CHAPTER 3

BACK TO EARTH.

I fell, with a thud, back into my life. After leaving Mexico—on a train once more, such pedestrian means of travel; I couldn’t help but imagine flying back north, like a migrating bird, instead—I returned to Smith. Classes, papers, the frenzy of that last semester before graduation, with all the meetings and forms to fill out and final projects to plan—all reached out to me, like clinging tendrils of ivy, pinning me to the ground.

I told no one but my roommate about my secret solo flight with Colonel Lindbergh. Elizabeth Bacon didn’t believe me. Why should she? The newspapers had been full of accounts of the official flight the next day; the one in which Elisabeth, Con, Mother, and I had gone up in the large Ford Tri-Motor plane that had brought his mother south to Mexico City. Studying the grainy newspaper photographs, I couldn’t help but smile at the rather grim look on Elisabeth’s face in some of them; she had been a bit green when we landed. She had still managed to face all the photographers and reporters with graceful aplomb, while Charles had stood, smiling that slightly frozen smile I was beginning to recognize as his public face, beside her. It had seemed to me he was happy to have someone else to share the spotlight, and how I wished, then, that it had been me! But I was too paralyzed by all the cameras and people; I had hung back with Mother and Con, dull, dry Anne once more.

So I cherished the memory of our private flight together, and tried to convince myself it meant more to him than the staged, public exercise with Elisabeth and Con and Mother. But as time went on, and winter melted into spring, I heard no more from the colonel. The newspaper interest in him had not abated; if anything, it had only escalated as he continued to fly around the country and Latin America, linking countries and spreading the gospel of passenger flight, mapping out routes, breaking new speed and distance records with almost boring regularity. And every other day there were rumors of an engagement. For now that the world had found its hero, it was impatient that he find his heroine.

Elisabeth’s name appeared more than once as a likely candidate. Mine never did. Apparently, Ambassador Morrow had only one daughter worthy of notice.

So I immersed myself in my work and did my best to ignore the newspapers and newsreels. I turned, even more hungrily than usual, to my diary. I had always been like this; only able to recognize my world by reassembling it on the page. Everything felt topsy-turvy; overnight, long-held notions, dreams, ideas were alien to me, now that I had flown with Charles Lindbergh, trusted him with my body, my soul—my heart.

My fears, however, remained the same; after the astonishing intimacy of my flight with the colonel, the rest of our time together over the holiday had been one of marked politeness, nothing more. I was certain he had forgotten all about me, even as I clung to a memory growing wispier by the hour until I couldn’t remember which parts I had dreamed and which parts had truly happened.

One Saturday in April, tired of books, tired of papers, tired of myself, I borrowed Bacon’s Oldsmobile and drove to the tiny airfield outside of Northampton. I paid a man five dollars to take me up in a biplane smaller than the one I had ridden in with Charles. I strapped myself inside, fastened a pair of goggles around my head, and still it felt as if I had never done this before. But then—that dance, that balletic moment when the plane leaped from the bumpy ground and, as if it were holding its breath, hovered a moment before pulling up, up, up…

That moment brought back everything I had felt during my first flight with Charles. As tears rolled down my face, I tried to convince myself they were happy tears; happy because I hadn’t dreamed it, after all.

That flight was shorter than the first—merely a quick pass over the college, during which I imagined all my friends scurrying around in the buildings below like a colony of ants—but when we landed, I felt better about life. I retrieved the heart I had given to Charles Lindbergh so impulsively, and tucked it safely inside my earthbound bones once again. One day I would be able to give it to someone else. Someone who wanted it.

“Anne? Anne—hello, Anne?”

I shook my head and shuffled in my hard desk chair; reflexively I stretched, only now aware that my entire body was stiff, my fingers cold. I must have been sitting, dreaming, for ever so long.

“What time is it?” I asked Bacon.

“Five o’clock,” she said, turning on a lamp, twirling her ubiquitous strand of pearls, just like Clara Bow’s; she even styled her thick auburn hair like the movie star’s. “The announcements are here.” And she tossed a small white cardboard box down on my desk.

“Oh.” I opened the box and removed a card; it was bordered in our class color, purple, with the seal of Smith: Education is the key to the future.

“Can you believe it’s almost here? Graduation? Gee, I didn’t think I’d ever graduate, really!” Bacon plopped down on her narrow bed, the ancient mattress springs creaking like old, rusty door hinges.

“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” I said wryly. “I have no idea how you made it through French literature!”

“I might not have, if it hadn’t been for you! Anne, do you think you’ll win any prizes this year? I bet you win one of the writing ones!”

“Oh, I doubt it.” Biting my lip, I tried not to think of it. I had been asked to try for both the Elisabeth Montagu Prize for essays and the Mary Augusta Jordan Literary Prize for prose or poetry. But, of course, I wouldn’t win. “I’m sure I won’t be known for anything other than being the ambassador’s daughter,” I mused out loud. “The ambassador’s other daughter, at that.”

“What?” Bacon looked up from the latest copy of Vanity Fair. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Oh, you know. After college—after everything. What happens next, Bacon? I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever be known for anything great, like—” I caught myself just in time; I didn’t want to say his name, say “Charles” out loud, as if I had a right. I didn’t want to let it slip that perhaps, for the first time, I was tempted by feats grander than literary prizes and ambassadorships; those staid, respectable feats endorsed by my parents.

“Well, who does imagine that?” Bacon said, returning to her magazine. “No one I know.”

“That’s just it!” It burst out from me, this unexpected passion and desire stirred up by that slim, tall boy with blue eyes and a hero’s laurel in the shape of a flying helmet. “No one I know ever does, we’re all so, so—content! But what’s it all about—what’s it all for? The studying and the reading and the trying so hard? What are we supposed to do with it all, other than be exactly like our mothers?”

“We get married. That’s what we bright, promising young Smith girls are supposed to do. That’s what it’s all for. We marry equally bright, promising young men from Princeton or Cornell or Harvard or Yale. We collect silver and china; we begin to entertain, modestly at first, you know! Then we have babies and bigger houses and more silver and more china and entertain lavishly. Our husbands come home every night at the same time, and we get bored looking at their faces over the dinner table. Maybe, if we’re very lucky, they take us to Europe once in a while. If we’re very unlucky, they become politicians and we have to move to Washington. Meanwhile, we play tennis and golf and try to keep our figures and our sanity.”

“It all sounds so awful!”

“Well, it is. And it isn’t. I wouldn’t mind a house on Long Island and a charge account at Tiffany!”

“But what about love? What about passion? What about—more?” I flung my pencil down with a dramatic gesture that surprised both of us. Bacon picked up the pencil and handed it back to me, her eyebrows—dramatically darkened, just like a film star’s—arched in amusement.

“What about it? What’s gotten into you, Anne?”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be one of those dried-up matrons you see at bridge parties, scowling at the younger generation. I want to be one of those marvelous old ladies covered in scarves who rock in their chairs with mysterious smiles, remembering the scandalous affairs of their youth!”

“Why, Anne Morrow!” My roommate’s green eyes deepened. “You sly creature! I guess still waters really do run deep!”

