I think Madeline needs the reassurance more than anything, Ada.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m not very helpful.”

Ada nodded, though she knew Adele could not see her. But she could visualize Adele: eight months pregnant, the beginnings of being uncomfortable, yet the awakening of the spiritual bond between mother and child, between the giver and given. No, what Adele did not realize is that Madeline would need her, too.

Like a weight of chains, Ada felt a bond of sisterhood with Madeline. “I’ll go over to the hospital right away and talk to the doctor and Madeline.”

After she hung up, she stood immobilized. Hearing the mailman’s rustling on her porch, she forced herself to move. She retrieved the bundle of mail, and without looking through them, let the letters drop upon her dresser top.

She drove with care, aware that she must anchor herself in reality and not let her fear undo her sensibility. Meeting with Dr. Richards, she remained calm and felt the emergence of her other self that could cope, the other woman of her that could push aside all feelings and do the job at hand.
She walked through the day, talking and soothing, arranging and ordering for Madeline and John. She committed herself to them; reluctantly, she agreed to come to the house and be his caretaker. Madeline, dry‑eyed but showing strain in the taut pull of her lips and stiff carriage, left Ada at the hospital to talk with Dr. Richards about the particulars.

Ada edged gingerly into the room where John lay stretched beneath the white sheets, looking peaceful in his sleep. Tubes criss‑crossed his nose and over his arms; yet he seemed as if any moment he might wake and laugh at the incongruity of this cruel joke.

Ada touched his cheek, but he did not awaken.

“Oh, John, John,” she murmured, easing away from him.

At his door, she stopped, pressed her hands over her eyes to wipe away the tears, and walked down the bright sterile hallway, out the doors and to her car. She could not remember any particulars driving home, only the surprise that she sat in her car parked in her driveway.

She slammed the car door shut, fumbled for her door key and finally stood alone in her bedroom. She flung her car keys and purse onto the bureau. A letter from Rodger snagged her attention. She picked it up and hugged it to her, plopping onto the crazy‑patch quilt, patterns of her mother and grandmother so lovingly sewn by the fireside, and broke the letter’s seal.

Rodger’s words described a strange, frightening land where bombs blew up and people died. As the fading daylight blurred the words on the last page, Ada shivered. Could she take in two foreigners? she wondered. Could she do that much for Rodger? A little twelve‑year-old girl and her aging father? Ada’s hands began to tremble, and the tears smeared the words on the paper.

“Give me time to think about it,” she whispered. “Just a little time.”

Through the next week, Adele, Madeline and the girls occupied Ada’s time, so much that she put off writing to Rodger. Adele and Madeline had both written to him, leaving a space for Ada to think before she, too, sent him a letter. At last, one evening, she sat before the blank stationery and faced the question squarely.

“Yes,” she said simply after the first paragraph, “I would gladly have Mary Elizabeth and her father, LinChing, live with me.”

She wrote about the details of her life. John would be coming home in the morning, and during the day, she would be his caretaker until he was stronger. He had done remarkably well, recovering from his slight stroke. He might even go back to work in a month or so. Ada tapped the pen against her teeth.

I’ll be here for John if he needs me. Just like I’m here for Rodger.

With a flourish, she signed her name then added a postscript: “Don’t worry about us here at home.”

Folding the letter in thirds, she was overcome by melancholy. Maybe she should have left this town after Dan and Stevie were killed, gone and found a big city where she could lose herself in the crowds and faster pace of living. Instead she had chosen to stay cloistered in her house. And now she had Rodger and a circumspect life. Moments like these saddened her to think how easy she had come to be alone. She got up; it was so late, and she must be rested for tomorrow when John came home. As she turned out the lights, she felt herself fading, transfiguring into a spirit in a disarray of billowing white substance tracing down the hall, consecrating the house. She walked around her bedroom, unwilling to turn on the lights, feeling the room absorb her. She undressed in the dark and climbed naked into bed.

The room was too strange. She felt so alone with her things. Her dreams began swirling with confusing images of Rodger, Stevie and Dan, their faces and bodies intermixing.

She pulled herself away from them, forcing herself to awaken. Turning on the bedside light, she was surprised by the rivers of tears that blurred her sight.

This was her room. No trace of anyone. Just bits of sewing, unfinished projects, clothes needing to be ironed, shoes scattered about—hers, every room of this house was filled with her.

She quickly pulled on her long flannel nightgown. Although she fought sleep, it enclosed about her until the bright sun filtered through the slats of the blinds. Dust motes danced in the sunlight.

It must be late morning, thought Ada wildly. I must hurry.

Ada came in through the opened front door of the Brown’s house. She caught sight of Madeline as she settled John into his study which had been converted for his convalescence, then looked to see Adele standing alone at the top of the stair landing. Adele pointed to upstairs.

“The girls are still sleeping. The poor little ones. They don’t know what to think or do.”

Ada felt a surge of confidence as she met Adele in the living room. “It’s only going to be for a little while, Adele. You’ll see. John’s strong. Resilient.”

Adele smiled and patted Ada’s arm. “Come in the kitchen and I’ll show you what the drugstore delivered this morning.”

They were together in the kitchen arranging the medication, comfortable in one another’s company. Madeline’s sharp voice from the other room made them both stop short of their task.

“For heaven’s sake, John!”

Ada tensed. Adele turned awkwardly, steadying herself against the table. “I’ll go see if I can give Madeline a hand. Maybe you could bring John’s medication while I go get the girls up.”

Ada could only nod, careful to keep her back to Adele to hide her anxiety. She looked over her shoulder to watch the tall, well‑built woman leave the room. She wished she had the ease to move about these people so freely.

Ada came out into the hall at the sound of whispers. Looking up, she gave Rachel and Heather a small wave as they watched, huddled together at the top of the stairs, the frantic movements below them.

Adele, half-way up the stairs spoke with gentle authority. “Rachel, help Heather get dressed, and I’ll walk you two down to the library.”

Madeline bolted out of the study. Ada held out John’s medication, but Madeline had turned to Adele. “He’s impossible! He’s not sick enough to be nursed, but not well enough to be on his own!” She flicked her wrist at the study, as if she could dismiss the whole distressing matter.

“I’m sure it’s hard on a man who’s been used to being so active,” Ada began. Madeline’s hardened stare frightened Ada. She closed her hands about the vials and gave a low laugh low, hoping to draw the anger out of Maddie.

“Why don’t you get away for a spell. You deserve it. Adele and I will manage here.”

Adele nodded emphatically. “Yes, Maddie, go on. I’ll take the girls, and you go on to your bridge club.”

Madeline’s eyes were focused on the creaking door that inched open, exposing the outlines of table legs, the thick Oriental rug upon the shiny hardwood floor, and the plump raspberry velvet brocade couch where John lay.

“It’s been so trying these last few days!” Then snatching her gloves and purse, she rushed out the front door.

Adele sighed. Heather and Rachel came tripping down the stairs and waited with unblinking stares until Adele gathered them one in each arm. “Perhaps tomorrow the girls could have a little picnic with John in there. Let me know if he’s up to it, Ada.” She guided them to the front door. “Bye.”

John called from the study. “Ada?”

“Yes, John.” She picked up the tray with water jug and glass from the hall stand and moved carefully into the study.

“I brought news from Rodger. Would you like me to read it?” She handed John a fistful of pills and a glass of water.

John gulped down the pills and nodded. He swung his legs away from the cushions, pulling his robe taut around his middle. He motioned for Ada to sit close to him.

She sat down stiffly, tugging at her dress to cover her knees, and then fumbled with the pages, tearing the envelope as she took the letter out. John watched her, but Ada avoided his eyes and slipped on her reading glasses.

“He says it really has been quiet on the Chinese front. Not much action, except in the poker games.” She peered over her specs, meeting John’s twinkling eyes. “He says if he got as many strikes in the air as he does on the ground, he’d be the most decorated Ace around!”

She shuffled the pages. “He says right here, ‘Haven’t had much chance to write Dad. Trying to get leave to come home. Miss the bull sessions to discuss the good old times we never had.’ ”

Ada jerked upright when she realized what she had read. But John said nothing, waiting for her to continue and she did. “’Tell him I got a letter off to him. It left tomorrow.’”

Ada heard a sharp intake of breath, flinched, and looked over at John. To her surprise, he was chuckling.

“Here,” she handed him the letter, “why don’t you finish this while I get some tea?”

John hesitated before taking the letter. He looked searchingly at her. Flushed, she jumped up and headed for the kitchen. The doorbell rang, and in mid-stride, she turned around and grasped the knob, opening the door with a hearty yank.

A distinguished, silver‑headed, mustached older man in military uniform stood erect before her “My, God! What do you want?” she cried out.

He took a step back, peeking over his shoulder uncertainly. “I’ve come to see Madeline Brown. Have I gotten the wrong address?”

In sudden embarrassment, she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, no, excuse me. It’s just…that I thought…that…,” she stammered. “Well, they have a son, and…”

“No, ma’am, I don’t bring any bad news. At least not of that kind.”

Ada, relieved, dropped her sweaty hand from the door knob.

“I’m Kyle Mansard, Madeline’s brother. I’m sure she’s not expecting me, but if you would be so kind as to tell her I’m here?”

“Oh, no, she’s not here.”

“Then may I speak with Mr. Brown?” He had a tone that belied his impatience, and Ada got the distinct impression that he thought of her as hired help.

“Won’t you,” Ada hesitated, glancing away from his direct stare, then waving him into the living room, “come in and have a seat? I’ll tell John you’re here.”

The kettle was singing. Ada ushered the man into the living room, turning to inquire of him as he sat on the couch, “Would you like a cup of tea?” She began to collect her wits again.

“Yes, that would be very nice. With milk and sugar, if you please.”

Ada wanted to explain the circumstances to him, but the whistling teapot had an urgency she couldn’t ignore. That he thought of her as a housekeeper stung. She flung silverware and china onto the tray, telling herself to stay calm. She sat down on the opposite end of the couch from him and poured a cup of tea for each of them.

“Please excuse me, and I’ll go see if John is up to coming in here.” She didn’t understand the strange man’s quizzical expression. Surely Madeline would have written to her brother, but quite possibly he did not know. “Otherwise we’ll have to join him in the study.”

John had fallen asleep with the letter clutched tightly in his hand. His head was thrown back and Ada traced the outline of his face with her eyes. His hair lay askew, sticking straight up in the air in some places, but with his eyes closed and his mouth relaxed, he had lost the rigidity about his features that so aged him. He could have been a young man napping. With a dreadful sense of purpose, Ada returned to the living room.

“He’s sleeping. I shouldn’t like to disturb him—the doctor feels it’s so important for him to rest.”

Kyle’s teacup stopped in midair. “Has something happened to John?”

“You didn’t know? John had a very slight stroke. He’s being allowed to recuperate at home.”

Ada resented having to explain things to this man, but he waited, his persistent stare demanding more information.

“I’m qualified as a nurse in homecare.” Ada suddenly became aware of the nearly empty house.
“Adele is looking after the girls. And Madeline is away tending to some business.”

“Adele is here?” Setting his cup down, Kyle leaned closer to Ada. “And how is she getting along these days?”

Ada felt drawn in by honest, unblinking eyes. “Very well. The baby’s due the latter part of July, or first of next month.”

“My, God! Neither she nor Rodger wrote me of this!”

Ada, flustered, offered the first excuse that came to mind. “Perhaps the letters haven’t caught up to you, with everyone moving around these days.” She blushed, wanting to be away from this man. “Adele will be back soon from the library. She and the girls. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some things I must get done.”

“Oh, please go about your routine.” He pulled himself gracefully up from the couch, stretching. “I’ll amuse myself with magazines or this book.” He picked up a red-leather hardbound with its title obscured.

Ada returned to the kitchen and prepared a roast, rubbing spices of basil and sprinkling oregano liberally before she shoved it into the oven. The girls’ squeals could be heard as they came bounding through the front door, Adele trailing behind. Ada stopped at the kitchen doorway just as Rachel halted in mid‑stride when she sighted the strange man; Heather, right behind her, couldn’t stop and plowed into her. Both girls tumbled into a heap before the bemused eyes of their uncle. Ada laughed with him at the sight of tangled arms and legs.

John called out. “Ada! What is it?”

She went to the study, leaving Adele in Kyle’s embrace. She collected John, who leaned heavily against her as they walked awkwardly out to the front room. Rachel and Heather were pressed against the kitchen door frame, eyeing them like two surprised fawns.

Hunched over his cane, with an awkward grace, John extended his free hand. “Kyle, long time. How are you?”

“Fine, fine.” Kyle took John’s hand in his and pumped it, letting it go abruptly. “It appears you’re not.”

“Oh, a little setback. It comes with the banking.”

John shuffled over to a chair. Kyle backed into the couch and sat down next to Adele, who immediately grasped his hand in hers. John motioned the girls over to his side.

“You probably don’t remember your Uncle Kyle.”

Heather was chewing on her fingers. Rachel peeked from underneath half‑closed eyelids, then turned to face the stranger with a defiant look.

He spoke first. “If you want, just call me Kyle. Rodger always did.”

Ada felt the warmth of recognition and smiled. This man, so like Rodger, had a charm about him, an inborn sense of what it takes to make people respond. Both girls giggled.

Rachel, arms akimbo, asked boldly, “Where do you come from?”

A well-tanned hand gestured. “If you give me that atlas there on the table, I’ll show you where I’ve been.” He traced routes in between bits of conversation with John and Adele, always able to include Ada with a quick glance. She sat apart, silent, yet so much a part of this family, feeling as if she were sailing in a tiny boat on a river that flowed towards a great ocean.

Madeline materialized from nowhere. She looked them over, her expression curiously blank.

John stopped speaking and looked from Madeline to Ada. Adele looked at Ada, then at Madeline. Rachel and Heather widened their eyes. Kyle turned and met his sister’s eyes.

