Jack heard Ruth say, ‘No, but I’d love to hear about it.’ So without missing a beat he continued, “Her Mama was on the ground cryin’ in such gushes that things started to sprout up from where her tears soaked the dirt. The whole time we was up, she cried and cried. When we landed, my little Liddy wouldn’t get out of that airplane. She hung on and bawled and cried to go up again. So she was cryin’ and her Mama was cryin’. Here I was with these two gals, one huggin’ the ground, while the other was reaching for the sky. And that’s the way it was from that day on. Props are in the blood ya’ know, and this girl here’s got her daddy’s blood for damn sure.”
Jack tossed the newspaper to Liddy, and she read the headline, “AIRSTRIKES INCREASE. U.S. and Allies Mount Air Offensive.” Jack listened as Liddy read every story, every announcement and advertisement. Then she re-read the parts that Jack wanted repeated. When his head began to bob, Liddy coaxed him to his bed and continued to read until his lids gave up. Because he would sometimes snap awake and scold her for her silence, Liddy waited. When a consistent rumble slowly bellowed up from his gut and pushed its way out his mouth and nose in turn, she set the newspaper on the bed table.
Liddy watched Jack sleep and tried to remember when he looked young. Ageing had steamrolled the man when he lost his wife. He hadn’t married till he was thirty-five and then he’d settled into the arrangement like a contented cat. Jack once told Liddy her mother was the first sweet thing that had ever loved him and let him love her back.
Edda had given birth to Liddy in her first year of marriage and handled her transition without a twitter. Nurturer was always her role and although she adored her brother, caring for a husband and child was the easiest loving she’d ever known. She was a quiet woman, but didn’t hesitate to call Jack down when he was excessive in his excesses. After the war, Jack flew the circuit with Crik for a few months, but Edda didn’t see that was working for their unit. Jack stayed home and dusted from then on, and Edda kept the little family tightly knit and loved.
Liddy had no photos of her mother and didn’t remember her look. Her folks were simple people and not the sort to spend money on extravagances. Edda’s folks must not have been either. Liddy had never seen a picture of her mother or her uncle as children.
Three memories of Edda lived in Liddy: She remembered her to be a tall woman—images of Edda standing level with men and above the ladies floated in her memory. And she remembered how Edda would screw a silly face when she wanted to lighten a mood or raise a spirit. But her nose, mouth, eyes, and skin had long ago faded. So Liddy would draw a face for her mother, which changed as Liddy grew. The face would fit the feelings she kept of her, feelings that reflected how her mother made her feel. From Edda Hall she had felt loved and safe. This was the strongest memory Liddy had of the woman who so briefly made the Hall house a home. But Liddy knew feelings were funny things, much of the time they had little staying power and those that chose to stay were so influenced by time and space.
The Coke bottle was drained dry and Liddy placed it in the trash can by the bed and gathered up the brown bag that cased the two remaining pops. At the nurse’s desk she turned in the bag for rationing. Jack would drink them all in one sitting if he could.
Liddy was strolling down the hall of the hospital when she saw Dr. Bradley cross the lobby. He drove up from Columbia and was only at the little hospital three days a week. Making a sharp swift turn, she quickly rounded the corner—it was too late.
“Liddy, Liddy Hall, come here!” She heeded the man’s orders, turned on her heels and walked back.
“You know what I’m going to tell you, don’t you, Liddy?”
“Do I?” Liddy rubbed her finger on the bridge of her nose and avoided looking at him.
“These are tough times. Every room means expenses. We have to transfer your dad to the state facility if you can’t pay for his care here, and I—”
“I brought everything I could in last week—”
“I know you did, but—”
“I’ve got a big show coming up and I’ll—”
“The paperwork is on my desk, right now. If there was anything we could do that we haven’t already done…”
Liddy reached into her pocket and pulled out her stash and offered it up. “I’ll get the rest, I promise—all of it by the end of the month. Okay?” she pleaded and then thought to herself, I have a plan Doc, can’t tell you about it though.
“I’m beyond serious this time. Do you hear me?” The doctor looked at the cash in his hand and tightened the side of his mouth. “Liddy, the state hospital isn’t a bad place.”
“But it’s three hours away, isn’t it?” Liddy turned and walked away. Her strut was gone and she was left with a heavy step. She walked out the front door of the hospital and to her car, trying not to think about things she could do nothing about, for the time being.
She grabbed the driver’s door of the Dodge and pulled to open it. Her arm stretched out and popped her shoulder, but the door didn’t budge.
“Come on, girl. This isn’t a good time. Be a pal and open up now.”
She pushed down harder on the hammer and pulled again. Then she twisted her whole body back and forth. She pulled some more and then kicked the door, smashing her toe. “Ow.” She grabbed the toe of her shoe and hopped back a few steps. “Alright, if that’s the way you’re gonna be.”
Liddy stepped on the running board, sat on the top of the door and swung over and into the seat. She leaned back and took a deep breath.
“I don’t need any guff from you today.” Her hands fished under the dash and pinched the wires between her fingers. “I’m not fooling around. If you don’t start for me, I’m leaving you here and you’re getting home on your own.” Gently, she tapped the shaggy copper tails together and heard a few of the usual sputters, then a rattle and a steady chug. “Good, girl.”
Liddy pulled out of the hospital parking lot and left her words with Dr. Bradley on the road with the dust. Soon she would be back in the sky.
Liddy’s backside was perched in the air and her head plunged deep inside the cockpit of a shiny new civilian Fairchild PT. Her hands explored the body, while she studied every detail of the ship’s guts with her eyes.
Jerry Bluff entered the hangar. “Liddy, you climb down from there!”
She ignored the order and continued her inspection. “Can I take her up?”
“No, definitely no,” Jerry yelled. His aggravation chopped his breathing, pushing his middle-aged paunch in and out in a quick rhythm. His effort to cross the hanger taxed him, his exhales stressed his shirt buttons, and perspiration broke out on his forehead.
Liddy looked at Jerry from over her shoulder. “The engine hasn’t been broken in, has it?”
“Yes, it has and listen here, you’re not taking up this plane or any other until you reconcile your account.” Jerry folded his arms across his chest, not realizing his tie had flopped clumsily over his arms.
Liddy dug into her pocket before remembering her take from the show that day was gone. She jumped down from the plane and approached Jerry. He tightened up the lock of his arms as if he was creating a shield from Liddy.
“You don’t want me to head off to serve your country having only flown those old ships of Crik’s and the skeletons you’ve been letting me fly, do ya’?”
“Skeletons? None of my planes…” Jerry held his ground. “This is a business, Miss.”
“I have a big show coming up. I’ll get caught up, I promise.”