I shrugged, blushing, and Bacon returned to her magazine with a chuckle.

Tapping the pencil against my teeth as my briefly soaring soul returned to my normal, earthbound body, I couldn’t help but wonder. As awful as Bacon’s scenario sounded, at least she had some kind of vision for her future. Whereas I—fanciful thoughts of scandalous affairs aside—did not. I saw myself drifting about, like an actress in a play, waiting forever for her cue.

Beyond graduation, I truly couldn’t see; I had always possessed some vague notion of “writing,” but what on earth would I write about? Didn’t one have to have experiences first? While the short essays and poems—many of them, lately, singing of wind and clouds and sky—I had written for the Smith Review had been well received, my words seemed like fluff to me; dandelion fluff, ephemeral, not substantial enough to remain in anyone’s memories, let alone mine. Already, I couldn’t remember half of them.

And where would I do this so-called writing? I had no plans except a smattering of invitations to classmates’ summer homes for a weekend of sailing or tennis. Which was one more reason to envy my sister; as soon as Elisabeth graduated two years ago, she’d made a real life for herself with Connie Chilton. Between the two of them—and with Mother and Daddy’s quietly proud blessing—they were single-handedly going to revolutionize early childhood education. They were already planning to start their own nursery school.

Unless, of course—or rather, until—Elisabeth married. Which suddenly seemed a very real possibility, one I couldn’t bear to contemplate.

Seized with an impulse to act instead of think for only the second time in my life—the first time having taken place in an airplane—I grabbed a fountain pen. Scribbling quickly, before I lost my nerve, I signed my first graduation announcement with a short note, then slipped it into an envelope. For a sickening moment I realized I had no idea where to address it—until I remembered, my heart soaring with joy and empowerment, that we were dignitaries now. All I had to do was pick up the telephone and someone would find out for me.

Privilege, I was not ashamed to admit at that moment, had its perks.

OF COURSE, HE DIDN’T COME.

During the entire graduation ceremony, even when my name was announced not once, but twice, as the winner of both the Montagu and Jordan prizes, my only feeling was of disappointment; childish, selfish disappointment. What were those prizes to me when the one I desired the most was withheld from me? I searched and searched the crowd for his lanky, yet imposing, figure, those blue eyes that had seen me, and I searched in vain.

To make matters worse, after I received my diploma and joined my family, I was told that he had recently visited our home in Englewood.

“Colonel Lindbergh came to call two weekends ago, just after we got back from Mexico City,” Mother said, after she hugged me and whispered how proud she was. She was wearing her alumni pin; so were Elisabeth and Connie, who, naturally, had driven up together.

“He—he did?” I tried to conceal my hurt by opening up the sheepskin cover and studying my diploma. Anne Spencer Morrow.

“Yes, he did. Elisabeth and Constance happened to be home, so they were able to entertain him.”

“Ah.”

“The colonel was as loquacious as ever,” Elisabeth said, with a wry smile for Connie, who returned it, wrinkling her broad, freckle-splattered nose.

“I’ve never met a more boring man.” Connie sniffed disdainfully.

“Oh, he’s not boring, he’s just—careful,” I said. Being very careful, myself.

“There’s my girl!” Daddy ambled up; he had been detained by a crowd of admirers and a couple of members of the press. “We’re so proud of you, Anne!”

“Yes, we are,” Mother assured me with another hug. Con, my little sister, took my two prize certificates and studied them. Then she sighed dramatically.

“Marvelous. Yet another Morrow achievement I’ll have to live up to!”

“I wish Dwight were here,” I blurted out, surprising us all. Naturally, we were not to mention my brother’s recent “troubles” in public. But Con’s little joke reminded me that there was at least one Morrow who was having difficulties living up to his heritage.

Dwight had been hallucinating, delirious, at school. Daddy’s stern letters exhorting him to “buck up” had not helped; finally Mother arranged to place him in a rest home in South Carolina. It was merely a “temporary” situation, she reminded us all—but a necessary one.

There was an awkward silence at the mention of my brother’s name; Mother fiddled with her gloves while Daddy tugged at his necktie.

“We thought it best for him to remain—for him to get some strength back, before traveling,” Mother said, her eyes glazing over, giving her an odd, faraway air. She had turned away from my father, who suddenly seemed very interested in a clump of damp grass clinging to the top of his white shoe. Con and Elisabeth stared at the ground, while Connie Chilton retreated a few steps, as if unsure whether or not she should hear any of this.

“You’re coddling him,” Daddy grumbled—but he would not look at my mother, and for the first time ever, I sensed a crack in their partnership. My parents’ overwhelming closeness was as much a part of my childhood as my beloved Roosevelt bear with its missing eye. My parents never argued or contradicted each other; they decided and spoke in one unified voice, and at times I had felt lonely in the face of it. Loved, always—yet sometimes lonely.

But now—

“We are not coddling him, Dwight. The boy is in pain,” Mother snapped—the first time I had ever heard her raise her voice to my father. Then she turned away, as if collecting herself, while Daddy strode off to the car, his cheeks scarlet, his shoulders pinched so that his suit coat appeared even baggier than usual. Con blinked away a few bright tears before trotting off behind Daddy.

I turned to Elisabeth, to gauge her reaction to all this; she simply pressed her lips together and shrugged, then held out her hand to her friend. Connie Chilton looked as if she wanted to say something, but I saw Elisabeth squeeze her arm in warning.

After a moment, I followed Mother.

“You’re doing the right thing,” I whispered to her. “Dwight does need professional care. I’ve seen it. What can I do? I don’t care if Daddy doesn’t approve. I want to help.”

“My daughter.” She smiled gratefully. “You’re such a rock sometimes, Anne, so quiet yet so steadfast. I don’t know if you’re aware of how much I rely on you.”

I turned away, tears in my eyes; all my life, I’d wanted my mother to recognize me, alone; outside of Elisabeth’s shadow. Knowing that she had was my greatest graduation present, more precious to me than any awards.

“Now, I know you probably have loads of plans.” Mother’s voice was back to its normal soothing tone. “But if you could stay in Englewood this summer to oversee the building of the new house, instead of coming back with us to Mexico City, it would be such a help, Anne. Elisabeth and Connie have their school plans, and I would feel better knowing you were home, so that Dwight might be able to—well, if he’s up to travel, I know he’d like to come home for a while. You don’t mind, do you?”

I shook my head, grateful, actually, to have been asked. I still had no idea what I was going to do with myself. Watching over builders, helping my brother, even in his fragile state; both seemed a blessed alternative to sitting around, brooding and reading newspapers full of articles and photos of a certain Colonel Charles Lindbergh. And wondering what on earth I was going to do with the rest of my life.

“Of course I don’t mind—I said I would help,” I assured my mother, and was surprised to see a tear in her eye. She blinked it away almost before I could convince myself it was there, and she called, gaily, to Elisabeth and Connie—who were walking so close together that their heads, both so blond, nearly touched—“Now, what are you two whispering about? Connie, is Elisabeth telling you secrets about the colonel?”