“How very like you, Kyle,” Madeline exhaled, “to show up without so much as a call or a letter.” It was the softness of her voice that shocked Ada, almost as if Madeline had embraced Kyle, yet she stood tensed, as if to do battle.

“Oh, I’m sorry, but I wasn’t sure where I’d be at what time.”

“Nonsense, you always know.” Madeline stood firm in her stony certitude. The silence stretched out. Madeline and Kyle stared at one another.

John spoke. “Kyle, old man, you’ll be staying with us, I hope? You’ll be very comfortable in Rodger’s room.”

Adele chimed in. “I dare say, you might appreciate those pictures of boxers better than I.”

“I hadn’t intended on staying. Just a visit.”

“Nonsense,” Madeline reiterated, pointing to the porch behind her. “Bring in your suitcase. You’ll sleep in Rodger’s room.”

Kyle chuckled. “All right.” He started to get up.

“Stay.” Ada commanded, waving him back into his seat. “I’ll set it inside as I leave.” She got up and went over to Madeline. “I’ve put a roast in the oven and set the table. Adele knows Kyle and will help with John. Everything will be ready to serve at six-thirty.”

“Ada! Please stay for dinner, too!” Madeline ordered, with a hint of urgency in her voice.

“Oh, no, thank you. I’ll be on my way. I’ll be over early tomorrow morning.” She started for the door.

Heather began to cry. Madeline’s face clouded with annoyance, but before she could scold, Ada rushed to Heather and hugged her. “Come over later, both of you, and listen to Captain Marvel with me.”

The girls beseeched their mother with watery eyes.

“Yes, yes, you may, but be home for dinner. But only for an hour.” Madeline walked Ada to the door, squeezing her arm as she leaned over to whisper, “It’s just that we never got on that well. What a rude surprise! Of all days!”

“I imagine,” Ada whispered back.

“Oh, Ada! What would I do without you?”

Ada patted her arm. “Adele will be here. She’s very nice to have around, isn’t she?”

“Yes, yes, I suppose. But I do wish you would stay.”

Ada had an uneasy feeling of indebtedness. She could almost see strands of Madeline’s web hooking onto her; she had to sever the threads.

“Maddie, you might want to enjoy these precious few times spent with your family without me around. Besides,” she added sharply, “you’ll be seeing me quite enough during the day.”

Madeline stared at Ada in astonishment, her jaw slack. Then, stepping away, she slammed the door, the echoes ringing in Ada’s ears. Ada quietly eased the door back open and slipped Kyle’s suitcase inside.

She walked through the gate and into her back yard. Oh, she was bone-tired! A breeze played about the trees. She inhaled the fragrant night air.

It was the sort of evening folks should enjoy in a comfortable chair. Pulling one alongside the edge of the tomato plants, she sat. She took out Rodger’s letter and finished reading the parts she had given John.

When Rodger came home, she had hoped that they could have some time for just the two of them, like the old days. She was just plain tired of having to share so much anymore.

I have more than other widows, I know, she thought. Yet like the sunrise and sunset, I am but a part of someone’s day.

Her other self, the one with unclouded eye, knew, knew she would be there for them as long as she lived and breathed. With a little smile at herself, she leaned down and plucked a few straggling weeds around her tomato plant, smoothing back the dirt to cover the small wound. By summer’s end she’d have enough vegetables to give to all of them. Yes, she would like that; to give them each something out of her garden. She pushed away the chair and kneeled on the ground to begin another row of weeding before darkness fell around her.

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Rodger burst through the door of the hut, bellowing, “Hey! Bright Eyes!” She was nowhere to be seen. He flung open her bedroom door, but the room, shadowed with eerie, quiet movements from men and machinery outside her window, was empty.

Rodger stamped into the kitchen. Dust and debris drifted through the opened window. As he went to close it, he spied Mary Elizabeth huddled underneath the sink, her face collapsed into the doll, her slender hands trembling.

“Hey, Bright Eyes, it’s over. Come on out,” he coaxed, reaching for her.

Her stringy hair trailed across her tear‑streaked face. Rodger pulled her close, felt the sharpness of her bones through soiled clothing. She burrowed into his shoulder and sobbed.

“They never come back…the ones who leave…without me touching them…never come back.”

Rodger held her tighter, cradling her in his arms as he stood for a moment before carrying towards her bedroom. With his foot, he eased the door open wide enough to allow them entry.

“No, Mary Elizabeth, no,” he repeated in her ear, setting her down upon her bedroll, then sat beside her.

Mary Elizabeth shook her head, negating his absolution. “I was mad at Buck; I did not hug him,” she whispered furiously, jabbing at herself with an index finger. “I…I…didn’t say good‑bye.”

“That doesn’t make the slightest difference!” He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her a little. “Listen,” Rodger tilted her chin so that she had to look up at him. His eyes bored into her glazed‑over pupils. “It’s God’s will that man lives or dies. Not yours. You just forget all that nonsense about your magical powers.”

Mary Elizabeth hugged her knees and began to rock back and forth on the dirty and ripped linen mat.

Rodger focused on a small, wooden chair. It was the only piece of real furniture in the room, nicked horribly at the legs and blackened scratches marring the seat. Idly, Rodger recognized it as the kind of chair he used to have in grade school.

“I know it isn’t easy to understand, but us guys over here take dying as part of the job. It comes with the wings. Can’t you understand that?”

Frantic, he searched for something to say to ease her anguished guilt. What was wrong with that goddamned LinChing anyway? Didn’t he say that her mother had been a missionary? Didn’t they tell her about God and all that? Goddamn her father, goddamn him anyway.

Mary Elizabeth sat quiet for a moment. Then a shudder racked her frail body and the great sobs began again.

Rodger gathered her in his arms, picking up the doll that had dropped from her hand to the floor. “Here, Mary Elizabeth,” he said, proffering the doll, but she pushed it away.

He sat with her as the light of day sloughed to night, sat holding the keening child as the room filled with specters and disembodied noises of whirring mosquitoes and snores from the other rooms.

Mary Elizabeth whimpered, coughing in tiny snorts. Rodger began to hum, “Oh, beautiful for spacious skies…” until he was sure she had fallen deeper into sleep. Then, as the dark lightened to dawn, he leaned back against the cold slats and dozed off.

He woke stiff from holding Mary Elizabeth all night. Sometime during the dark hours, someone, most likely LinChing, had crept into the room and covered them with Rodger’s army blanket. A cooling breeze shuffled through the room, and sunshine flowed through the window. He stood, still cradling Mary Elizabeth as the blanket dropped free. Looking down, he was reminded of his sisters’ faces and how peaceful they, too, appeared in sleep. He gently laid Mary Elizabeth down upon her pallet and spread the scratchy blanket over her. An unearthly silence permeated the hut.

Weary, Rodger went to his own bed and slept until the heat and achingly bright sunlight woke him. Mary Elizabeth rustled about in the kitchen.

“Hey, Bright Eyes! Where’s my breakfast?”

She turned in his direction, her puffy eyes making her look aged and weary. Yet she had a sassy tilt of her head and a smile in her voice. “After you wash up, GI.”

Rodger snorted. The men around him whooped and clapped. By the time they had all dressed and shaved, Mary Elizabeth and her father had plates of rice, eggs, and scorched toast along with coffee waiting for them.

Rodger ate in silence. He had made up his mind to go into Tiandong and see the priest there.

As he prepared to leave, Mary Elizabeth came to the door, watching his every move with a downcast face. “What’s the matter Bright Eyes?”

“My father and I will make special meal tonight. I want you to stay.”

Dammit, he thought, she always does this. “What have you cooked up?”

“Rice. Special Chinese dish. You’ll like, you see. I know you like.” She looked down at the ground, grinding her big toe into the dirt. “Today is my birthday.” She peeked up through her long lashes, smiling coyly. “Twelve years old today.”

Twelve. A small lightning bolt of dread shot through him. She’d never understand why he’d send her away from here. “Oh, all right! I’ll be back before six, then,” he promised with a shrug.

Like a dancer gliding across the boards, Mary Elizabeth came to him. She threw her arms around his waist and pressed her head into his stomach, whispering, “Thank you, Rodg.”

He patted the top of her head, embarrassed before the men who stood inside the door. “I have to go, or I won’t get back in time.” He frowned at her, stabbing the air between them with his finger. “Only, you’ve got to take a bath.”

Her face clouded and he knew he had wounded her womanly pride. But satisfied she had him, she shrugged and walked away from him, nonchalantly hefting two buckets as she went to fetch water from the stream.

Rodger jumped into the jeep and headed for the village of Tiandong. He hailed passersby, but the villagers shied away from his approach. He looked around, finally spying the crumbling tower with a cracked bell in the distant countryside.

The sunlight reflected cruelly from the bleached hovel that acted as both convent and church. He drove right up to the door. Two nuns scurried out, then backed into the entrance. They watched him, huddled together and chattering to one another. Rodger had about given up making himself understood to them when a stately man in Chinese pants and shirt came to the door, extending his right hand.

“Hello, I’m Father McBride.”

Rodger shook the older man’s hand, the knots in his stomach relaxing. “Glad to meet you. I’ve heard you’ve done remarkable things for this place.” He considered the man, immediately liking him. “I want to make a deal.”

The priest motioned Rodger to follow him, leading him through the gate to a garden. “This is not a spiritual matter, then?”

Rodger felt as though he had squared off with a friendly opponent. “Oh, in way. It’s about a lost soul.” He never looked away from the other man’s eyes, nor did Father McBride blink. “I have a mechanic living on our base with his young daughter. We’re under a lot of heat, and I don’t want to be responsible for her.”

Father McBride gestured broadly around him at the war-scarred countryside. “Nowhere is safe.”

“But,” Rodger interjected, “here would be safer than if she were found on base…alive.” And here, he thought, scanning the fertile garden and the huge litchi tree in the courtyard, she would have a little bit of something beautiful in her life.

“Are you be referring to Mary Elizabeth and her father LinChing?”

“You know them?”

“Yes, quite well.”

“I could pay some for her room and board.” Rodger scratched his chin. “But I don’t want LinChing to know I am paying you. I have to be sure Mary Elizabeth will be taken good care of here.”

“I would have to discuss this with my staff.”

Rodger met the hard, assessing gaze of Father McBride. “I have medical supplies I could exchange, also.” He grudgingly had to admire the priest who struck a hard bargain.

With a bemused smile, the priest gestured to the nuns. “Please stay and have supper with us. We can discuss the terms.”

“Can’t.” He glanced at his watch. “Haven’t much time.”

Father McBride adjusted his steel‑rimmed glasses. “Perhaps an exchange of goods as payment would be sufficient.”

“Make me a list, and I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you.”

They shook hands again. Rodger left feeling certain that the priest with steely-gray eyes could handle any objections from those two nuns.

When he returned to base, all of the men were seated at the table and waiting for him. Jimmy moved over and Rodger sat heavily in the seat. Mary Elizabeth carried in a huge platter, heaped with steaming rice and vegetables, and duck, placing it between Rodger and LinChing. She had made a sauce, pungent and thick dark‑brown, which she ladled slowly over the portion on the dish she placed before each one of them. The men ate heartily, loud and animated, except for LinChing, who never changed his imperturbable expression. Mary Elizabeth stood beside the table, effervescent, as if she gathered her happiness from the men in the room.

Rodger paused in the midst of a bite to gaze at her. She looked so vital, so beautiful standing there. He smiled at her, and she blushed and bowed her head in acknowledgment.

LinChing spoke quietly, almost too softly to be heard. “Mary Elizabeth is a young woman today. At home, she would be betrothed. But I have no wealth, no family. She can only choose and forget.”

Rodger felt for this old man, a man fettered to his past but bereft of his homeland and traditions, a good man with a young daughter to worry about.

“My father means that when I am to marry, I must choose a man.” She blushed crimson, but challenged the eyes of the men at the table.

Stevens, usually aloof, sang out unexpectedly, “Well, by God, we’ll be in suspense as to which one of us it is for our barefoot pixie!”

Everyone but LinChing, applauded. Summers and McGree slapped each other on the back. Between mouthfuls of food, the men bantered.

Rodger yelped and extracted a round, tiny, hard, object from his back tooth. Frowning, he held up a carved, ivory marble.

Mary Elizabeth spontaneously clapped her hands, then in a familiar gesture hid her face behind her cupped hands.

“What the hell is this? A Chinese tooth‑cracker?”

Mary Elizabeth wagged her head, wrapping her long, black hair softly around her waist. Wordlessly, she retreated to the kitchen.

LinChing bent over his plate and continued eating. There was a moment of restrained quiet.

“I think, sir, that you’ve been chosen honorary husband,” McGree said, before bursting out in laughter.

Rodger pocketed the marble, mashing his rice around the plate with his fork before taking another mouthful. LinChing disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a blue‑leafed, porcelain tea set. The aromatic brew filled the room with the strong odor of warm rice wine. LinChing poured the first cup for Rodger. With mock severity, each man raised his cup in salute. Rodger tipped his cup back and drank.

Pushing away his plate, Rodger turned to LinChing and gestured at the door. “We need to talk. Let’s go outside.”

They walked toward the hangar. Rodger placed a hand on LinChing’s bony back, stopping him.

“Listen, friend, I’ve talked with Father McBride at Tiandong.” Rodger felt LinChing stiffen. “He says he will care for Mary Elizabeth there at the mission.”

“No, she cannot go. Must stay here with me.”

Damn, this wasn’t going to be easy. He hardened himself and allowed no sympathy in his voice. “Yesterday was too close for comfort. She can’t stay.”

“I promise to take care of her!” LinChing had the determination of a warrior, but Rodger would not back down.

“No, LinChing, she cannot stay. She is going tomorrow. You can visit. By yourself or one of us will take you.”

Desperately, he stammered, “I cannot pay. I have nothing to exchange.”

