“Miss Hall, can I see you for a moment?” He walked to the side of the trailer and waited for her.
Liddy took the steps to the road, walked around the corner and stood in front of him. Even in her confrontations with him, the Major had always had an air of calm and it had aggravated her. Standing here in front of him now, he was anything but calm. He had the glow of someone who just did the exact thing he wanted to do—and was surprised that he had done it. She saw the twinkle and sensed the current, and the smirk was about to break through.
Major Trent pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “You left this in my office.”
Liddy looked up and saw face after face peering through the windows from inside the trailer, and she turned her back to the nosey WASPs. On the inside of the envelope was the telegram from the hospital, bringing her the news of Jack’s death. On the outside was written, Please write to me: Maj. Reidburn Trent, and the address where she could send letters to him overseas.
Liddy looked up at him, smiled and said simply, “Thanks.”
She slipped the envelope inside her jacket and took in as much as she could of the man. His smirk jeweled his face and she stored it in her mind as she climbed back into the trailer. When she sat down on the bench, the heat of curiosity zinged at her from every side, back and corner of the space.
“Hey, Georgia, you were telling us about the first thing you were gonna do when you hit civilization, don’t leave us hanging girl,” Louise demanded.
Joy Lynn chomped on the bait and kicked right in where she had left off. Soon the gals were laughing and sharing their own plans. Liddy looked at Louise with thanks.
When the sister-friends parted to go their separate ways, the goodbyes were purposefully brief. Bet would be driving to Dallas with her parents and flying back to Boston, and Joy Lynn would drive home with Calli and her folks in the Calbert Caravan.
The cattle car dropped the women at the Blue Bonnet Hotel, and Bet and Joy Lynn met up with their families. Liddy and Marina walked together to the station, but left Sweetwater on different trains. Marina was going to California and Liddy home to Missouri. Louise took a bus home to Colorado, so she had waited with some of the other gals in front of the hotel.
Liddy’s train had its share of WASPs and servicemen, but she kept to herself for most of the trip. She wasn’t sure what to write, but she wrote a letter or really more of a note to Major Reid Trent that day:
October 28, 1943
Dear, (what should she call him?)
My ride into Sweetwater was bumpy, of course, kind of like flying the Vultee. I hope to be home by the end of the week. My father’s funeral will be on Saturday and I will spend the rest of my leave at home in Missouri.
Wishing you safety overseas,
Liddy held the note for over a day and past many stops where she could have mailed it. It was pretty impersonal, very short and she thought, kind of pointless. But she did write something, and didn’t know how she could write more. She wanted to but couldn’t.
Liddy wanted to tell him that she wished he wasn’t going back to the war. But that was something she would never tell a man who was going to fight for his country. She wanted to blather on, thanking him for chasing down the cattle car. She wanted to tell him what the first day they met had meant to her, had done to her and how miserable and thrilled she had been since then. She wanted to explain things, ask him things about himself, about everything that had happened at Avenger, about how he felt about her. But finally, she settled on the pathetic little note that she kept reading and cringing over.
When she gathered a big scoop of courage and filled in Major Trent and Hall, she decided the next stop was where she would post it. When the train rolled to the platform, she left the car and dropped it in the mail slot like it was on fire.
Back on the train, she thought more about the letter she would like to have written and got out a pen and wrote five pages. But that letter stayed tucked into her pocket and it did not get mailed.
Chapter Nineteen
Crik and Celia stood with Liddy by Jack’s graveside on a crusty layer of frost. She was in full uniform and knew how pleased Jack would have been at the sight of her. Daniel had managed leave, but he wouldn’t be home until the afternoon train.
Crik squeezed Liddy’s hand. “We’ll wait for you in the truck.”
“No—you go ahead. I’d like to walk back.” Liddy waited till she was alone. “Hi, Daddy.” She tugged at the hem of her jacket. “Fits pretty good, doesn’t it?” She cleared her eyes with her sleeve. “Remember when Mama died and you said I should talk to her whenever I felt like it. I know I was only twelve, but I’m gonna go ahead and keep talking, but to both of you now, Okay?”
The pain was so great. Liddy crouched down and ran her fingers in the grooves of Jack’s name on the headstone—JAQUE “JACK’ NATHAN HALL, and ‘BELOVED HUSBAND, FATHER, FRIEND AND PIONEER OF THE SKY, was etched below.
The marble that held Edda’s name was dusty and had no sparkle, but Jack’s was polished and new. A marble headstone was a luxury that Jack didn’t question when he buried his wife, and Liddy and Crik had decided Jack’s would be a match.
Liddy thought of the two of them side by side in this place and how, as a child, she had worried about her mother being alone when she died, while Jack and she still had each other. Now it was she who was alone, but Liddy was happy that they were together. This was how Edda had felt so many years before—Liddy was sure of that.
She told her parents all about graduation, her command to ferry pursuits and about the other WASPs. She told of Joy Lynn—the big tough beauty queen, dear proper Marina, steady Louise and sweet Bet. She didn’t leave out her fifth roommate, and she saw her mother screw a silly face when she said that Calli claimed she would be naming her baby Betsy Joy Marina Liddy Louise Duncan.
She laughed out loud when she realized she was leaving a pause here and there for Jack to interrupt her. Liddy’s mother had been a good listener, or at least appeared to be. Maybe it was that some people just don’t have the need to say a lot. Edda and Jack Hall would be a good match for eternity.
Liddy surprised herself when she hesitated telling her parents certain things. If they were alive, she would have kept from them anything that might make them worry, and she wouldn’t have told them about Major Reid Trent, not yet, maybe never.
But she decided to open up and let it all go. She told them how many women had died at Avenger, and about her ups and downs in training. And she told them everything she could think of about the Major and how she wished they could have met him.
Her fingers kept returning to the metal wings on her chest. They truly were Jack’s wings too. She wouldn’t have them if it weren’t for him.
“I’m still waiting to be militarized,” she said, “They keep saying it’s gonna happen any day, but I’m beginning to understand that doesn’t mean any day soon.” Liddy floated her fingers over the wings. “But I do have wings. Now we all have wings.”
It would be a week before Liddy had to report for pursuit training in Palm Springs, and she didn’t take for granted a minute of her time at home. She flew the old Jenny and scratched on Muck. Crik listened to every story that Liddy had collected the past few months, and she did her best to do justice to the delivery. She, Daniel and Celia ran around the county kicking up their heels and steering the conversation from talk of Daniel going back overseas. She drove over to Clayton Airfield to see Jerry, and he insisted on taking Liddy up for an unofficial checkride. Liddy’s flying had gained a precision that took every bump from the air. Jerry was impressed but only said, “Okay, Hall. I’m giving you an S this time, but work on that take-off. You don’t need to punch a hole through the floor of the pit ya’ know?”