Elisabeth and Connie sprang apart, laughing—too loudly, it seemed to me. As if my mother had accidentally touched a nerve.

“Yes, Mrs. Morrow, that’s exactly what we were doing,” Connie called out brightly, as she squeezed my sister’s hand. And I couldn’t help but notice that Elisabeth’s face was suddenly scarlet, her eyes shining, as she squeezed Connie’s hand in return.

Mother turned to me with a smile that suddenly crumbled, like a sand castle overwhelmed by an unexpected tide. She pretended to read my diploma, but then gave up and hugged it briefly to her chest, squeezing her eyes tight, and this time I knew there were tears.

But when she opened them, her gaze was clear and bright as always; what was startling was how it was focused entirely on me. For once, I didn’t have the feeling she was thinking of someone or something else as she looked into my eyes. “Anne, dear, I really am very proud of you,” she said, so strangely earnest. “Very. I tried for the Jordan prize, you know, when I was a senior. But I didn’t win, and you did.”

I smiled, touched and humbled by her confession. My mother didn’t often let slip a disappointment; it simply wasn’t in her nature to dwell on the past. She was changing, it seemed to me, almost before my very eyes. Maybe it was Dwight’s illness, forcing her to stop and reflect, consider, maybe even to blame.

Or perhaps it was just my graduation; another childhood milestone over, my very last one. Maybe she felt older, more vulnerable, clutching my college diploma as if she could clutch all her children to her one more time before we all scattered and flew away.

Whatever accounted for this rare vulnerability, I didn’t question her. I didn’t feel privy to know what was in my mother’s heart, despite my new college degree. I didn’t want that much knowledge just yet, and the responsibility that must come with it.

But neither did I want to let go of her hand, for I sensed she needed someone strong to cling to; we held on to each other as we walked to the waiting car.

“DWIGHT, DO YOU WANT ANYTHING special for dinner tonight?” I stood in the doorway of the study; my brother was sitting at my father’s empty desk, staring out the window.

I didn’t like him staring in silence, but it was better than the strange, forced laughter that too often took its place these days. Since I had last seen him at Christmas, something had changed inside him, although on the outside he appeared much as usual. Still solidly built, low to the ground like a football player, with hair some indeterminate brown shade that was halfway between my dark tresses and Elisabeth’s blond. He dressed the same, groomed himself as ever, was interested in the same things—he followed the Yankees and would have argued the respective merits of Lou Gehrig versus Babe Ruth all day with me if I had even an ounce of knowledge about either.

But his stutter was worse. That odd, strangled laughter burst out of him at the most inappropriate times—usually when he was in session with his tutor—and he sullenly stared out of windows far too often. Sometimes, I actually shook him; I told him to snap out of it or at least tell me what was wrong, for no one else seemed to be able to. The only thing he had said so far that was true, that wasn’t part of the typical Morrow family banter, had been, “It’s awful being Dwight Morrow Junior. You don’t know, Anne. It’s just too much for me.”

I didn’t know. I was becoming painfully aware that there was so much I didn’t know. Now an adult, allowed a glimpse of these first cracks in my family’s perfect surface, I couldn’t help but wonder what else I didn’t understand about us all. My childhood had seemed charmed, privileged, and not only because our parents took pains to remind us that it was. We were always together, never farmed out like other children of wealth, although naturally, governesses and nurses took care of our everyday needs. Our parents, we understood from an early age, were dedicated to more important pursuits than ensuring that our teeth were brushed and our scraped knees bandaged.

But Mother read to us an hour a day, every day, no matter how busy she was. Even when we were so small we had to sit on encyclopedias in order to reach the mahogany table, we children dined with our parents in the evening, and were expected to understand the politics and philosophies discussed. There were picnics on the sound and summers in Maine; travels abroad where Daddy read from Shakespeare in London, Voltaire in Paris. Somehow, though, we never were allowed to feel rich or special. Our money—how much? It never even occurred to me to ask; it was a cushion on which we could land, if necessary, once we reached for ourselves. But we were, always, expected to reach. Maybe that was the key to Dwight’s troubles; perhaps, being the son, he was expected to reach higher than Elisabeth or Con or me.

“Dwight, I asked you what you wanted for dinner.” I repeated the safest question of all that I wanted to ask my brother, as he gazed at a robin hopping on the terrace, just outside the study window. At least he had the draperies open today; the room wasn’t quite so gloomy and stuffy with all its dark paneling.

“Whatever you want, Anne.”

“Isn’t it odd, just the two of us here?” I sat down on an overstuffed chair, picking up a pillow and holding it to my chest. “Like we’re playing house or something. How did we get so adult?”

“You’d better get used to it—playing house. Once you’re married, that’s all you’ll be doing. Lucky.”

“Oh, don’t say that—what’s lucky about it, anyway?”

“That’s all you’re supposed to do, Annie. That’s all they expect.”

“I don’t think that’s particularly lucky—even if it was true.” Although I knew, of course, that it was; already I had received five wedding invitations from my just-graduated classmates. “Anyway, I’m not going to get married.” I shook my head defiantly.

“Nobody good enough for you?” Using his stocky legs, my brother propelled the swivel chair around so that he was facing me; there was a glint of his old, teasing smile on his face.

“Nope. Not a soul. I’m far too rare a gem for any mere mortal man.”

“You always wanted to marry a hero, Anne—don’t you remember?”

“Oh, Dwight—that was just little-girl talk. Every little girl wants to marry someone heroic. It’s silly now. I couldn’t get a proposal from the milkman. But I don’t want to get married, I’ve decided. I’d much rather stay independent.”

“You? Independent?” Dwight hooted, and it was only because of his strange, fragile state that I didn’t get up and leave in a huff. “As what? A teacher?”

“Well, I could be, I suppose.” I didn’t like this line of questioning, because it was too much like the questions I asked myself at night, alone in my narrow girlhood bed. “Anyway, it’s Elisabeth who’ll marry the hero, not me.”

“You mean Colonel Lindbergh?”

My heart sank at how quickly he supplied my sister with her logical beau. But I nodded.

“Well, Father’ll be pleased, anyway,” Dwight said, frowning. “He gave me the dickens when I was rude to the colonel over Christmas. He read me the riot act after that.” My brother’s face darkened; his eyes dulled.

“Dwight, he loves you, you know.”

“He’d rather have Colonel Lindbergh for a son.”

“No, he wouldn’t. You’re being silly.”

“Am I? When was the last time he was proud of me, Anne? When?”

“When—when you—now, Dwight, stop it! There were plenty of times!”

“Name one.” Dwight was so calm, not agitated at all; his voice didn’t rise and crack, his face didn’t turn from purple to scarlet and back again, like it usually did—and that was what frightened me the most.

Yet at that moment, I could not recall the last time my father had said he was proud of his son. He told Elisabeth and me he was proud of us, all the time. Often for no reason other than that we looked especially pretty, or had written a particularly pleasing letter to him.

“Dwight, I can’t suddenly be expected to come up with examples! Heavens, I can hardly remember what I had for breakfast this morning! All I know is that you’re wrong. Daddy loves you. We all love you.”