“Don’t worry about it. Father McBride is all right with the arrangement.” LinChing stared at him, his face suddenly impassive. “Dammit, LinChing! This is an Army base. Do you understand?”

Rodger lit a cigarette, offering the other man one, which LinChing refused. “I cannot be responsible for her death…or worse.”

LinChing winced at his words. He shook his head furiously, turned and walked to the hangar. Rodger followed him. Parts lay strewn about like discarded clothes, yet Rodger knew LinChing could put his hands on any given one in an instant.

LinChing snatched up a piston and wiped it down. “I cannot tell her.”

Rodger flicked the butt of his Camel and watched it skip through the dirt. The hard part was almost over.

LinChing put a restraining hand on Rodger’s forearm. “You.”

Rodger shook his head. “No, that’s hardly my…,” but stopped at seeing the stark anguish in the old man’s eyes. He couldn’t say more, could not even conjure up the anger he was entitled to.

He ran his hand through his hair, searching for a better way, knowing there wasn’t any. Yes, this was the right decision, but he didn’t feel right about it, either.

He swore. He cursed himself, palming the marble in his pocket, rolling it around and around.

“All right, LinChing. I’ll tell her in the morning.”

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Rodger wiped his wet face against his sleeve. Traces of Sam’s blood smeared his cheek. He looked at his friend’s body, so still, so calm, so dead. He longed to be up there with his men fighting the Japanese. If only Sam had had enough time to put together the guts of his plane! But there hadn’t been enough time. There was so much more to be said and done.

“Sam,” he whispered, “I forgot to tell you about Chicago.” The sky darkened, silhouetting the jigging planes. “Man, it was so strange. Big Red’s house burning down, and that damned effigy—not knowing if it was him swinging from the tree. My girl gone. Dee just took off without so much as ‘good‑bye, sucker.’ Winning the Golden Gloves became the most important thing in my life.”

Rodger crossed Sam’s hands across his chest. “I understand my father, I guess. I knew he couldn’t go along with me and Manny to Chicago. But I hated him for it. For sending Vern instead.” The bitterness throbbed in his throat.

“If it hadn’t been for Ada letting us drive her Chevy up there, I’d have run away. But you know, Sam, Ada and I are friends from way back when I was a kid. I love her more than my own mother.”

Like one of the old Tom Mix cowboy movies he had loved so much as a boy, the memories reeled forward for him to view dispassionately. His eyes fixed on the battle over on the night horizon as scenes with all of the right characters and dialogue played itself out.

He hadn’t wanted to leave like he did, his mother all upset and his sisters asleep. He remembered how he had crept into Heather and Rachel’s bedroom. Shadows from the full moon fell across their beds, and as he listened to their muted baby snores, he knew he meant to leave and not come home again.

Early the next morning, he left the house without good‑byes. He met Ada on her porch, and for a horrible moment he almost could not go. The last thing he had told her was about Uncle Kyle flying with the RAC in Africa.

Then he had kissed her, too quickly, on the cheek. Her parting words had been, “Show them what Big Red taught you!”

Vern Slater drove. Rodger and Manny would have ditched Vern once they got to Chicago, but Vern bird‑dogged them. He watched them sleep, eat, dress, spar.

Vern didn’t know his toes from his butt about how things worked at the ring. Manny took care of it, all the time reassuring Vern, convincing him to go back to the hotel and not wait up for them. Manny knew lots, knew parts of Chicago that the good boys didn’t. Rodger and Manny slipped out the back door and went to the joints to place bets and make deals.

The next day at the gym the throng of men moved as one body, voices pitching words like lobbed tennis balls. The other guy’s trainer, a heavy‑shouldered man with piggy eyes and greasy black hair, taunted them, trying to shake up Rodger. Rodger didn’t shake.

The press skittered around, asking questions of bystanders and trainers and boxers.

“Say, aren’t you ‘The Kid’? Can you sum up any philosophy you might have about boxing, son?”

“Put up or shut up.”

Rodger had wanted to tell the reporter about Big Red: explain how the man’s words formed patterns that he moved through. But it was stupid to think it would have meant something to anyone else.

Mad Maloney versus The Kid. Rodger almost lost the championship, playing too long. The crowd, booing and catcalling, hated the way Rodger wore Maloney down dancing around him. Maloney shuffled and swung wide. In the last round, Rodger knocked him unconscious. Sent him to the hospital.

That’s not how he had wanted it; it just didn’t feel like a fair fight. And the crowd had clapped and hollered, stamping the ground with their feet. All for the blood of it.

He’d headed for the underside of Chicago. He got lost there among people who didn’t give a damn about the beat up face of a small-town white boy. Women swept steps; men moved together in groups down the sidewalks.

Then that house with chipped and flaking brown paint, a black-lettered sign dangling from a broken chain that read: Rooms To Let. The big woman in a purple house dress, her arms beneath the torn sleeves bulging with fat.

“Ten a month. Cash in advance. No smoking, no drinking and,” smiling, exposing blackened, rotting teeth, “no women.” She scratched her belly. “I give you one meal, dinner. If you’re not here, you don’t eat.”

Disgusted, Rodger, had not replied, but turned and walked rapidly down the street. Then on the steps that might have another lodging house, he had come across a Negro slumped against the railings. The man moaned and swayed, clutching his side.

“Are you all right?” Rodger had moved toward him, but the stench of neglect and despair had repelled him. The black man slowly widened his lids, focusing his yellowed eyes on Rodger.

“Hey, man, I’m a sight better than you.”

“Know a decent place to lay down my things for a few nights?”

“All of God’s green earth, son, is good enough to lay down on.”

Rodger had thrown two fifty‑cent pieces into the old man’s lap. Claw‑like fingers scooped them up and hurriedly slid them into a pocket. Looking suspiciously left and right, he hunched his shoulders and whispered, “Down the street. Mrs. Mason boards. Don’t ask no questions.”

Rodger had flipped another fifty‑cent coin into the fumbling hands that cupped themselves with remarkable speed.

“Hey, boy, you can stay and talk all day if ya want. I got all sorts of ears.”

Rodger walked on. His wallet was full of winnings—mostly ill‑gotten gains from smokers. He had money, time and no friends. He had walked on until he had spied the brownstone house with a small, weather‑eaten sign that read: Mason, 113 Cane Blvd. Mrs. Mason, faded beauty, and her beautiful tawny‑skinned girl, Della. Della with the whiskey-colored eyes and seductive smirk.

His terrible aloneness. Searching for a job. One rejection after another. Until Sally. He found her on the street with lips that were smooth and naturally dark, trimmed with pink flesh, slightly parted to reveal even, front teeth; and in whose eyes he couldn’t find the black pupil and the iris, only two sparks of yellow in the middle.

She had been bold; he had been naїve. Finally she had asked him bluntly, “Cat got your tongue?” then laughed, throwing back her head and shaking her bandanna‑covered head. “Looks like a big un got ya, too.”

Rodger had laughed. When they had caught their breath, he offered her his arm. She snorted, not removing her hands from her hips.

Then abruptly she said, “My name’s Sally. What’s yours?”

“Dick.”

About to put her arm through his, she pulled away. “I got a sister, Jane, too.” She glared at him.

“What a coincidence! I have a dog named Spot.” He smiled at her.

She shook her head, giggles erupting from her compressed mouth. Rodger took her arm again, waiting for her to lead. Two blocks and to the right on Maple, near Farren Park, she hesitated before a flight of stairs going into a rundown brownstone building. Rodger dropped her arm and waited. Wordlessly, he followed her up three flights of stairs to her room.

“Wanna beer?”

“If you’ll have one with me.”

A bed covered with a single dingy sheet was the only place to sit. Rodger sank heavily into the mattress, with Sally sliding into him as she sat down. They clicked bottles and sipped without talking. Sally jumped up and fumbled with a radio, bringing disjointed, strained voices into the room. She stood so close to him he could feel the heat from her body. He reached up and took her hand.

They held hands several minutes before Sally shook free her hand and broke the silence.

“What happened to you?” The beer gurgled in her throat while she drank down the last of it.

“Tried my hand at the Golden Glove Championship. Maybe I should’ve tried my feet, too, huh?”

She caressed his cheek with her free hand, barely touching her fingertips to his skin, trailing liquid fire down his temple to his throat and up his other cheek. Her fingers played across his eyelids, smoothing down the corners, around the temple, over the bridge of his nose, and retracing the path again and again.

Her hand came across his lips, and he kissed it. She jerked, then resumed a circular stroke on his chin. She put down her beer bottle, balanced herself on his shoulders, and kissed him. As he put his hands to her waist, she pushed, and they both tumbled into the bed, holding tightly onto each other. With slow deliberation, they made love. Like old friends, they comforted each other in the stillness of night.

Afterwards, Sally had collected matches and cigarettes in one hand, pinching together two sweaty bottles of beer with the other. Rodger swapped her an empty bottle for a full one, and Sally propped herself against the wall, using the discarded bottle as an ashtray. Rodger stretched out beside her, cradling his head in his arms. Sally took the pillow that would be his and shoved it behind her.

She spoke about the city, places where he might go scout a job. Maybe even where she worked, Republic Steel, the Southside plant. He closed his eyes and let her resonant voice wash over him.

The rustling movements of a woman dressing awakened him. Sunlight fought its way through the dirtied window, casting a sullied light throughout the room. Rodger blinked hard.

“Sal, where are you?”

She came from the bathroom, dressed in denim overalls and work shirt, tying a bandanna.

“Lazy‑lover, get up and get yerself a bath. I left you a towel by the door.” Rodger went to caress her, but she avoided him. “Hurry up or I’ll be late for work.”

She wiped his back for him after his bath. He grabbed her, hugging her tight. “Hey, Sal, let’s go to the International Market. I haven’t seen it. I could pick you up after work and we’ll walk over there. Or is it too far?”

She pushed away from him. He followed her into the kitchen.

Bending over the sink, she called out, “I got bread for toast.”

“We could have dinner at a diner on the corner of 54th.”

“Ain’t got butter, though. You’ll have to have it dry.”

“Hey, Sal, for Pete’s sake…”

She whirled around as he came to stand beside her. “You born dumb, or do you work at it, white boy?”

The bitter words echoed in the tiny room. Rodger stared at her. She whisked a stray, wiry stand of hair underneath the scarf and continued boring straight into his eyes.

“You mean you won’t go anywhere with me?”

Sally shrugged, disgusted, and moved away from him. “Ain’t no place in this city a white and nigger can be seen in public.”

“Well, hell, I didn’t mean it as a personal insult. I just want to be with you. Do something nice with you.”

She softened, her shoulders slumping as she placed her hand on his forearm. “I guess you have what’s called ‘honorable intentions.’”

Rodger dressed. He took out his wallet and offered it to her.

Sally pushed it away. “Ain’t no charge for friends. You all come back and stay the night with me again. Maybe Thursday. I gotta go.” She quickly pecked his stubbled cheek, squeezing his arm as she opened the door. “You make some toast for yourself. Push the little button inside the door and just shut it good before you leave. See you, lover.”

“Hey, Sal, take care of yourself. I’ll see you again.”

“Sure, lover‑boy. Come back real soon.”

Rodger combed his hair, staying in the bathroom until he no longer heard her footsteps on the stairs. Then he took a fifty dollar bill, folded it into a ring, and put it by the toaster.

Rodger shook his head at the phantom images, an acute sense of weariness flooding through his body. Sam, at least would get a medal of some kind.

His voice shaky at first, he leaned over Sam, “Yeah, Sam, I was just a dumb white boy, nineteen, thinking things were all right just because they were. Until Chicago. I got smart. The smart kid on the block. The boy with the “golden” touch. I joined the AAU summer camp then went right into the cavalry.”

He straightened Sam’s shirt, patting his chest. “It was all so easy, Sam, the way things fell into place. I was one of those qualified to fly, so I got to fly. And command. It was that simple. I even boxed a few times and won at my weight. A hero. A god‑damned hero.”

In the quiet of the night, an explosion reverberated. A plane downed. Rodger felt LinChing’s presence, the shadow man. As he stood, he motioned to Sam’s body. “Will you take care of him? The boys are comin’ in.”

LinChing nodded. The first of the three planes came in, the wheels screeching plaintively in the strangely calm night air.

Rodger tensed. “There’re only three home.” He walked briskly toward McGree’s plane.

McGree threw back the canopy and shouted, “Five out of seven of the bastards!”

The others, Barnes and Stevens, were taxiing into the revetments. Rodger’s stomach knotted. He watched as they climbed down from the wings and grouped around one another, congratulating each other.

Rodger approached them. As the four formed a half‑circle, he looked from one face to another. “We’ll give Buck an airman’s burial in the morning.”

All heads nodded in solemn assent. They would fly over his wreck in formation, the final farewell to a fallen comrade.

Rodger turned on his heel, walking with slow, measured steps. “Let’s have a drink.” His men close behind him, Rodger led the way back to the hut.

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Ada dusted Rodger’s all‑star football trophy from his senior year in high school. She had tucked it away on the shelf above her bed, out of sight of any probing eyes. She paused, tracing the outline of the hand holding the football, wondering about Rodger. She wrote him long letters about Wilmington and those left behind, adding several postscripts about Adele and his sisters, Rachel and Heather. Ada touched her library book, A Farewell to Arms, thinking she should get Rodger a copy and lend this one to John. Lately John had been taken by surprise more than once when Ada brought up something Rodger had written in his letters. Even Adele did not hide her irritation that Ada knew more than she did.

Ada sighed. It’s not that she really had more of Rodger than they; no, not really. She just had that part of him she had helped free a long time ago.

The mailman’s shrill whistle sounded. Ada laid aside her dust rag, wiping her hands across her apron as she entered the living room, then caught her dangling eyeglasses and pushed them up onto the bridge of her nose as she stooped to retrieve her two letters. Both were postmarked from overseas. She had just received a letter from Rodger last week. A sharp pang hit her in the gut and she tightened her hands around the letters.