“Well, sure, you do. What’s that matter? You’re only a girl.”

“Only a girl? Dwight Morrow Junior, that’s a ridiculous thing to say!”

“Oh, you know what I mean, Anne. It still doesn’t matter—you’ll go off and marry your hero some day, and then you won’t have any time for me, either. Just like Mother and Father.”

“Dwight, you know they’d rather be up here. But this is Daddy’s job now. He has to be in Mexico City.”

“Don’t I know it. ‘Dwight, you must remember, we have duties now, obligations.’ ”

I had to laugh. My brother’s voice perfectly mimicked our father’s excited, breathless staccato.

“‘You have duties,’ ” Dwight continued. “‘Your sisters have duties. Remember, young man, remember, education—’ ”

“Education, education,” I chimed in—but then the phone on Daddy’s desk rang, startling us into silence. We both jumped, then giggled guiltily; had our father somehow heard us, all the way from Mexico? I don’t think either one of us would have been surprised.

Dwight was the first to recover. Picking up the receiver and leaning toward the transmitter, he said, “Hello, Morrow residence,” still in that urgent, high-pitched voice that sounded just like Daddy’s. I giggled again, and Dwight rewarded me with a sly smile. Then my brother suddenly colored, sat up straight in his chair, and said, “Miss Morrow? No, she’s away. Oh—are you sure? Yes, she is,” and thrust the receiver and transmitter out to me.

“It’s your hero, Anne,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

“Oh, sure, sure.” I stuck my tongue out at him, enjoying the teasing, wishing to prolong it for as long as possible. I pushed myself out of the chair with an exaggerated sigh. “It’s probably that milkman.” I sashayed to the desk, wiggling my hips just like Theda Bara, and took the receiver from him; holding it up to my ear, I leaned into the transmitter and crooned, in a deep, vampy tone, “Hello, this is Anne Morrow. Is this my hero?”

There was a pause; static crackled down the line into my ear. Then I heard a reedy voice say, “Miss Morrow? This is Lindbergh himself. Charles Lindbergh.”

I wanted to drop the phone; I wanted to hit my brother—who was leaning back in his chair, shaking with laughter. I wanted to do anything other than somehow think of a proper reply.

“It—it is?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, did I catch you at a bad time?”

“No—no! My brother—Dwight—you met him, remember? He was just teasing me. I’m so sorry—I mean, no, I’m glad you called. Very glad. That is—wait—this is Anne Morrow. Not Elisabeth. I’m Anne.”

“Yes, I know. I had been led to believe that you would be at home today. I called yesterday, but you were out.”

“You did?” By now my knees were shaking and I had to sit down on the edge of the desk; Jo, my mother’s secretary, had said that he had called. But she’d said he’d called for Elisabeth, not me.

Finally Dwight had the good sense to get up and leave me alone in the room, his eyes still shining with merriment. For a moment I forgot all about his condition; I stuck my tongue out at him, just like any big sister would.

“Miss Morrow? You are still there?”

“Yes—oh, yes, I am!”

“I’m very sorry I could not make it to your graduation. It was nice of you to ask me. But I was afraid that if I came it would cause a stir, and that wouldn’t have been fair to you or your family.”

“Oh.” How thoughtful of him! “That was very thoughtful of you,” I said, my tongue just a few beats behind my thoughts.

There was a silence; I could hear him breathing, softly. Then he cleared his throat, and I was reminded, suddenly, of the engine of the plane that we flew in together, sputtering to life.

“I understand that you’re home for the summer?” There was a hesitation—like the catch of that motor before it finally found its groove—in his voice.

“Yes. I’m taking care of—I’m staying with Dwight while he’s home for the summer. Mother and Daddy are back in Mexico City.”

“The reason I called,” he said hastily, as if he regretted having done so, “is to ask if you would like to go up again? I promised you I would take you back up in a plane, I’m not sure if you recall. I do not break my promises.”

“Oh! Yes, I do remember—that is, I have some recollection of it.” Cradling the receiver between my cheek and my neck, I grasped the edge of Daddy’s walnut desk, grateful for its ballast; without it, I was certain I would have floated up to the ceiling.

“Then it’s settled. I’ll call for you tomorrow at ten o’clock in the morning, if you don’t have other plans.”

Of course, I had no other plans. Even if Mother had asked me to entertain the king of England, I would have canceled! But then I thought of how Elisabeth would have replied, and so I was able to say, coolly, “I believe I can rearrange things.”

“Well, if it’s any bother…”

“Oh, no! No bother at all! No, truly, there’s nothing I’d like more, if you really are sure you have the time.”

“I said I did.” Did I detect annoyance now?

“Yes, of course.”

“So. Ten o’clock, then?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, goodbye,” Charles Lindbergh said in a faint, almost strangled tone, and he hung up the phone.

I did not. I remained holding the receiver to my ear, the transmitter to my mouth, for at least a minute; long enough for Dwight to knock softly and stick his bushy head—he was in dire need of a haircut; his hair stuck up all over his scalp—inside the doorway.

“Anne? Was that really Colonel Lindbergh?”

“I believe so.” In a daze, I replaced the receiver.

“What did he want?”

“He wanted me.”

“You? I thought he was supposed to be interested in Elisabeth.”

“I know—I thought—I told him she wasn’t here! Right off! Dwight, I think he really wanted to speak to me, but—oh, it’s only because he once made a promise to me. That’s it.”

“What kind of promise?”

“He promised to take me flying again. He’s coming tomorrow at ten.”

“Ten? Huh. You sure he meant you?”

“Yes, Dwight!” How many times did I have to say it before we both believed it? I couldn’t even count that high.

“Hmmm.” Dwight scratched his head, then patted his stomach. “Anne, now I’m hungry. What were you going to have Cook make for dinner?”

“Dinner?” I stared at my brother. “Dinner?”

“Well, Anne, you were just asking me—”

“Oh, go ask Cook to make you a sandwich.” Finally sliding off the desk, I brushed past my brother. “I can’t help you; I must find something to wear!”

“But he’s not coming until tomorrow morning!”

“I know! I hardly have any time!”

I left Dwight standing in the hallway, still scratching his head and saying, in a disgusted tone, “Women.”

“Men!” I called over my shoulder, already mentally going through my closet.

But I paused once, on my way to my room, to shake my head in wonder at my brother. How on earth could he think of food at a time like this?

“HELLO,” I SAID, opening the door. Then I looked up. Charles Lindbergh was standing before me, blocking out the bright morning sun. I’d forgotten how tall he was.

He had changed. He didn’t look like a boy any longer; he had a slightly wary look in those piercing blue eyes, and he appeared much more comfortable in civilian clothes—tweed trousers and a white shirt and tie, although he did have that battered leather jacket over his arm. In place of his helmet, however, he wore a fedora that was just like every fedora I’d ever seen on any banker, my father included.

He also had a pair of sunglasses in his pocket; he donned these quickly as he led me to his car.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit strange,” he explained, as he held the door open for me. Once I was settled, he went around and slid into the driver’s seat; as he did so, he pulled his hat brim low over his eyes.

“What is?”

“This—this getup.” He gestured to his face. “Sometimes I can manage to fool the press, if they’re not already on my tail. I don’t think they are today, fortunately. The moment they see you with me, they’ll have us engaged. I’ve been engaged to any number of women lately.”

He then appeared to think about what he had just said; his hand, poised to flip the ignition switch, froze. “I didn’t mean—”

“That’s all right,” I said hastily. “I understand.”

“Yes.” He nodded, then started the car; with a roar he drove down the circular driveway to the private road that led to the main street. We were in a new cream-colored Ford open roadster, so I pulled my cloche hat farther down on my head, holding on to it, praying it wouldn’t fly off. His hat remained mysteriously tethered to his head.

He did not drive fast, much to my surprise. For a man who loved to fly, he appeared cautious and careful on the ground, constantly looking over his shoulder in case cars approached from behind. Nor did he talk; after a few minutes of total silence, I began to feel as superfluous as the small green spider that had hitched a ride on the windshield. And so, as we drove through the city, then out into the country of Long Island, down roads I’d never before discovered, I had a long time in which to wonder if, indeed, he had called the wrong Morrow sister. Half an hour passed, then forty-five minutes, and still he spoke not a word to me, nor even looked my way. Months had passed since we’d seen each other, but obviously he did not feel compelled to explain what he had been up to, and so, out of defiance and a prickly sense of pride that made me set my mouth a certain way, neither did I.

I glanced at my wristwatch, then at the immobile face beside me, the eyes hidden by those round smoky lenses, the brow obscured by that magical hat.

But if he didn’t talk, neither did he give any indication that he expected me to. So I gave myself over to the purity of simply being, with him, on a fine summer day. Only once did I break the silence; it was when we drove along a lane bordered on either side with young birch trees.

“Oh, look! It’s like they’re bowing to us!” I couldn’t help but laugh, pointing as the tops of the trees shimmied ahead of us, bending in the light breeze. Charles nodded but kept his eyes on the road, and so I retreated once more, embarrassed by my outburst.

Finally we turned down a long gravel road that led to an open field. There, two planes were waiting; an enormous white French Normandy–styled house rose up in the distance, along with several barns and smaller dwellings.

Charles braked the car, and the engine sputtered off. He turned to me.

“Well, that was fun,” he said with a sudden, surprising grin, and I had to laugh.

“You like to drive?” I fingered the leather upholstery, dusty now. But it was certainly a fine automobile.

“I’m afraid I do. I used to have a motorcycle—an Indian—back when I was barnstorming. She was an extraordinary little machine, but I sold her to pay for my first plane, a Jenny.”

“Do you name all your machines after people?”

“I—oh, no. A Jenny is a type of plane—war surplus, they were used overseas and then refitted. We used them to fly the mail.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway.” He removed his sunglasses and his hat, and ran his hand through his sandy-colored hair. “Here we are.”

“Where are we, exactly?”

“Friends of mine happen to have a private airfield. So far, none of the press has found it out.”

“Oh.” I could see the water of the sound glittering in the distance, beyond a thicket of slender trees. “It’s lovely.”

“Yes. The Guggenheims have been good to me in all—this.” He waved his hands vaguely, and I understood him to mean everything that had happened to him after. After landing in Paris. “Harry lets me use his planes; I have a new one on order. The Spirit’s in mothballs now, I’m afraid. The Smithsonian has her.” There was a definite note of sadness to his voice, a wistfulness; like a small boy who had been forced to part with his favorite treasure.

Then he cleared his throat and got out of the car. “It’s a good day for flying,” he said, pausing for a moment to survey the sky before he walked around to open my door. “Clear sailing, as far as we might want to go.”

“Good.” I scrambled after him as he strode toward the two airplanes, both silver and gleaming in the sun. He did not shorten his stride for me, and so once again, I had to run to keep up.

“You’ve not been up since I took you?” We reached the larger of the two planes, an enclosed monoplane with a longer wingspan. It was already pointed toward the flat airstrip.

“No.” And then I remembered that I had. I wondered why that memory had escaped me. Was it because it didn’t count, without him? Or because I felt oddly disloyal for flying with someone else?

“This is different than what we went up in before—more comfortable. For long-haul passenger flight, this is the type of plane we’ll be using, only even bigger. You don’t have to wear goggles.” And he opened a small door and helped me climb up into the cabin. The interior was hot—baked, actually, from sitting in the sun, and so I slipped out of my jacket, grateful for the short sleeves of my cotton blouse. I needn’t have worn jodhpurs; there were four wicker chairs bolted to the floor, two in front, two in back, all cushioned. I took my place in the front passenger seat as daintily as if I were at a tea party.

Charles climbed in on the pilot’s side and took a quick look at all the controls, pushing a few buttons, playing with some toggles and pedals on the floor. Then he handed me a stick of gum—that awful spearmint, but I accepted it gratefully, and started chewing away. He started the engine and it sputtered, the propeller whirling, but this time it seemed so far away; not at all like my first flight, when I could feel the choppy air on my face. Enclosed as we were, I could see only out the front and a limited bit to either side. The whine of the engine was muffled, although still loud; already my head was pounding with it.

“Here we go,” Charles said, and moved the control stick gently; the plane taxied down the field, picking up speed bit by bit until, once more, I felt suspended in a grand leap—before the wind caught us and propelled us up, up, up.

The moment we took flight, I noticed that Charles looked quickly out the side of his window, did a double take, and looked again. His hand gripped the stick, muttering something under his breath.

“What?” I asked, trying my best not to squeal in delight as we skimmed the tops of pine trees, so close I could have sworn I felt them tickling the soles of my feet.

Charles didn’t reply, so I shrugged and enjoyed the scenery; the sound, glittering with white birds—sailboats, that is; the vast estates, many of which I recognized now as the homes of some of Daddy’s banking associates; the vivid green undulating below. The plane bumped and bucked as it gained altitude, causing my stomach to do its own jittery acrobatics, but then it smoothed out so suddenly that my heart soared. My worries about Dwight, questions about my future, doubts about my purpose in life, all fell away. I was light, translucent; luxuriously, I stretched my arms and legs, wondering if the sun’s rays could pass right through me.

Then I turned to my companion. Instead of the sure, carefree grin I expected to see, Charles’s mouth was set in a straight line, and those startling blue eyes were narrowed in steely concentration.

“We lost a wheel,” he shouted over the pulsating drone of the engine. I realized conversation was going to be difficult, if not impossible.

“What?” I shouted back.

“On takeoff. I thought I felt something. We left one of the wheels on the ground.”

“So?” We were up in the air now; what did we need wheels for?

“Landing. A bit challenging,” was all he said. Then he flicked some switches with his thumb, muttered something that sounded like a complicated mathematical equation, and nodded to himself.

I wanted to ask more but felt ridiculous, shouting so.

“Loud!” I said instead, pointing to my ears.

Charles nodded. “Some people use cotton. In their ears.” He pointed to his. “I don’t. That’s not flying.”

I nodded, as if I understood.