She stood before her curtained front window, watching the afternoon shadows on the sidewalk and trees. A breeze stirred the limbs of the sycamore, and they waved gently back and forth. Ada looked down at the letters, then outside, wishing she could delay the inevitable. She slowly tore open the top one, the thinner of the two. It was indeed from Rodger.

She knew, she knew from the first cramped “Dearest Ada” that he would tell her of Sam.

“Sam was killed during a raid here. I personally have taken care of sending him home.”

Sam dead. Sam coming home in a casket. Sam and her nevermore. For a moment she could not breathe, the pain in her heart overwhelmed her. She clutched at her throat, gasping; then the tears began.

Soon the afternoon shadows deepened. Ada watched John walking home from the Longhorn Bank, swinging his umbrella, the evening newspaper gripped in his left hand. His long, slender body moved smoothly when he walked, his wide shoulders always thrown back proudly. Ada saw clearly his unlined, handsome face with deep-set blue eyes, almost turquoise, that really seemed to twinkle. She wanted to cry out to him, to lean into his arms and sob on his shoulder. But the tears came again, and she bowed her head over the letters, the long, government forms that had to be filled out immediately, and the one from Rodger. Memories, unbidden and unwanted, tumbled around her head like weeds caught in a sandstorm. Finally, she closed her eyes and forced an image of Sam’s face that calmed the tumult. She had another memory, ten years ago, that belonged to her alone: the turning time of their lives.

Oh, how she recalled that day, down to the last detail! She saw it all in slow motion, a movie reel with the sound inside her head; she, the leading lady, and Sam, her leading man. Ada had walked across town, picking up Rodger’s sweaty clothes from the gym and the colored folks’ mending at the church. Then, as she had planned, she took a lunch over to the hangar where Sam kept his beloved Lucy. Spreading out the picnic lunch on the rickety card table, Ada waited for him to join her as she poured coffee from the urn in his office into his thermos.

Her chair scraped the concrete floor. Sam jerked his head around to look. Ada dusted her hands of the crumbs and, aware of his stare, drank her coffee with little sips.

“Sam, you always had a way with women. But,” she had teased, “your charms fall short of your coffee.”

“Well, hell, most of the time it’s just me and don’ pay no attention to how much scoops I’m putting in. If you’d tell a body when you planned on comin’, I’d have us a regular tea party.”

“Now, Sam, that would be entirely against my nature. Even might detract from my womanly charm. Why don’t you admit that you like me to surprise you once in a while?”

“Umph.” He shifted around to look at Lucy again. He folded his arms against his chest, his defense from her she supposed. After all these many years, there should not have been so many barriers between them, so many little misunderstandings. She had never even mentioned him to any of her relatives or friends, for what they were to each other was a habit, two people in the same place with time to spare for each other.

He had picked her out of a crowd at the fair, the first fair she had gone to after her husband and son were killed. It was the way the plane burst through the air, the noise and strangeness of it, that had drawn her to the field to watch. Barnstorming, is what they called it. Sam was giving rides to all interested paying customers. Ada had stood aside, observing, until the crowd had waned. Then, like a wild man, Sam had grabbed her hand and yanked her over to the plane where fumes pulsated with the dry summer heat.

She hadn’t said no; she couldn’t although she felt herself suffocating.

He was looking at her again. “You have the same look about you that you did the first time I saw you.”

Ada blushed, so close was he to knowing her mind. But it was like that between them, friends that had secrets.

“And what exactly is that “look” you’re always mentioning?”

“Well,” he fumbled, his turn to be embarrassed, “sorta like a critter that gets itself out of a pretty decent cage. It’s on the outside looking in, asking itself if it isn’t all a big mistake.”

Freedom. Perhaps he had seen her longing exposed in her eyes, her face, her body. Being around him and that damned Lucy always made her want to go places, other places with strange faces and exotic names. She closed her eyes to peek out of the slits, to narrow her vision of Sam and Lucy.

“Perhaps the worst sort of freedom, Sam, is the kind we don’t ask for.”

“You could have married again, Ada. You’re the one who preaches to me that there are many ways to love.”

“But the man I love, my friend, is not mine to have. I would rather not have the cake without the icing.”

“There’s more than one bakery you could shop in.”

Ada laughed. It was the longest conversation they had for in years. Sam was always on the move, in demand as an airplane mechanic now that his barnstorming days were over. For all his gruff and surly ways, Sam was a worrier. He wanted an ordered universe, a home town with seasonal changes and a woman friend or two. So little from such a demanding sort of man.

“How about you Sam? Did you think to buy the whole pie and not just a little tart?”

He growled at her, waving at Lucy. “I got me all the female companion and nasty disposition I need between the two of you. Now, it looks like I even got a kid to boot.”

Ada sat up straight. She knew, knew it as surely as the day was split into the bright blue of the sky and the green‑brown of the earth. She whispered, almost too afraid of being right, “Is his name Rodger?”

“Huh? Yeah, the kid that comes here and watches me work. You know him?”

“Yes. He’s a very special friend of mine, too.”

“I ain’t calling him ‘friend.’ Odd kid, in a way.” Sam glared at her once more, resting his face on his elbows that all came down on the card table with a soft plop. “He comes around for weeks, sneaking a look. Then one day he comes up to me, and I yell at him to get the hell outta here. Then he gets real brave and tells me he’s got to be around my Lucy.”

“And you told him he could stay.”

“Not exactly, Miss Smarty‑pants. He’s got to earn his way.” He leaned closer to her, and she bent into him. “Funny thing, about that kid. I got a feeling he’ll be a flyer, a good one. He listens.” Sam tapped the side of his forehead. “And he thinks.”

“What’s the point of encouraging him, Sam?”

“Ah, hell Ada! It’s just for fun. A man don’t know his future at thirteen.”

“Or at your age, either.”

Sam glared at her, but she would not back down. Maybe Rodger, too, sensed her disapproval. It alarmed her, the risks he took at such an early age, not for the usual reasons of showing off to his friends. She couldn’t trust Sam to discourage this nonsense. Rodger would be the perfect audience for him. Worse, she had to pretend she didn’t know about this until Rodger confided in her. She wondered if John knew; he couldn’t, or he would have stopped Rodger.

“Sam,” she spoke softly, drawing him back to her, “we’ve got one thing in common with married folks.”

“What the hell are ya talkin’ about, Ada?”

“Rodger.” The silence between them was peaceful, several quiet seconds flowing past them. “Take good care of him.”

“I will.” He replied so seriously that she had nothing to say back to him. They sat, drifting in the stillness of the sunshine. “Ya should have had more kids, Ada. A girl with your big brown eyes would have had the world at her feet.”

She smiled. “Doesn’t seem like they did me much good.”

“Ya kept them closed most your life, that’s why.”

Ada would not dispute him. She leaned back in her chair, tilting it off the ground. He figured her foolish in so many ways she wasn’t. She wondered if he would be less kind to her if he knew how she really was, how little she cared for the world.

It was the loss of her child, not the man she had married, that had left a hollow space in her heart. She had stopped loving Dan before Stevie was born. But the price of her freedom had enslaved her to her secrets. She no more could have stopped the reckless cabby from hitting her husband and son than she could turn back the hands of the old grandfather clock and say no to Dan’s marriage proposal. She knew that, she knew that. But it seemed such an ironic thing, a vicious stunt, like someone suddenly pulling the chair out from underneath you.

“Ya all right Ada? Ya look like you’re gonna cry. What did I say?”

“Nothing, Sam, nothing at all. Dust in the air makes my eyes water.”

She had to be more careful. She smiled for Sam, pouring them more coffee from the battered and smudged thermos. Sounds, the vibrations in the air of something distinctly familiar, caught both of them at the same time. Ada puzzled over it until Sam jumped from his chair, jabbing his finger up at the dazzling blue of the sky, shrieking, “I’ll be damned! Lookee there, Ada! It’s the Brown Mustache! Lookee up there!”

Still she couldn’t find the object, the sun blinded her. The noise intensified, then a small, rusty‑brown biplane swooped from the white cloud, down almost to the ground.

Sam wiped his hand across the top of his crew cut. His left hand jingled loose change in his pocket. The biplane was executing a series of loops, leaving cloud trails behind him. Suddenly Sam turned and clamped his hand down on Ada, pulling her roughly to her feet.

“Come on, gal. Let’s go chase a little tail in the sky.”

Dragging her over to Lucy, Sam quickly propped open the stepladder and shoved her forward, placing his hands firmly on her hips as she climbed into the back seat. Until she was actually seated, she did not think of saying no. She looked to the right and left of her as Sam pushed them in position so that he could taxi for take‑off.

It was a brilliant, sunlit day with a hint of fall’s breath. The beauty and warmth of the day pressed into Ada, and she relaxed against the back seat, pulling against the house dress until it covered her knees again. The trees began to whiz past them, blurring at the edges as Lucy’s engine yawned in noisy wakening. Ada jigged and bounced in rhythm with the singing wheels. Wisps of hair tickled her eyes, ears, and lips as she drew one long hairpin after another to catch and hold them to no avail. She dropped her hands to rest in her lap, resigning herself to the wind and speed and Sam’s skillful hands.

Snatches of earth colors and the intense blue of the sky mixed as Lucy dived and spun after the Brown Mustache. Sam’s Tarzan hollering would fade in echoes until Ada, forced by the driving wind, had to shut her eyes and be content to listen to the droning engine.

She no more understood why she was up there than she knew why she clung so to the habits of her life. She was young, still healthy at forty‑two, and reasonably well- provided for. Why didn’t she pack up and move somewhere, just for the change? Why was she allowing herself to be entrapped with all of this concern for Rodger? At the thought of him, she could picture his thirteen-year old’s face, so like his father’s. But it was Rodger’s smile that intrigued Ada, for that was all his own, neither John’s nor Madeline’s.

They were coming in for a landing, leveling out, momentarily suspended over the runway. Ada thought again of Rodger, his defiance as incentive for learning. And wasn’t it Sam who once said something about second love being the truest? True or not, she had known then she could never leave them. As Lucy settled onto the ground, Ada opened her eyes and regretted the ride had ended.

“Oh, my what a ride!” Ada exclaimed, throwing her back and laughing.

Sam’s not-too-handsome face was split wide in a clownish smile, as if he could not take enough air in, nor release enough laughter to fill the outside. The brown plane, easing gently away from their sight, waggled its wings, and Sam threw his arm up into a vigorous wave.

“Sam, I’d better get along home now.” They stopped beside the table. “Thanks for the exciting afternoon.”

“Oh, yeah. Ada, wasn’t it,…ah…well,” he faltered, spreading out his hands in front of him.

“Sam, I had a wonderful time.”

And she meant it. She packed things back inside the dented lunch pail. Then she unpinned her hair, shaking it loose, re-gathering it into a tight coil before jabbing the metal sticks back in. She swooped up her own bundles, smelling of Rodger’s sweat and the colored woman’s smoke. Sam was fussing with Lucy, his eyes frequently darting over to her. She pretended not to notice. Time pressed on her, and she quickened her steps. She brushed against Sam’s shoulder with her own, making him look up at her. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Bye, Ada.”

“See you soon, Sam.”

Ada shook loose from the webs of those memories and walked outside. Standing there beside her weedless garden she scanned the rows, each one neat and orderly. There were early tomato seedlings and rows of corn sprouting green leafage, and her favorites, vining zucchini and butternut squashes. As much as she loved her small, fertile plot of land, there were times she felt guilty about it. She had not spent the necessary time tending it when she was a wife and mother. It was too much of a solitary thing, a not‑sharing, although the feel of the earth, the taste of its produce gave meaning without words. But it had been Dan’s garden first. Now it was hers, hers alone. The squash and radishes. The turnips. Little by little she had replaced his vegetables with hers. With her own loving hands.

The afternoon sunshine softened. The breeze was cooler, and though she might have been tempted to stay here a while, time pressed into a thing solid and heavy inside her. She moved away from the garden and went to the front of the house.

She collected the washing, laying aside the mending carefully so that it would not spill from the sideboard. She mentally ticked off each chore as she methodically began with the next one. At eight, the last of the sewing done, she pushed away from her machine, turned off its light, and stretched up, up to the ceiling, wiggling her fingers. She smoothed back her hair with both hands and stood listening to the night sounds.

She waited. Then after the minutes were tolled by the grandfather clock, she walked over to the radio and flipped on the dial. Music she did not recognize filled the hollow space of her living room. She left it to go into the kitchen and heat tea water. If she listened hard and didn’t clack the spoon, she could barely catch a strain or two of “When My Heart Was Young.”

She thought again of Rodger, when he had learned to box, her own unconditional faith in Big Red, Sam, and John.

Ada massaged the furrows in her forehead. “Damn this small town,” she whispered as hard as she could to dispel some of her bitterness, “May God give us the children to free us!”

There hadn’t been any time to explain things to Rodger about Big Red, Dee and Katie Simmons, the flight from the KKK. She had so much to tell him and so much she wanted to hear from him the night of the burning house.

Ada had had her secrets from Rodger. Hadn’t they all? Each one of them locked away some part of themselves. The day caught up with her. She turned off the radio. The echoes from the house and outside blended and Ada stood quite still and waited for the quiet to come back.

She was tired, but her thoughts, each like a painted carrousel pony, whirled around and around, images at once distinct, then blurred. She felt herself the spectator turned unwilling participant, but a sense of release came over her. Tears stung her eyes, recalling Sam darting about between her and Lucy.

Her involvement with Rodger had led her further and further away from the safety of her solitude. Day by day, birthdays and Christmases and special events marked the time, stopping it in segments of meanings. She could not close her eyes to what was, nor could she, admitting it finally, deny that odd mixed feeling of regret and happiness, that specialness of love lost and regained, was binding her tighter and tighter to Rodger. Now, at fifty‑six, where there had never been a future with John, and only moments with Sam, she could now have one with Rodger, Adele and the baby. They would be a continuation of her life, like it always had been.