We flew for a while in silence. Then he turned to me again, his brow wrinkled in concern, as if something had just occurred to him. “We should stay up awhile to burn off fuel so landing is safer,” he shouted. “Do you have other plans today? I’m not keeping you from something?”

For some reason, this last question struck me as hilarious; he seemed more worried about my social schedule than he was about the plane! And so I surprised us both by laughing.

“No!”

“Good,” he said, his eyes widening and his grin deepening. “Although that means you’re stuck with me for a while.”

“I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be stuck with,” I replied. And although I said it flippantly, I meant it. Who else would I rather be with in this situation? No one.

Was I afraid at all? It’s incredible to believe now, but I was not. I had such confidence in Charles; as we flew on and on, the relentless clamor of the engine giving me a slight headache but nothing more, I honestly forgot about the “challenging” landing coming up. Instead, I was almost grateful for the situation. We were trapped alone together in the sky for hours. We would have something remarkable to share; something to bind us to each other. I seized this realization greedily, and, hoarding it, forgot all about the danger.

“You take the controls,” he suddenly called, almost an impish gleam in his eyes.

“What?”

“Take the control stick.”

“I—I can’t!”

“Why not? You want to learn, don’t you?”

Why he assumed this of me, I had no idea, but as soon as he said it I realized he was right. This, at last, was something I could do. Right now; before I had a chance to think about it and analyze it until I was no longer even sure what it meant.

“You fly,” Charles shouted. “Don’t be afraid. You can do it.”

So I leaned over, reaching with my left hand. His hand was still on the stick, but I grasped it, just above his, and for a moment both our hands were flying the plane, we were steering our path together. And while we didn’t even glance at each other, I felt a charge jolt through me and knew that he felt it, too. His breathing quickened.

Then he let go. And I was flying the plane myself. At first smoothly—I was still thinking of his hand, touching mine, unaware of what I was really doing. Then, however, I was aware—aware that I was actually, really, flying an airplane!—and I overcompensated by gripping the stick tighter, which caused it to jerk right. And so did the plane. Steeply, it began to bank, and as my entire body was blanketed in a cold sweat, my hand shaking, I overcorrected and it banked precipitously left.

Charles didn’t exclaim, didn’t even suck in his breath. He simply sat with his arms folded across his chest, allowing me to find my own way, somehow confident that I would. And finally, my hands still clammy but my heart now steady, I did. We flew in a straight line, and I felt the plane tug against me, like a horse, and I remembered how sensitive a horse is to his bit, and that’s how I finally learned to fly. As if I were holding reins instead of a stick; as if I were riding. Even the little pockets of air that we hit began to feel no more dangerous than jumping a horse over a gate.

I don’t know how long I flew; my shoulder began to pinch, however, and Charles flipped a switch on the dashboard, looked at his watch, and tapped his head. “I’ll take over now. Landing.”

“Oh.” After he grasped the stick, I let go. Charles suggested, his voice so reasonable even as he had to shout, that I gather the cushions from the two rear seats and place them on either side of me, which I did.

“I’m going to take us down over there.” He gestured to a field with a longer airstrip than the one we had taken off from. “We’ll need the extra space.”

“All right.” I was calm. So was he. The air inside the plane suddenly felt heavy, pressing me into my seat, and our voices sounded deadened to my ears. Still, I was not afraid. I trusted Charles Lindbergh, the man who had conquered the sky, to bring me back safely to earth.

We circled the airstrip a couple of times, lower and lower. Several people ran out of a small shack and a neighboring house to look at us. They waved, and I waved back.

“They’re telling us not to land.” Charles had a grim smile on his face. “They can see we’re missing a wheel.”

“They’re in for a treat, then!” I continued to wave at the figures, jumping wildly below.

“Brace yourself, and as soon as we stop I want you to unbuckle and exit the plane. If the door won’t budge, push the window and crawl out. Then run as far away as you can. Can you do that for me?”

It was that last “for me” that stirred me from my eerie calm. It touched my heart; truly, as if the words wormed themselves into my flesh, between my ribs. I felt adrenaline tingling my every pore, and I nodded, holding on tight to the edges of the seat. As the ground came rushing up at us, I instinctively ducked my head, feeling, not seeing, the plane hit the ground. For a suspended breath, I thought we were fine—but then I felt something break beneath us. “The wheel,” I said—or maybe it was Charles. It was the only word either one of us, or both of us, spoke.

And then I was upside down.

The plane had stopped, and I was upside down and then I wasn’t; I heard a crash and then a rip, and then I had pushed myself through a window and I was running, just as Charles had told me to do, away from the plane. Which was upside down, the propeller still turning like a child’s whirligig.

Finally I stopped running, pain pinching my side, but I knew it was only because I was out of breath. I had done it! I had done what he had asked of me and I was all right, he was all right—

Wasn’t he? Where was he? I looked around, panicking; there were people—the same people to whom I had just waved so carelessly—hurrying toward me, farmers with pitchforks just like in a motion picture—but there was no Charles. I shouted his name, heard nothing, and then started to run back to the plane when I felt a hand on my arm, pulling me back.

I spun around, and he was there. Disheveled, a bleeding scratch on his cheek, a huge grin on his face. We grinned stupidly at each other for the longest time, until we were surrounded by people jostling us, asking if we were okay, and Charles was wincing. Only then did I see that he was cradling his left elbow with his right hand.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, wanting to touch him but strangely unable to take a step in his direction.

“I think I bruised it.” He shrugged, followed by a grimace. “But it’s nothing.”

“We should get you to a doctor—” I began, but was interrupted by shouts of, “It’s him! It’s Charles Lindbergh himself! Lucky Lindy!”

And soon more people were running toward us; from where, I had no idea. They all wanted to touch him, shake him, ask if he was all right. A few men headed toward the plane, but Charles, in a startling, harsh voice, yelled for them not to. A few souls realized that I was there, too, and asked me my name. “Miss Morrow,” I replied, over and over, in a daze. I didn’t have a scratch on me, however—my clothing wasn’t even torn—and soon enough they turned back to Charles, who was trying to organize some men to help flip the plane back over, once the engine had cooled.

“How will we get home?” I shouted over the din, tugging on the sleeve of his good arm. It would soon be dusk, and I suddenly remembered my brother. Dwight would be worried if I wasn’t home for dinner.

“I’ll call Harry,” Charles shouted back. “He’ll come pick us up. I hope that farmhouse has a telephone.”

I finally pushed my way through the crowd and sat down on a tree stump, so conveniently placed it was as if someone had cut the tree down just for me. No one followed, and so I felt strangely detached from the entire scene. The plane, still upside down like a turtle on its back, didn’t even look familiar anymore. The only thing I did recognize, and couldn’t take my eyes off, was the slim, sandy-haired figure that moved to and fro, directing, controlling. And on the occasions when he stopped and looked my way, an anxious expression on his face as if he was afraid of misplacing me, my heart soared, as it had the moment I first took flight.

After a time I began to get sleepy just sitting there, watching. I believe I actually did doze off, until I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake.

“Miss Morrow? Miss Morrow?”

I opened my eyes, yawned, and looked up to see a homely man about ten years older than Charles. He had the slicked-back hair of a banker but the earnest grin of a fellow aviator.

“Come along with me,” he said, and I followed him obediently, because Charles had suddenly appeared and was doing the same. The man ushered us into a shiny black car, introducing himself to me as “Harry Guggenheim.”

“Of the mining Guggenheims?” I stifled a yawn.

“Yes, I believe I know your father.”

“Oh.” Then we drove away, all the farmers and their families waving goodbye as merrily as if we had just dropped in for tea. Charles had fashioned a sling out of a scarf, and didn’t appear to be in any pain; in the front passenger seat, he happily filled Harry in on our adventure, while I sat in the back. I caught a glimpse of my face in the window; I was grinning again. Harry Guggenheim saw me looking at my own reflection, and he smiled, as well.

“Very nice to meet you, Miss Morrow,” he said, when we pulled up to his estate, where Charles’s cream-colored Ford roadster awaited; had it been only this morning when he picked me up in it? “I hope we can meet again, under less exciting circumstances.”

“I hope so, too.” Charles opened the door for me, and I stepped out.

“Sorry about the plane, Harry,” Charles said, although he didn’t sound very sorry at all. “I’ll make it right.”

“Don’t worry, old man. I’m just happy you’re safe.” And the two shook hands with real affection.

Charles and I got into his car in silence, and we drove in silence through the gathering darkness. He turned the headlights on, and drove—somehow he was able to work the gearshift and steer the wheel, both, with only one hand—even more leisurely than he had earlier; suddenly neither of us was in a hurry to reach our destination.

And we talked. For the first time, truly, we had a conversation; it was as if the adrenaline was still rushing through both of us, turning two shy people into chattering magpies.

Charles shared with me some of his hopes for aviation’s future; his feelings of obligation to ensure that future, to convince the average American that flying was no more dangerous than riding in an automobile, maybe even less so.

He also discussed some of the flights he was planning; he wanted to map out the shortest routes between not only cities but continents. “Can you imagine flying to Australia in less than a week’s time?” he asked, and I could only shake my head in wonder.

“But I do like ocean travel,” I confessed. “It’s very restful.”

“Oh, I do, as well. The best sleep I got after landing in Paris was on the boat coming home. They wouldn’t let me fly back, although I wanted to. That was the first time I realized my life was no longer my own.”

“I can’t imagine how that felt.”

“It was quite surprising, of course. I hadn’t counted on that aspect; I was concerned with the flight only, for so long. And initially, all I felt was the kindness of many people—my backers, the mechanics who built the plane. But almost as soon as I landed, I began to feel it—the awful realization that I’m never going to be left alone. People always want more from me, and I don’t know what I can give them. I already flew across the ocean.”

“How did you know you could do it—fly to Paris? When so many others had failed?”

He nodded, so earnest. “I did the calculations. I would never take an unnecessary risk. See, no one else had ever thought of flying alone—it was a two-pilot job, everyone knew that, because of how long it would take. Well, I realized that if I flew alone, I could carry much more fuel and have a better chance, even if I went off course. And I’m the best flyer I know.”

His confidence was so sure, yet so understated, that all I could do was marvel at it. Unlike men who needed approval, he didn’t speak loudly or use hyperbole. He simply was.

“Would you have done it, if you knew what lay ahead—all the attention, the press?”

“Yes. It was that important a thing to do. Still, I wish they would leave me alone.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Oh, the press, the people, old school chums, total strangers. All those people who put my name on everything from jackets to songs to dances.”

I colored, grateful for the dusk that shielded me. I had earnestly learned the Lindy Hop at a dance, the fall of my senior year at Smith.

“Even movie men,” Charles continued eagerly, and it seemed to me he was almost grateful to have someone to say these things to. “William Randolph Hearst offered me what would have amounted to a million dollars to appear in a movie, which I turned down. He couldn’t believe it when I said no—he said everyone has a price. But I don’t. And yet he keeps asking—they all keep asking, for so many things.”

“You can’t live your life for them.”

“No, I can only live my life for myself. Yet the ironic thing is I do feel as if I have a responsibility. So many people look up to me, of course.”

Startled, I tore my gaze away from the road. Even in the darkness, I tried to study Charles through eyes that were no longer quite as starry. Now his confidence bordered on arrogance; with his humorless mouth, steely eyes, and steady hand on the steering wheel, for the first time I sensed the darker side of accomplishing so much, so young.

“Well, naturally they do now, but you know—‘power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ as they say.”

“What? What is that?”

“You know, the famous quote by Lord Acton—haven’t you heard—never mind.” I faltered, because I saw his features harden. I imagined that since Paris, not many people had dared to contradict or school him.

I couldn’t quite forget, however, those long months when he hadn’t thought to drop me even a note, so I blurted out, “It’s just that I think it might be a dangerous thing to believe, that’s all—that everyone looks up to you, even if they do. It’s probably not a good idea to believe it too much. It could change a person, you know. Harden him.”

“You think that, do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you think I’m hard?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.” I refused to worry that I had offended him. He had asked my opinion, and I had given it to him.

Neither of us spoke for a few moments. Then he grunted and nodded once, as if granting me a rare privilege. We drove on in silence.

“I fear I have done all the talking,” he finally burst out, and I secretly rejoiced that he had felt the need to break the silence first; I had proven to be his equal, in stubbornness, anyway. Then I almost laughed; compared to most of the boys I knew, he had revealed almost nothing about himself. I’d learned nothing about his family, for instance. Or his childhood—it was as if his life had only begun after Paris. And maybe, with the incessant press coverage and public mania, the newsreels, the parades and honors—it had. The part of his life he was willing—or forced—to share, anyway.

“No need to fear,” I assured him. “I’ve enjoyed it. All of it. This whole day—even with the broken wheel.”

“Not many women would say that.” He grinned approvingly, and I sat up straight, feeling much taller than my five feet. “Tell me something about yourself, Anne. What do you want to do?”

“That’s quite a large question.”

“No, it’s simple, really. What do you want to do? The one thing you can’t stop thinking about? For me, it was Paris. On all those long flights delivering the mail, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, puzzling it over until I had the answer, and when it came to me, I did it. So what do you want to do?”

See the Pyramids. Make my brother healthy and happy. Marry a hero—so many thoughts to choose from, so many ideas coming to mind, that I had to gather them to me, quickly, before I blurted them all out.

Charles Lindbergh continued to wait patiently, but he expected an answer; I could see it in the upward thrust of his dimpled chin, the level gaze of his eyes. Reliving our day together—trapped in the sky in that hot cylinder with such a man, such a courageous, noble man; feeling, for the first time, a woman tested and not found wanting, a schoolgirl no longer—I was aware of something blossoming within me. So I said the thing I had never allowed myself to say out loud to anyone; not even to myself.

“I would—I would like to write a great book. Just one. I would be satisfied with that. To paint pictures with words, to help people see what I see, through my language—oh, to be able to do that!”

Charles studied me in silence, his face impassive. And the man who had flown across an ocean on the power of his own belief and no one else’s told me, “Then you will.”