“Habits,” she snorted out loud to hear her own voice, “I am bound to this earth by my habits.”

She carried her tea outside, again to stand beside her garden, and weep just a little for the loss of her beloved. Sam had substituted for John, her first, real love. And through him, with him, and by him, she had also loved Rodger. And that second love was the most precious.

The velvet black night, speckled with stars, wrapped its warmth around her. She stared intently at heaven until she saw a falling star.

“For you, Sam,” she whispered, “may your wings never fail you.”

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The late morning air rumbled with incoming transports. Rodger stood beside LinChing, a wiry, intense Chinaman who happened to be the best mechanic around. Rodger loomed over him at least by a foot, yet the man’s quiet dignity and self-assurance erased the differences between them. Together they waved at a C‑47 as the pilot taxied in.

“LinChing, let’s see if any of our supplies made it on this one.”

The pilot handed Rodger an official letter, which Rodger tucked into his shirt pocket. The third man off was short, gray‑haired and very familiar. Sam, the man who had given Rodger his wings, not to mention his freedom from his mother, his studies, and the boredom of his childhood, strode towards him with an outstretched hand.

“Hey! Sam!”

Grinning like a fool, Rodger grabbed him in a one arm bear hug, pounding him the back, amazed by Sam’s iron‑grip on his right hand. Sam’s clothing had the worn look and smell of oil and planes, the essence of his life.

“I’ll be damned!” drawled Sam. “Had to come clear across the world to hook up with ya. I’ll be damned!”

“You probably are! And so am I!” Rodger laughed and Sam joined in. Rodger was thrown back to being twelve and training again in a Piper Cub. They had both come a long ways. Rodger pointed to a rickety jeep. “Hey! Come on! let’s go celebrate in style in downtown Dooma-Dooma!”

“Just let me stash my gear.” Sam stopped, trying in vain to light a cigarette in the stiff wind.

“Those things’ll kill you yet, Sam,” Rodger cupped his hands around the dangling Camel.

The incongruity of Sam’s presence suddenly hit Rodger. “Why the hell are you here, Sam?”

Rodger remembered the envelope that the transport pilot had given him. He pulled it from his pocket and ripped it open. It was orders to return stateside on the next departing plane. It meant only one thing: the Flying Tigers were about to be disbanded. Rodger, disgusted with yet another inanity, shredded the paper and let the pieces flutter like confetti in the breeze.

“Actually, I’m only here until the next transport. I’m on my way to Nanning. The US has some Martlets there that need lookin’ at. I’m your basic, over‑qualified instructor, pilot and mechanic. But this time, I really get to put my hands on ’em!” Sam’s face crinkled in unabashed delight.

Rodger led Sam into the newly erected wooden barracks and showed him a bunk next to his own.

“Sam, are we beefing up our forces over here?”

“Can’t say too much about it, son. Classified.”

“Let’s go in the mess hall before we leave. I want you to meet one hell of a mechanic.”

LinChing came into the room from the kitchen carrying two plates laden with rice and scrambled eggs, the silverware rattling against the underside of the plates. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee followed him.

“You shouldn’t be doing that!” Rodger scolded. LinChing set the food down before Rodger and shrugged.

“I help Mary Elizabeth, too.”

“The planes, LinChing?” Rodger sipped carefully from a chipped mug, staring back into the dark eyes.

LinChing nodded. “Good, very good. I very good mechanic.”

“How many are airworthy?”

LinChing held up two hands, fingers splayed.

“Ten?!” Rodger sat straight up in his chair.

Sam stopped eating to stare wide‑eyed. The Chinaman was smiling widely, his head bobbing up and down.

“Great! And parts came in today, too!” Rodger clapped his hands, yodeling.

LinChing offered him a cigarette, which Rodger could not refuse. Sam fumbled for matches, dropping them on the floor. As he came up from retrieving them, Mary Elizabeth stood in front of him. Rodger watched silently while the two assessed one another. With the look of a man bewitched, Sam, speechless, stared into the black, almond-shaped eyes set in a dirty, round face of an eleven-year-old girl.

Rodger laughed, breaking the spell. “Mary Elizabeth! Come here and meet Sam!” Rodger unfolded his arm to encircle her. Mary Elizabeth bowed slightly at Sam.

In a delicate voice, yet commanding of all their attention, she asked LinChing, “Father, are there to be any more to eat?”

“No,” he replied, “but make more coffee.”

“Yes, Father.” Mary Elizabeth eased from Rodger’s embrace and went back to the kitchen. Her brown, bare legs were layered in streaks of fine silt, patterned by water drops.

“She takes care of us,” Rodger answered Sam’s quizzical look. “Can you imagine this worthless bunch of die-hards having to say good-bye to that little urchin before take-offs?” Rodger jabbed his index finger at Mary Elizabeth’s back. “Believe me, no one dares not to.”

“Humph! And why the hell not?”

“She says they don’t come back.”

Sam sneered, shook his head in disgust and pushed away his plate. “This is no place for the likes of a snot-nosed kid.”

Rodger amused by Sam’s discomfort, leaned toward him. “We even have her one and only doll in the debriefing hangar that we must touch as we come home. Blessed twice, you might say.”

“And I thought I was superstitious!” Sam mumbled, flicking his ash on the floor.

Mary Elizabeth turned from the sink, her eyes narrowed fiercely. But before she could speak, there were sounds of incoming planes. All heads cocked to attention.

Mary Elizabeth looked heavenward, whispering, “Buck and Jimmy come home.” She sighed contentedly.

LinChing left to help with the tie-down and examination of the planes. Shortly, the two pilots sauntered inside. At the threshold, before any acknowledgments, both men bent down on one knee to enfold Mary Elizabeth in gentle embraces, whispering in each ear something that made her eyes twinkle. Then, sweat-drenched and ragged looking, Buck and Jimmy stood before Rodger without any formalities.

Mary Elizabeth offered each one a steaming mug of coffee before she disappeared into the kitchen.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Jimmy called out, then inhaled the steam. “Ahh!”

Buck, a medium, olive-complexioned man with a scar across his face abruptly began, “We’ve got troubles comin’ in across the border. They’re gearin’ up. Them Japs is crawlin’ all over Pingxiang.”

All of the men followed Rodger to the debriefing room. He brought out maps, tracing the enemy route across the border of French-Indochina into China. As he and the crew pored over the maps, Sam wandered outside.

“Here and here.” Rodger tapped locations. “McGree and Steve are on line tonight. You’ll patrol between Burma and Jongnan. Any questions? ”

Rodger pushed aside the charts, the men dispersed, and Rodger walked to the opened door. The last of the midday sun blazed in the sky as he watched Sam cautiously approach LinChing in the hangar. Neither man spoke, but Sam picked up a part and examined it while LinChing continued to work. In a silly way, Rodger wanted them to be friends and share the plane. He returned to his bunk, but before packing gear for their trip, Rodger posted a letter home to Ada, telling her about Sam’s arrival. As he left, Mary Elizabeth stood at the threshold of the door, making the sign of the cross.

“I will pray for both your safe return.”

Rodger smiled at her, momentarily stayed by his love for this child, so sweet and open, much like his eleven- and nine-year old sisters, Rachel and Heather. Yet, he felt closer to Mary Elizabeth. Almost as if their conversations never quite ended, as if their last words were never spoken. With a half wave of his hand to her, Rodger climbed in the jeep.

As Rodger started the engine Sam jumped into the jeep. They bumped along the landmine-studded road. Rodger bellowed to be heard above the din.

“Tell me about Big Red and that night. It’s one of my unresolved mysteries of youth.”

Sam chuckled and took a cigarette from his pocket. “You meant more to him than anything—or anyone. It’s a shame about his being a nigger and all.”

Rodger flinched, but Sam took no notice. It seemed odd that he should have such two different friends that meant so much to him in his youth. He could remember sneaking into the hangar and watching Sam with his plane, Lucy. Huddled in the cold corner, Rodger had spied on them. In the moment of confrontation, Rodger had steeled himself against Sam’s curses and kept repeating over and over, “I wanna fly. I got to,” until Sam, reluctantly, had given in.

Sam was a lot like Big Red, only Big Red yelled less at him, but they both had made him go that extra, painful mile. Even when Rodger reached six feet, he always seemed to look up at Big Red. It was comforting when the man clapped him on the shoulder and said nothing, just nodded his head. He could still see Big Red kneeling on the floor of the ring in front of him, his large hands cradling Rodger’s bloodied and cut face, whispering harshly, “What are you backing up for? To admire your work? Get in there and keep your hands up.”

He’d always known something was different about Big Red, something not quite white. The sheer size of the man set him above the others; his laughter rumbled like summer thunder and his pink tongue against his yellow teeth made him seem a man of another race. A race of giants.

Rodger glanced over, looking down at the top of Sam’s head. Sam spat, hunched further down into his seat.

“Ya know, he almost made it in Wilmington. But no matter how far ya go, son, the past is always behind ya. It gets ya sooner or later.”

Rodger had to steer hard, tracking the ruts in the road. He remembered that awful day! He had only wanted to go to the hangar and see Lucy, just to run his hand along her contours, to be connected to such a magnificent plane. Rodger could be overwhelmed by his feelings for Lucy. And Sam. Rodger quickly looked at Sam, then back to the road. Sam wasn’t exactly a lovable guy, too moody, but he and Rodger were probably the closest either could get to another without being related, as long as Rodger let Sam call all the shots.

He had known before he stepped into the cavernous, emptied shed that the good part of his life was over. Gone. The tool chest. The stepladder. Sam’s overalls. Nothing. Nothing but a crumpled Camel cigarette pack ruffled by the wind.

He had backed out and started running towards the Simmons’ house. His school books weighed down his arm painfully, but he pushed against the wind and kept on until he came to the house. It had that feeling of having been stripped and left without a kind word or good‑bye. Rodger spied a trowel lying in the rose bush. He picked it up and put it on the doorstep beside the welcome mat. Katie was always looking around the yard for it. He went around back and peered through Dee’s bedroom window. The closet door gaped open, empty of clothes, with wire and wooden hangers strewn all about the room. The bureau drawers had not all been closed, and the vanity stool lay overturned.

He had gone home and holed up in his room waiting for his father. But his father had not come home for supper.

Rachel had scribbled a picture, and jamming it into his pocket, Rodger had walked down to the Longhorn Bank.

The street had been dark, eerie where the gaslight collected in orange pools. The windows reflected only shadowy images of desks, chairs, and teller bars. Where the hell could his father be? Walking rapidly, he had gone over to the gym, thinking that he would work out for a while, straighten out his hook. He began to jog, boxing at his shadow. He came to the steps and took them two at a time, and gaining the door, twisted the knob, then threw himself against it. Stunned, he had bounced back and landed on the ground. The club was closed up. When he had passed Ada’s house, it had had that same empty look with a single light on in the living room.

He needed someone to talk to, and the need became so great that he risked his mother’s anger and went to find Big Red.

Big Red’s house sat by itself atop Stormy Mountain, overlooking the Kankakee River. The worn roads of town curved into the country and became rocky and unevenly surfaced. Rodger moved to the center of the road so as not to fall into a ditch or trip on a boulder. A smell, like freshly cut timber burning, wafted faintly on the breeze. The moon was the brightest spot of light anywhere around for miles, casting ghostly shadows on the road. Rodger had kept his eyes trained on the road, marking the rocks and pitfalls. He felt something wispy land on his cheek and brushed it away. It felt grainy. The air was filling with blackened crispy shavings. Then Rodger saw a blazing bonfire on the distant hill.

‘Everyone must be there!’ Rodger strained forward, focusing his eyes sharper on the fire. He hurried, in sudden urgency to get there. Fear, like a tiny bird inside his chest, wakened. As he drew nearer, the fire took on the shape of a house.

The tiny bird grew wings that spread across his body, and grew, choking his breath off. Sweat ran down his face, arms, sides, dripping from his fingertips. His steps quickened, and he cursed the leather soles of his shoes. In desperation, he forced his feet to go faster, digging into the dusty, soft road. As he came up the sloping path toward the house, he tightened his shoulders, lowered his head and pushed off on his toes, swaying from side to side, taking short leaps. The acrid tinge of smoke filled his mouth as the great beast rose inside of his throat. He gasped. Still he ran on. He ran until he could run no longer.

Disembodied voices lingered in the air, but Rodger couldn’t see through the haze. As he reached the top of the knoll, he stopped. Like dervishes, images whirled inside his head. A towering oak tree seemed to sway. Rodger focused his eyes.

In slow pendulum movements, a body clothed in white swung from a branch. Behind him, the flaming timbers crashed into one another, setting free sparks like thousands of shooting stars into the black still night air. Rodger screamed. And screamed again, the mighty creature of anguish and pain released from inside of him.

The frame of the house collapsed into itself, and a rush of sound and heat jarred Rodger, sending him stumbling over to the tree. He reached up to grab a handful of sheet, to stay the bobbing figure that wasn’t a man. The effigy looked like a battered punching bag with a charcoal‑smeared face and pieces of straw poking out of the seams. Rodger jerked, tearing the sheet, but he could not bring it down. He let it go and leaned against the rough and scratchy bark. The tattered sheet flapped, snapping over his head, brushing against his cheeks. The smoldering wood radiated an intense heat that seared his flesh. Revolving round and round inside his head was one word: Father. Around and around it went, never settling, stinging him. Had he heard his father’s voice? Could he be a part of this? Rodger crumbled against the tree and began vomiting.

Drained, but curious, he drew closer to the smoldering house, at once eerie and fascinating; the colors blended and separated at one and the same time, ending in the gray‑black smoke that curled in lazy strings upward to heaven. He took the wadded picture from his pocket that Rachel had given to him and threw it into the ashes.