Was it as simple as that? I leaned back in my seat and stared at the road ahead; we were nearing the city now, streetlights were lit, buildings closer and closer together. As simple as stating a goal, then doing it? All my life I had grappled with doubts and fears; I wasn’t as pretty and smart as Elisabeth, I wasn’t a boy like Dwight, I wasn’t witty and fun like Con. I had brilliant, driven parents. Always had I felt eclipsed and, I had to admit, there was a part of me that took comfort in that feeling. For it absolved me of ever having to decide, of ever having to do anything but think, think, think, every minute of every day. What I needed was to stop thinking, start planning, or better yet, simply act. Just as I had done, so magnificently, today after the plane flipped over.

Here, I understood, was someone who would not allow me to take comfort in inertia. Already, I was different with him. Better. More.

At last, we pulled up the circular drive of home. I felt a rush of warmth and belonging—I could have wept at the sight of the familiar green shutters, the fairy-tale façade with trimming rather like a gingerbread house, the wide porch with its brick columns, all the green and pink chintz-covered wicker furniture clustered about in cozy arrangements. Soon we all would be leaving this house for the new one, almost finished in a different part of Englewood. Still, I felt that here, in this snug house, my family was present, waiting for me even though I knew that Dwight was the only one inside. And perhaps this was the reaction I had been waiting for; this sudden, overwhelming sense of home.

I turned to Charles, wanting to share this feeling, wanting to wrap my happy home around him as well, for I remembered that he didn’t have much of a family; suddenly I couldn’t bear the thought of him driving off alone to face the world. “Would you like to—” I began, but then stopped. He was staring at me so intently that I shivered, involuntarily. He was searching me, searching for something important within me; all I could do was stare back and hope, desperately, that he would find what he was looking for.

“There’s something else,” he said, and he didn’t sound as sure of himself as he usually did. “Something unexpected.”

“Oh?” I thought back to my behavior earlier; had I embarrassed him somehow?

“You may not be aware—no, of course, you’re not. I’ve been rather on a project lately. A mission, of sorts. To find—to find someone to share my life with.” He paused, as if waiting for me to say something. I couldn’t; I could only continue to stare at him. So he cleared his throat and went on.

“It’s lonely—it’s been lonely these past months. It occurred to me that it would be better to have someone to share this—all—with. From the moment that we met in Mexico, I confess I’ve wondered—I’ve thought about you. And then today. You handled that very well. Like an aviator.”

“Thank you,” I replied solemnly, understanding that this was perhaps the highest praise he could offer.

“Also, there’s one other thing,” he said with an odd, pained smile. “I can’t quite get it out of my mind. While we were up there today, for the first time I was afraid. Not for myself—I’ve never been afraid for myself. I’ve always known I would be all right. The strange thing is, I was afraid for you. Afraid of you being injured in some way. I must tell you, I’ve never felt such a thing before. At first, I wasn’t sure I liked it, to tell the truth.” He laughed—or, rather, tried to; it was more of a gulp. “But now, I believe I did—not that you were in danger, but—it seems I have a strong desire to protect you, and that must mean something. It must.”

“What must it mean?”

“It must mean that I should ask if you would consider marrying me,” he replied softly.

“You must be joking!” I couldn’t help it, I did laugh, and then instantly was horrified, for I knew, by a quick flutter of his eyelids that allowed me an unexpected glimpse into his heart, that he was not.

I looked back up at the house, the house of my childhood. The house that had always sheltered me; too much? I wondered. I knew nothing of the world, other than what my parents had wanted me to know. I didn’t even know everything about my own family. I only knew that I had to work hard, study hard, prepare myself—for what? That, they had not bothered to teach me.

But nothing could have prepared me for this moment. Nothing could have prepared me for marriage to a man like Charles Lindbergh; a man so unlike any other man I had ever known, those bankers, lawyers, academics. Here was a man who was good, brave, driven; these were the qualities I knew about him. That there were many more qualities, as yet hidden, occurred to me as well. But they could not be as important as what I did know.

That he was a quiet man, a disciplined man. A man who did not take responsibility lightly. A man who needed a partner, so that he would never have to fly solo across an ocean again.

The most famous man in the world, who saw me standing in the shadows and somehow knew that I was braver than I supposed. Already, I had flown an airplane because he believed that I could. What else might I do?

“I would like to think about it,” I said gravely, understanding he would not approve of me answering impulsively. Suddenly, all those months apart made sense. He had been planning, preparing for this moment as rigorously as he had for his flight to Paris. I would never take an unnecessary risk, he had told me. I knew that meant with his heart, as well.

Charles nodded, his face inscrutable. He then got out of the car, walked around and opened my door, and escorted me, his good arm through mine, up the stairs and to my parents’ front door.

And it was this—this touchingly gallant gesture, this nod to courtship—that ensured the successful outcome of his latest mission, although I did not tell him. Not then; not for a long time after.

He kissed me good night, as chastely as possible; his lips brushed mine but did not linger, although I felt, as his lean body surged briefly toward mine, that he would have liked them to. But it was enough for me. I knew with a certainty this was the beginning of everything. Everything I had been waiting for my entire life.

Charles refused my invitation to come inside, citing his injury. I told him, in the gently nagging manner of one who had a right to, that he should see a doctor. He grinned—in the gently mocking manner of one being nagged—and promised that he would.

I watched as he walked down the porch steps and got into his car. I waited until he had driven away before turning to go inside the house of my childhood, feeling as if I were entering it for the very first time. And in a way I was; for the first time I crossed that threshold as an adult.

It was only later—much later, after letters and telegrams and a hurried visit to my parents, and then a carefully worded press release followed by an explosion of astonishment and joy from every newspaper in the land, and learning to disguise myself whenever I left my house, trying to go to sleep at night still seeing the blinding pops of light from flash powder even through tightly shut eyes…

After I had to dismiss a servant who sold some of my letters to a reporter, and then realizing that I could never say a word or write down a thought that I did not want the entire world to know, and having to sneak into the city late at night to be fitted for my wedding dress, and even then, seeing my entire trousseau, including garters and negligees, detailed excruciatingly in the front pages of The New York Times as well as the Smith alumni newsletter, and then, finally, that tremulous day in the living room of my parents’ new house, christened Next Day Hill! After the minister declared us man and wife and I leaned up, my heart swelling so that I was sure everyone could see its outline through my silk bodice, to be kissed by my new husband, only to have my cheek chastely pecked, while all our friends and family applauded…

It was only then that I looked back on that wondrous evening. And I saw myself at that threshold watching Lucky Lindy, the Lone Eagle—no, no, my fiancé—drive away and marveling that of all the women on earth, he had chosen me….

It was only then. After my life had altered so irrevocably that I would never again be able to recognize it without help—photographs, maps, battered passports, and yellowed newspaper clippings—only then did I realize that not once that evening had either of us mentioned the word love.

But we didn’t need to, I assured myself. Two hearts, in such sympathy—there was no need for words, sentimental, silly, romantic. Charles was too special for that. And now I, as well, was too special for that.

We were too special for that. For ordinary words, spoken by ordinary couples.