Sam coughed. Rodger yelled against the wind. “But how the hell did anyone find out about Big Red?”

“Ya know, it probably was him being so good at poker and all. Your daddy and him cleaned up one game after another. Made people suspicious, and all, where he came from. Rumors follow a body.”

“Big Red was the one who taught me how to play my aces. Never knew my dad to gamble, and I thought I knew him pretty well!”

“Kids never know their folks all that well, son. Big Red and your daddy bet heavily on the fights, too. Your mother didn’t take too kindly to that. Or Big Red. Or Katie Simmons.”

“Jesus, don’t I know that! She had fits about me and Dee. I wanted to marry that girl.”

“A boy don’t know the difference between love and ruttin’.”

“Maybe I was less of a boy than even you thought, Sam.”

“Humph! You were just a hot‑shot kid in them days.” Sam lit another cigarette. “Got to admit, you had the magic touch.” Sam looked to Rodger. “Did me some pretty fancy flyin’ the night we got ol’ Red outta town. Yeah, Miss Ada and your daddy did some fast maneuvering to hide that bear of man in the back of her old Chevy and get him to the field.”

Rodger listened intently, a strange mixture of emotions welling up. He had gone to Ada’s house that night, hiding in the bushes until she had come home. He had frightened her, and she had recoiled from him. “Thank God,” she had whispered, pinching his arm and propelling him into the room. Tears, uncontrolled and shameless, had streamed down his face. Ada had reached out to him and hugged him.

“This lousy, god‑forsaken town of bastards!” Rodger sobbed as Ada held him.

They had all known long before he did about all of this. Ada had so many secrets. They all had.

“It’s not like it seems.” Her voice had come through, parting the floods of anger and pain inside of him. “Big Red is alive. Sam and your father got them all out of here. All of them. Katie and Dee joined them.” She had held him until the wildness in him had subsided.

He had sat on her couch, and she had brought him hot tea in his favorite mug. She had sat in the overstuffed, worn chair. Rodger had listened to Ada’s breathing and begun to time his own to hers. Ada had watched him from her chair.

“‘I need a ride to Chicago. If nothing else, I want to show everyone what kind of trainer Big Red was—is. I’ll get me some clothes together and hitchhike up there. I’m gonna win. That’ll show ’em.”

She had stood when he’d gotten up. “You’d better collect your wits tonight and leave Thursday.” Her voice had had the hardness of reality. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

Rodger had not understood. Not until he overheard her speaking with Vern Strater did he realize she was setting it up for him to leave on the pretext of taking her car to Chicago for repairs.

Once he had longed for a return to his former self, that time of certainty and purpose that he had had under Big Red’s wing. Yet, those times of fire and loss, those nights of longing and regrets, had all been swept into his days of flying and command. He had no more desire to return to the ring. As Sam droned on about the night of Big Red’s rescue, Rodger was relieved that it was over and done.

“Hey, Sam! I’d cut my eyeteeth out to fly that new Martlet with you!”

Sam stuttered, “I…I don’t know. I can’t authorize it.”

Rodger shot him a quick glance. “Hell, I’ve never been one to ask for permission!”

“Hey, boy! It’d be like old times, us flying together!” Sam peeked over the windshield. “Rodger, what happened to you in Chicago, after the Golden Gloves? You kinda disappeared there for a couple of days. What in the hell were you doing?”

“Sam, I’ll tell you all about that, over a beer or two.”

Rodger drove into town honking his horn continuously to clear a path through the people and beggars milling about the streets. Never having seen a car, few paid any attention to the strange contraption making loud noises. Sam, impatient as always, leaned sideways and shouted, “Get outta the way, you idiots!”

Rodger skidded to a stop, causing a flurry of dust to rise about them. The sun poured mercilessly over them. “Well, here we are. Downtown Dooma‑Dooma.”

“Ugh. Get me to a bar.”

“In a few.” Rodger walked over to the center of town, where stalls of the open market crowded one another like nestlings. Sam trailed behind him, careful not to lose himself among the hundreds of browsing men in fatigues and scurrying Chinese women in colorful pants and brocade jackets. Flies swarmed over the displayed food and emaciated dogs lay around the stalls. Though sordid and destitute, the market had a carnival atmosphere. Rodger roamed up and down and through the sideways, poking his head into a stall to look closely at each item.

He spotted a doll in the corner of BenTang’s stall. With an ugly, ever‑present grin that exposed the blackening teeth, the known black-market racketeer bowed quickly, bobbing his head up to eye‑level with Rodger.

“Very nice. See more?”

“How much for the doll?”

“Very nice doll. American-made. See. Label say Seers.”

“It’s misspelled, BenTang. How much?”

BenTang shrugged. “Fifty dollars.”

Rodger held up two fingers. The crafty merchant puckered his thin lips and shook his head.

“No, no. Four.”

“Go to hell.” Rodger pulled away.

“Three!”

Rodger extracted a wad of thousand Chinese bills from his pocket. He peeled off two bills and tossed BenTang the money. Picking up the doll, he walked briskly away to where Sam waited.

He threw his arm around Sam. “Now old buddy, let’s you and me get serious.”

“Ya ain’t too smart about that kid, Rodger. She doesn’t belong here.”

Rodger gave him a playful shove. “None of us do.”

They drank and ate and drank some more, swapping war stories. Sam, crusty and hardened by his own experiences, still listened with real concern to Rodger as he told him of his time in the Citizen’s Military training in the cavalry; of his promotions and flight training; and coming to lead the volunteer Tigers. But in the telling, he left out the story of his stay in Chicago, promising Sam that one night, sober, he would fill in all of the glorious facts.

On the morning of the third day, Rodger left Sam sleeping at the make‑shift barracks and strolled around Dooma-Dooma. No one spoke or made eye contact. Irritated, Rodger mulled over his thoughts. ‘You take our money, we take your women. You give us war, we give you our lives.’ But deep inside the layers of thoughts, he admitted to another truth: the world did not hear the death cries of thousands, but politics listened to self-interest. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek had convinced Washington, D.C. that it would be in the best self-interest of America if China remained independent of Japanese domination. And that had been the reason for the Americans involvement here. So much right for the wrong reasons. The humid air pressed against his skin, and even his sweat caused him to ache all over. A rosy haze lay over the horizon. Rodger went back and woke Sam. The little man looked shriveled and miserable.

“What a great pair of drinking men we are!” Rodger roared.

Sam, running his hand through his thinning hair, grimaced. “Can we get some decent food around here?”

“Sure, I’ll take you to a French restaurant.”

Sam winced, then slowly stood up. “All right, let’s go.”

They ate without any conversation. With mechanical motions, they gathered gear and miserably set about returning to base. As they sighted the scorched, pocked-marked wasteland, encircled with brush that camouflaged the base, Sam glanced over to Rodger, and moaned, “I’ve missed the outgoing transport, haven’t I?”

Rodger shrugged, amused by Sam’s expectations. “Sometimes they show; sometimes they don’t. The boys over here are notorious for breaking dates.”

Rodger walked into the mess with Sam lagging behind. Mary Elizabeth waited for Rodger to hug her. Sam would not, although she had stepped directly into his path.

“I don’t like kids,” Sam snarled.

Mary Elizabeth frowned, staring at Sam. Rodger stroked her head, looking about the room for a distraction. “Hey, Bright Eyes, what are you doing?”

She walked back over to the table and sorted through the mail, making a bundle of the letters for each pilot who had mail, a space for those who didn’t. With a wary look from the corner of her eyes, she continued her task and replied, “I am doing my job.”

Rodger picked up his bundle, tapping it lightly on her head. “Hey! Got something for you Bright Eyes!”

She stopped and turned. Excitement made the light dance in her eyes. Sam slammed the door shut, stomping outside, muttering to himself on the way to the hangar. Buck and Jimmy, lounging in the bunks, chuckled. Rodger cocked his head to one side.

“What would you say to a new dish towel?”

Waving her hand toward the kitchen she replied, “All yours, GI.”

McGree roared with laughter, as Buck and Jimmy applauded.

In the lull, Rodger heard rumbling in the air. That would be the transport coming in. He gently nudged Mary Elizabeth aside and went to the door. Heat waves snaked up from the ground around him. Westward, the horizon glimmered red and black. Then he knew.

“Japs! Comin in!” He grabbed Mary Elizabeth and threw her into her room, yelling as he slammed the door, “Keep down!”

The men, on the run, yanked on their flight suits, shoving pistols inside holsters while pulling on gloves, helmets dangling from an arm. They scrambled for their planes. Rodger ran to the nearest P‑38 and tore away the blocks beneath the wheels, giving McGree a hand up to the cockpit.

Sam and LinChing came running, separating into a V to reach the other planes. Rodger quickly scanned the revetments. Then, looking back at the hangar, he saw his P‑40 with its gaping cowling and parts strewn beside it.

“God damn it!” he yelled.

Two planes taxied into position as the Japanese Nates came into sight. Rodger waved frantically to McGree. As the plane screeched off, Rodger bolted for the protection of the hangar. Two of the five Zeroes swooped low, spraying the ground with lead. Rodger zigzagged. Sam was beside him, wheezing.

Rodger looked over his shoulder and reached out to Sam. Bullet holes crisscrossed his chest. He halted mid-stride, bowing forward. Rodger thrust his arms out and caught him, pressing Sam’s frail, bloody body against his own. With an anguished groan, Sam crumbled into Rodger. Dragging him along, Rodger ceased to think or feel.

He laid Sam alongside the hangar and knelt by his head, smoothing shut his eyes, and then sat heavily on the ground, leaning against the splintering wooden building. The planes were off in the distance, like kites dancing in the evening breeze. Rodger fought the memories, the keen flashes of the times he had been the happiest, the times he had flown Lucy, and only Miss Ada and Sam knew.

Then he shivered. The only other person in the world that Sam had cared about was Ada. He’d have to ship the body back to her. He’d have to write her a letter and hope it got there before the casket.

“Oh, God,” he begged, “Oh, God!” as the tears flowed for his dead friend.

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Words will take us back
To that night I looked into your eyes
And fell in love with you

The refrain to Adele’s newly penned song played over and over in Ada’s mind, obliterating any of her own thoughts. She wrapped damp newspaper around a bouquet of lilacs and secured it with twine, then swept a loose tendril of hair away from her face and secured it with a bobby pin before slipping her arms into her cardigan, leaving it unbuttoned. The screen door whispered shut as she stepped outside. Today the new morning sun shone warmly on her, and she inhaled the sweet smells of spring as she began the two-mile trek along the familiar route to Wilmington cemetery. She unhooked the latch on the gate and proceeded along the well-tended path to the grave site of her son and husband.

She knelt in front of the grave markers, sinking into the warm grass. Plucking the twine loose, she unwrapped the soggy newspaper and separated the lilacs into two bunches, placing the larger one in the vase beside the headstone marked “Daniel Steven Carson, Jr. April 20, 1915-May 21, 1924.” She rested her hand on top of her little boy’s grave, oddly at peace for the first time in eighteen years.

She heard a car off in the distance, a bird chirp and rustle through the pine trees, and the skirring of a squirrel. Sunlight poured through the boughs and patterned the graves. Tears trickled down her cheeks, but the pain subsided quickly and she sighed, pushing herself to her feet, brushing her hands along her hem. She leaned down and picked up the newspaper, wringing it out as best she could before stuffing it along with the twine into her bag.

Scooping up the smaller bundle of lilacs, she bent and placed it in the vase next to her husband’s marked gravestone that read “Dr. Daniel Steven Carson.” Beneath the date, at his sister’s insistence, had been added “beloved husband, father, son and brother.”

Which was a lie. The love she had felt for Dan the first year dissipated with every sarcastic comment he made, implying with a small sneer that, whatever she did, it was never enough. On their first wedding anniversary party, in the midst of friends and relatives, his friend David had toasted her with “To the nurse who got her doctor,” and Dan had smiled in acknowledgement. As if she had pursued him! She had tried, Lord knows, to discuss issues with him, but he would dismiss her concerns with a comment about “monthly hormonal surges.” He would have nothing to do with family outings with her relatives—“They bore me”—only holidays with his sister, Stella, her husband and children.

What difficult times those were! Ada had tried to please, to make herself fit into the Carson structure, but she seemed always one step out off. But when Stella was diagnosed with brain cancer the year after she lost Stevie and Dan, it was Ada that had gone and tended to her those last months of illness. Out of sorrow though comes blessings; she had gotten to know and love her niece and nephew in those years before their father remarried and moved to Salina, California, with his new wife. Ada had been happy for Nick, but she missed Wyona and Gregory terribly. They still wrote to her, although less often now that both had their careers and family.

“Enough!” Ada reprimanded herself aloud. She had quite a nice life now, and why tango with those ghosts?

She lingered, shielding her eyes from the glare with a hand as she glanced from one side to the other, deciding which route to take back home. Again drifting along with the words to Adele’s song, Ada retraced her way home. Once inside her house, she threw away the sodden newspaper and rewound the twine onto its ball before she began the busy work of mending clothing to be given to the poor. The grandfather clock tolled noon when Adele tapped on the door.

“Come in!” Ada pulled the door wider for Adele and her five-string guitar. “I hope you have a melody for me today, Miss Songbird!”

“Oh, Ada,” Adele grumped, dropping into her favorite plump, green chair opposite Ada at the sewing machine. “It’s easier to think about how wonderful to have written this song as to have actually done it!”

Ada chuckled. “Like all my projects! Let me hear what you’ve got.” She flipped a shirt inside out and began to re-stitch the seam.

Adele’s mellifluous voice crooned the refrain,

When I look into your eyes,
I see my world anew,
When I look into your eyes
I fall in love with you.

Strumming the last notes on her guitar, she smiled shyly as Ada clapped.

“Oh, that is nice, Adele! It’s coming along perfectly. What did you title it?” She picked up a needle and threaded it.

“ ‘Baby Blues,’ ” she quipped, setting aside her guitar. “Heather and Rachel make me sing it to them every night at bedtime. I let them think it is about this one,” she patted her belly, “not Rodger.”

“Which reminds me, here’s the latest letter from him.” She took the three pages from the top sewing drawer and walked over to hand them to Adele.

“Rodger describes so well the paradox! On one hand he talks about how much he admires the Chinese people for their industry and courage, then how so many of the workers are hooked on opium and are starving to death.”

Adele slipped off her sensible pumps and wiggled her toes. “From his last letter he told me a lot about the country and customs of the Chinese people. I cannot image how awful it would be to hobble about on four inch feet like those poor Chinese women! I may never wear shoes that hurt my feet again.”

Adele took the letter. Ada returned to sit again at the machine and worked the material beneath the presser foot. Adele’s song played in her thoughts as the machine hummed along.

Ada felt Adele’s penetrating gaze. From the corner of her eye she saw Adele refold the blue airmail letter and set it atop her guitar.

“So, who the hell is this Dee?”

Ada, chafed by Adele’s questions, pushed aside the half‑sewn tweed jacket, turned off the machine’s light, and faced the pretty, very pregnant young woman. “She was Rodger’s first love.”

“And? Is there a tragic ending to this lover’s tale?”

“Has Rodger ever mentioned Big Red?”

Adele shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “The man who taught Rodger how to fight?”

“Box. He taught Rodger to box well enough to win the 1938 Golden Gloves in Chicago.” Ada held Adele’s probing gaze. “Katie Simmons, Dee’s mother, married Big Red and wanted to settle here—until someone in town found out he was a quarter black.”

“What happened?”

“Rodger’s father, and Sam, the man who taught Rodger to fly, got Big Red out of town the night the KKK burned his house down. Katie and Dee had already left that morning.”

Adele tapped her front teeth with her index finger. “That explains some of the nightmares Rodger has. Voices…and fire.”

“I’m ashamed to admit it, but I don’t think any one of us ever took the time to explain it all to him.” Ada looked away from Adele, pulling down her eyeglasses and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Anyway, not enough to make it clear who did what to whom.”

“But Big Red got away safely? And Rodger still went on fighting.” Adele pursed her lips, sighing. “It just seems odd that Rodger ever started fighting.”

“He boxed.” Ada emphasized the word, knowing that only a whole explanation would satisfy Adele. “He was badly beaten by the two town bullies, so his father took him to see Big Red.”

“What in the world would have possessed him to take on two men?”

“He was only eleven and they were twelve. His mother had made him wear a diaper and play outside the day before.”

“Madeline wouldn’t have done that!” Adele sat straight up, her bulging stomach stretching taut the fabric of maternity dress. Her honey‑brown, bobbed hair swayed back and forth punctuating her disbelief. “The way she dotes on Heather and Rachel, you’d think she was the perfect mother.”

“Perhaps she understands them better than she did Rodger.” Ada stood up, tugging her housedress at the belt, as she stepped into the kitchen. “Want some tea?”

“Yes, please. With milk, no sugar. English habit I got from flying so long with the Women’s Transport Auxiliary. I can’t drink it black anymore.”

“Do you miss it the excitement of being in action?”

Ada’s question hung in the silence between them. She listened with all of her senses, relaxing only a little as Adele’s soft, modulated voice filled the space.

”I guess I miss the intensity of it all.” Adele entwined a strand of hair around a finger. “But being an American woman, I was so different from the English. Now,” her voice caught on a choked‑down sob as she crushed the letter tighter in her hand, “being pregnant is so different from anything else. A month’s honeymoon with Rodger was…was….” Her hand dangled, then dropped in her lap. She began to smooth out the crinkles in the envelope.

They had fallen into the habit of being without Rodger so easily that it embarrassed Ada to hear Adele speak of her longing. She brought her tea.

“It’s so unfair to have only lived together for a month. Didn’t you know each other for a year? But it’s not the same is it?”

She put the cup in Adele’s outstretched hands.

“This crazy war we’re not supposed to be fighting, well, it’s like time got all stirred up in a big pot and you just don’t know how the stew’s going to turn out.”

“Oh, yes, Ada. Waiting—it’s like a hundred razor nicks, just painful enough not to let you forget.”

Ada nodded and patted her on the knee as she spoke.

Adele slowly inhaled the fragrance of the mint tea. “Loving, too, has an edge to it.”

“Are you getting along all right with your in‑laws? It isn’t an easy situation for you, I imagine.”

“Oh, yes, we get along quite well. But thank God you’re next door!” Adele smiled at her confidentially. “John is so sweet, so mild‑tempered. I can’t figure out who Rodger takes after the most—Madeline or John.”

Ada smiled quickly. “Maybe he’s the blend of their hidden sides.”

“You don’t like Madeline very much, do you?”

“Maddie and I go way back to high school. We were never friends, so to speak, just speaking acquaintances.”

“And John? Did you know him in school?”

“No. Maddie met him while she was away in college. John was an engineer for Burlington, taking a few night courses in accounting. Madeline persuaded him to go on for a degree, instead of staying in college herself. She took a part‑time job as a secretary, and John gave up the railroad. It so upset her father that she didn’t go on for a teaching degree—even her brother Kyle thought she should have gone on for a degree, then married John.”

Adele brightened. “I fell in love with Uncle Kyle! But I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t want to be married to him. Unugh.” Adele brushed away her bangs, smiling. “He’s a charmer, though. When I was in London with Rodger, Uncle Kyle spent hours with me. He even tried to talk Rodger out of going back to the Flying Tigers.”

Ada smiled back, though not too deeply. She searched vainly in her mind for a way to ask more questions about Rodger’s uncle Kyle whom she had never met, suddenly jealous of this snip of a girl who had so much more intimate knowledge of Rodger and his family than she.

“I should warn you that Kyle is a sore subject to broach with Madeline. She and her brother don’t get along.”

“Really?” Adele’s voice rose in surprised agitation. “John always speaks so highly of him.”

“Kyle and John are very good friends.”

Ada could see that family politics confounded Adele, and she was a woman who had to know. And know she would by constantly digging into a statement. But then she would give openly of herself, as if to barter a personal insight for an answer. The past few months had been filled with Adele and the baby. Grudgingly Ada began to love Adele, although the constant nagging for information wearied her.

“Ada, tell me what Rodger was like as a little boy.”

Ada looked into her hands. Kaleidoscopic images of Rodger as a small boy, with his electric blue‑green eyes, flitted through her thoughts. She longed to see him again, too. An ache of loving throbbed in her heart. He had been such a part of her life these last nine years, and his absence left a deep void within her.

“Rodger was quiet, yet watchful. I never knew him to run with the gang. He always held back or directed everyone to do what he wanted. He was a sweet kid, always looking after his two little sisters.” Ada shrugged, pained by the memories so real, so elusive. “He was good at whatever he wanted to do.”

Adele gave a little breathless laugh. “I believe that.” She shifted her knees to one side, leaning against the chair’s arm. “He’s so sure of himself in an odd way. So commanding. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t ever seem to blink.”

Ada looked away from Adele, noting the smudged front window pane. “I would be so exasperated with him when he gave me all the neighborhood gossip.” She flipped her hand in the air. “So‑and‑so did this. Saw him with her, her with him. Argued with this one. His big ears took it all in and he spat it all out.”

Shocked by her vehement statement, Ada jumped up from the footstool and scurried into the kitchen. She didn’t know who she was annoyed with: Adele or Rodger. Or herself. She had to admit finally that she felt displaced by Adele.

“I think sometimes I know him so well. But I really don’t know him at all,” she called out loudly from the sink as she dipped the tea ball several more times.

Adele got up from the chair and padded into the kitchen. “God, I hope this kid’s a boy. All the energy that went into making him ought to have a masculine form.”

Ada giggled. “You’ll rue the day you first thought that.”

The phone rang. Ada reached over Adele’s shoulder to answer it.

“Hello?” A second passed. “What can I do for you, Maddie?”

Ada smiled to see Adele waggle an eyebrow as Maddie’s words pealed out of the telephone receiver she held away from her ear.

“John just got a big promotion and there’s a dinner Saturday night at the lodge in his honor. I have a navy coat and dress ensemble, but a few spots need to be taken in.”

“Why don’t you bring it over? I could mark it right now.”

“Oh, Ada! That would work out perfectly. John’s going to be late for supper, and the girls are busy with homework.”

“Fine, Madeline.” Before she could say anything more, the other end went dead. Slowly, Ada replaced the receiver and shook her hands free of imaginary strings.

Adele watched her from the doorway with an amused smile. “We three women, the ‘Sweet Graces.’”

Ada looked at her quizzically. Adele had one hand across her belly, the other, resting against the doorjamb as she recited, “Around the child bend all the three Sweet Graces; Faith, Hope, Charity.”

Ada, intrigued, searched her memory. “I seem to recall that the other part of Landor’s poem was about men.”

“Yes. Let’s see if I remember it.” Adele sucked on a finger. “Ah! ‘Around the man bend other faces: Pride, Envy, Malice, are his Graces.’ ”

Ada and Adele stood in one another’s quietude until jarred back to the moment by a firm knock on the front door. Ada rushed past Adele, whipping open the door.

“Come in, Maddie. Come into the sewing room.”

As Madeline passed a large, foul‑smelling pile of strewn rags by the sewing basket, she involuntarily wrinkled her nose in disgust. Softening her face, she asked sweetly, “Are you still involved with that charity project in colored town?”

“Yes, I take care of the family I always have.”

With a brisk sigh, Madeline dismissed the pile. “They don’t change much, do they Ada?”

“Things change and stay the same, like all people and times, Maddie.”

Madeline shook the dress and matching coat on the hanger. “Just a simple matter of hemming, isn’t it? With a few alterations here and there.” Shoving the material into Ada’s hands, Madeline took a step back. “I’ve marked it all for you.”

“Why don’t you try it on again so I see for myself? I’ll put on a pot of tea for us.” Ada flung the dress and coat back into Madeline’s unprepared hands. The two garments separated, draping awkwardly over Madeline’s arms.

Speechless, Madeline turned and marched to the back of the house. Ada and Adele avoided one another’s eyes, waiting for Madeline to return in a few minutes in the ill-fitting clothes.

As Madeline stood in front of her, Ada readjusted the markings. With pins between her teeth, she could only mumble as Madeline chattered about the townspeople. Adele padded softly by them and reseated herself in the green brocade armchair in the living room.

“And Hettie— you remember her, Ada, a junior at Garland High? Well, she ran off with the minister of Rossville. Why, Vern and Abbie are heartsick about it! They always talked about sending her on to college.”

Ada removed the pins from her mouth in a bunch. “Maddie, Hettie did nothing but talk about eloping with that man. How could it be a surprise to anyone?”

“Why, I suspect she had to, that’s the heartbreak. If these young girls only knew there is more to life than all this nonsense of babies and housekeeping.” She looked to Adele. “You had the good sense to get a college education and my, goodness,” she exclaimed with pinched smile, “fly transports! Won’t that be something to tell your children? What kind of security will Hettie have if that man runs off again without her?”

“I suppose she grabbed her chance at the perfect home and family, the very thing she didn’t have in her own life. We may be only capable of repeating our mothers’ and fathers’ lives.”

“Oh, heavens! Ada, no! I’m in no way implying that! If that were the case, then we’d never evolve and humankind would be the same as it was in biblical times.”

“Turn.”

“I’d say we differ greatly from our folks, each and every generation. We get more tolerant and compassionate. We—”

“Turn.”

“Ada, I declare, are you redoing all my handiwork?”

“Turn.” Ada punched in the last of the pins. “No, just evening up the sides. When you make any adjustments in the bodice, you have to readjust the hemline.” She stood up, her ankle bones cracking. “Let’s have some tea.”

“I’ll change and have a quick cup.” Madeline whirled around to face the living room. “You’re as quiet as a mouse in there, Adele. I hardly know you’re around! I do hope that you’ll join me tonight with the ladies. We’re going to discuss the Romantic poets and how they predicted all this world upheaval.” She paused. “And the reverend’s wife will there. Jane so wants to meet you and perhaps,” Madeline cajoled, “persuade you to join the choir. It’s a shame not to share that beautiful voice of yours.”

“Hmm,” Adele murmured as she continued reading Ladies’ Home Journal.

As the steam wafted gently from the teapot, Ada inhaled the sweet, fragrant jasmine. Madeline sat at the kitchen table, ironing the edge of the tablecloth with her long fingertips, smiling too brightly, her voice edged with a trace of shrillness.

“Have you heard from Rodger?”

Ada dipped her head in quick assent. She had shared parts of her letter with Adele; and Adele had shown her two pages of her three-page letter. She prepared herself mentally for an angry onslaught from Madeline. She could understand how slighted Madeline must feel.

There was a long pause, a frozen pond in the conversation.

“Well, I suppose we’ll get a letter, too, this week. John gets dreadfully worried if he doesn’t hear from Rodger for a while. I just tell him that the boy is too busy to keep up his correspondence with everyone at home.”

Adele straightened up, speaking in a loud, yet oddly soft voice, “He’s flying two missions a day now.”

“He’ll certainly have some interesting stories to tell us then, won’t he?” Madeline finished her tea. “Ada, I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me on such short notice. I suppose I take you for granted, like all the rest of my family.”

Surprised, Ada shot back, “Oh, no! I don’t think that!”

“Oh, sweet Ada, always doing things for us! Why, just the time you spent with Rodger!” Madeline turned to look squarely at Ada. “And encouraging him in everything he wanted to do. Why, John just thinks the world of you, too!”

Adele, guitar in one hand and looking rather comical, had come to stand beside Madeline. “Perhaps there’s a medal for good people, like the Victoria Cross for bravery.” Ada saw her wink. “Madeline, we best be getting ourselves home if there’s to be entertaining tonight.”

“Oh, yes, dear! You’re so right!” Before she stepped into the living room, she called back, “Ada, do join us if you like. The ladies love to have you. You always say the most thought‑provoking things!”

Ada just nodded. As Madeline and Adele left through the front door, she remained seated, stirring her tea with the small, silver spoon, listening to the click‑tap, click‑tap of her anger.

Then, as the quiet of her house enveloped her, she reached inside her dress pocket and took out Rodger’s letter. Replacing her glasses, she reread the part where he talked about Sam’s arrival as the new mechanic.

Want to read more? Read online for free>> Or buy your own copy of Forcing the Hand of God: paperback or hardcover on Amazon.com or ebook (multiple formats available) on Smashwords.com.

Please join me as I celebrate the 6-year anniversary of the publication of Forcing the Hand of God, my historical novel about WWII fighter pilot Major Rodger Brown.

A World War II Pilot wagers love, family and honor – Forcing the Hand of God
It is the late ’30s and fighter pilot Major Rodger Brown of the Flying Tigers is deep in the thick of World War II. Back home, his pregnant wife , long time friend, parents and younger sisters anxiously await his return. Torn between his obligations to his country and family, Roger is a man tormented by the realization that he prefers battle in the air than the drudgery or everyday life on the ground.

Forcing The Hand of God evokes a time (World War II) when men and women found the courage to do the necessary, the objectionable and even the unthinkable to defend their lives and preserve the essential fabric of this country. It is also a timeless story of self realization and the internal and external conflicts that are part of life for a military professional and the family and friends who love him/her.

Intrigued? My gift to you: the first chapter of Forcing the Hand of God.

Chapter 1

Resting his hand on the prop of the P40 Warhawk, Major J. Rodger Brown paused in his preflight and looked skyward. Haloed by early morning sunlight, Eastern grey-legged geese spread into formation, their haunting cries echoing in the blue skies over Kunming, China, the “City of Eternal Spring”. Another flock took wing and another, heading for the distant pass between Golden Horse and Green Rooster Hills that towered either shore of Lake Dianchi, where a rosy mist dissipated over the water. Masses of white-winged ducks blossomed into flight from the lake, clouding his view of the gate to the Kwan-yen Temple covered in lush vegetation. Thousands of bleached-white grave markers peeked through the camellia, magnolia, giant azalea and primrose blooms.

He sighed, thinking to himself how much like a once-beautiful aged woman this place was: beneath the make-up you could see the ravages of time and war.

And those damn snow-covered mountains on three sides made for some tricky air currents: he’d lost a good pilot and one plane downed in Lake Dianchi. Already the fishermen would be scavenging the plane, mainly for the rubber from the tires for shoes.

He studied the white, tufted cirrus clouds, reminded of his home town, Wilmington, Illinois. He tugged on a glove. He had left home without regrets. There is no one, nothing, more important to him now than winning at this small game of war. He and his few remaining Flying Tigers, knighted the “Aces Up”, mercenaries of the sky.

The humidity and buzzing bugs irritated him more than the paperwork after each sortie. He waved away the sixty or so coolies clad in filthy unbleached cotton blouses and pantaloons, clearing the airfield. Shouldering eight-foot long bamboo poles with attached brown fiber baskets filled with debris, the men, women and children scurried about like a swarm of winged worker bees. Rodger wondered, as he leaned against the fuselage of the P-40, which of them had radios given out as part of Chennault’s warning system throughout this war-torn land. Rodger had trained pilots in the Chinese Air Force Task and had agreed with another pilot who had called them “fighting rascals.”

He had a deep respect for the poor Chinese peasants who had little to eat, diseases of every imaginable kind, from colds to leprosy, and maybe one in ten had a water buffalo to work the rice paddies. On top of that, many of the women hobbled about on four inch feet bound from birth.

The wind had died down to a hundred knot headwinds. Rodger felt a familiar rush of excitement, hoping for a little action in the air as he began his preflight. Maybe the rest of the airmen from the American Volunteer Group who dubbed this place “Shangri-La” relished their leave at the Wensham Hot Springs, but his playground is here, in the air. He wanted neither R&R, nor reassignment stateside.

He inspected his P-40, noting its every detail. With its fierce painted shark’s scowl and soulful eyes, it was more than a machine, more than metal and parts. It was a part of him. He ran his hand along her belly, completing his walk-around preflight. Before climbing into the cockpit, he checked his sidearm.

He settled into the seat, making final adjustments to his parachute straps, yanking the seatbelt across his lap, snapping it quickly. He smoothed his leather pilot’s helmet; the goggles fit snug and secure but the frayed chin strap chafed. He scanned the instruments, resetting the altimeter and positioning switches and fuel controls. Stretching, turning his head from side to side, he watched for clearance hand signals from the ground crew. He pulled forward slightly out of the revetment, nodded, and began the “start engine” procedures.

As the engine settled into its friendly, throbbing roar, Rodger checked for the engine instruments lights in the green. He reached over and adjusted the directional gyro.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the other three Warhawk and Tomahawks ready to go, their props churning. Rodger switched on his mike. “Red Flight to tower. Ready to roll.”

“Red Flight cleared to runway. Remain clear. Call when ready for take‑off.”
The others checked in. “Red Two.”

“Red Three.”

“Red Four.”

He did his run-up. The high-pitched, pulsating engines galvanized Rodger’s every cell. As he sucked deeper, filling his lungs with the vibrations and the smell of the fumes, his breath seared the inside of his mouth. He searched through his pockets for a piece of spearmint gum. The juice flowed down his throat, relieving the ache. The snap‑snap became the rhythm of his heartbeat.

He looked over his left shoulder, then his right. McGree, Barnes and Freeman flipped their thumbs up.

His hands tingled as he gripped the controls, his feet pushing hard on the rudder. He leaned side to side, holding his breath against the burnt exhaust fumes as the P-40 snaked along the runway. Rodger rammed the canopy shut and called the tower again. “Ready for take-off.”

As he rotated the stick and became airborne, he concentrated on the job before him. Just a bandit or two for them, he prayed. At least one for me. Like squaring off in the boxing ring with a formidable opponent, he felt his senses sharpened to a painful degree. His next round would be in the sky.

That same moment he looked over his shoulder, visually checking his formation. McGree flew beside him as Element Lead, dogging his every move like a bloodhound after his prey. McGree would be right there if Rodger made a mistake, right there.

The two new pilots, Freeman and Barnes, eased into their positions. Freeman lined up on his wing and Barnes was number four to McGree. Excellent positions. Both men were fair-haired and light-eyed, almost indistinguishable from one another, except for their voices. Freeman’s softly slurred, “yes siree” amused Rodger. It could be put on.

With the casual indifference of experienced flyers, they hadn’t bothered to acknowledge one another before, during or after the briefing, although their very lives depended on one another’s skill.

No sane man would do what they volunteered to do, thought Rodger. It’s the ultimate game of high stakes, and God held all the Aces.

The clouds rolled behind them. The engines hummed in unison, and each silent man listened, watching the sky for any sign of action. The sun shimmered through a layer of clouds. Rodger squinted, looking again at the yellow-orange orb. From the right, directly at them, came bombers. With Rising Sun insignias.

They crossed the border into French- Indochina. As Rodger banked on a new heading and gained altitude, the blood ran savagely up his neck. He climbed to a position up-sun from the bombers. He must not be too quick, too fast, or he’d lose the element of surprise. He readied for battle, adjusting his gun sight and test-firing the six fifty-caliber machine guns. He knew his men did exactly the same as he.

Rodger eased into a half‑roll, leading the flight through a split-s. They swooped down onto the unsuspecting fleet. The sky lit up with tracers streaking air with trails of orange. A Mitsubishi KI-21 bomber fell from the sky, black smoke billowing from an engine. The formation broke apart, then reformed.

McGree cried out, “Rear flight for me!”

Rodger aligned himself with the enemy lead bomber. Enemy escorts appeared, coming straight in for an attack. Rodger had to break hard into the Zeroes. As he out turned the lead escort, the Zeroes dropped off and climbed up-sun for altitude. With a quick glance, Rodger saw that his men were in combat spread, line abreast. He focused on the sky in front of him, looking for the Japanese lead bomber. He snaked back and forth, never holding a heading for more than a second or two, continuously “checking six,” all of the time, clearing his own tail and his men’s.

He sighted the bomber.

It crossed from his right to left, slightly high. Max RPM prop. Full throttle. Readjust trim. He climbed left in a curve of pursuit turn.

He was exposed. Vulnerable. But he concentrated on the target, holding the gun sight pipper on the compartment of the pilot. He waited. The Zero came into view, looming larger. Timing would be critical. Just as Rodger squeezed the trigger, the strident voice of his wingman blasted into his headset.

“Red Lead! Bandits, six o’clock! Break right!”

Rodger steadied his hand upon the trigger, maintaining his position. He released the red button. Strikes appeared on the fuselage and left engine. The Japanese bomber shuddered, plunged nose down, and turned wing over wing.

There was a pause, as if an honorable breath had been drawn. Rodger could see into the cockpit as the plane spiraled downward. The pilot lay a little sideways, slumped forward on the stick, a ghastly, twisted smile on his face.

Rodger broke into a hard right turn. He had a Zero on his tail. McGree and his wingman closed in on the enemy. Rodger’s heart skipped a painful beat. No sign of his Number Two. Freeman hadn’t been able to hang on during that last hard break. Rodger knew Freeman would furiously seek them out like a snow goose cut off from the flock.

“Red Leader! What’s your position?” Freeman’s voice exploded into his headset.

He breathed out a sigh of relief, but kept silent. The enemy jock closed in on him.

On the edge of a high-speed stall, his blood sucking away from his face and neck, Rodger forced himself through the pain of high G forces to look over his right shoulder. He bit his tongue smiling and sucked the familiar taste of his own blood mixed with the gum. McGree had reached the deflection angle, assured of a strike.

A sudden burst of flaming metal rained through the sky around him. The hunter was felled, and he was free once again.

“Good shot!” Rodger shouted. Relaxing against the back of the seat, he spoke low to them. “Skies all clear. Let’s round ’em up and head for home.”

An electric feeling passed from man to man, plane to plane. They all knew it, felt it, welcomed it.

They landed, screeching tires heralding the return of all the warriors. Mechanics and ground crew waved and shouted at them as they quickened their pace for a hurried debriefing at headquarters. Rodger walked up front, absorbed in his own thoughts, yet tuned into the conversation behind him.

“Jesus, good shooting, cowboy! Gonna get you some hot spurs!”

“Well, I thought I’d been railroaded outta the sky that one time!”

“Lucky. We’re real lucky, yes siree.”

“We have our mechanics to thank.”

Rodger smiled. But the image of the Japanese pilot with his grotesque smile intruded on his thoughts. Some were lucky, some were not. They were too damned lucky. And Rodger felt unjustly cursed by this luck.

As he came into the debriefing room, he stopped to stroke the cheek of a ragged doll nailed to the doorjamb. McGree also brushed hurried fingertips across the face of it, setting the strings of hair moving back and forth.

This was a ritual for Mary Elizabeth, the Chinese‑English eleven-year-old who cooked and cleaned for them, and scolded them every time for the dust they brought in, the daughter of their best mechanic. If they didn’t need LinChing for his mechanical skills and translations, Rodger would ship that girl and her father stateside.

“Well, gentlemen,” Rodger turned to the room of men. They all quieted immediately. “If McGree is through with his critique of this day’s events,” Rodger lowered his palm when McGree responded with a curt nod, “and there are no further questions, you are dismissed.” The shuffling of feet whipped up dust balls.

“I would like to add a few words.” Wary faces turned to him. “A job well done.”

After he showered, he walked over to the club for a round of drinks. He stood against the bar, sipping scotch neat, listening to the animated voices rising and falling.

“And there, up front, all ammo blasting at one time was this—-”

“Look, you jelly-kneed bastard, if it wasn’t for the rear cover, you’d be smokin’ still!”

“Hey, who you callin’ jelly-kneed?”

Every man here is a hero of one sort or another, mused Rodger, assessing the men around him. Escaping death once, twice, the game of it; it wasn’t, and never would be enough—not for them, not for him.

As he turned to leave, several of the men stopped talking to yell, “Good night, sir!”

“Sir! Want to go duck hunting with us tomorrow?”

Rodger shook his head, “No thanks!”

Going out the door, he raised his arm in a half wave, half salute to them. Warmed by the scotch, he whistled softly into the stagnant night air.

Abed in his quarters, he thought of his wife Adele. He had been deployed to London for more flight training and met her, wooed her away from an RAF pilot and proposed to her. How pretty she had been in her white wedding dress, her quirky half-smile, the twinkle in her green eyes, and her silky brown hair with golden highlights. The image of her became almost real and he ached for her.

But as he searched her dream image, a chill swept over him. He recalled her face at their last weekend together in London—a serious, pinched look about her, none of the bantering or the mocking smile that so intrigued him. And there beside her stood his Uncle Kyle, with his hand on her elbow. The irony of it, his uncle, a colonel, there for the wedding of an airman to an American woman who flew transports for the English Women’s Transport Auxiliary; the two people in the world who should have understood his need to be here, united against his re-enlistment.

But he had Ada, his longtime confidante and neighbor. She understood.

Sitting up, Rodger lit a cigarette, flicking the match on the ground beside his cot. He guessed it wasn’t easy for Adele, pregnant now, to be living in the same house with his mother, Madeline.

Hell, it’s a wonder anyone could live in the same house with his mother. But his father, John, and Ada would ease things for Adele, make life interesting and bearable. Until he came home. When he came home. He knew the war would not last forever.

He leaned against the splintering wooden wall, stretching his cramped legs. It would be a long and sleepless night for him, filled with visions—those faces, both beautiful and monstrous.

And he would be obligated to listen to every one of them. Every damned one of them.

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