Lone eagle

“People. Bad things that had happened, and feeling bad about them.” He had never known his parents, and the cousins who had taken him in when they died had been hard on him. There was no love lost between them. They had always made him feel like an interloper. And by the time he was sixteen, he had left them. He would have left sooner if he could. “I've always liked being alone. And I like machines. All the little bits and pieces that make them work, and the details of engineering. Flying is like magic, it puts all those things together, and the next thing you know, you're in Heaven, way up in the sky.”

“You make it sound wonderful,” she said, as they stopped and sat down on the sand. They had gone a considerable distance, and they were tired.

“It is wonderful, Kate. It's everything I ever wanted to be and do when I grew up. I can't believe they pay me to do it now.”

“That's because you're obviously very good at it.” He hung his head for a moment, in humility, and she was touched by what she saw and sensed in him.

“One day, I'd like you to fly with me. I won't scare you, I promise.”

“You don't scare me,” she said calmly. He was sitting very close to her, and it frightened him more than it did Kate. What frightened him most were his own feelings. He was intrigued by her. And just being next to her drew him like a magnet. He was twelve years older than she, she was from a wealthy family, one of considerable stature, and she was going to Radcliffe.

He didn't belong in her world, and he knew it. But it wasn't her world that drew him to her, it was who she was, and how at ease he felt with her. He had never known any woman like her. Not even the ones his own age. In all his years, he had dated a number of women, most of them the ones who hung around airstrips, or girls he met through other pilots, usually their sisters. But he'd never had anything in common with any of them. There had only been one woman he had seriously cared about, and she had married someone else, because she said, she was lonely all the time, he had no time to spend with her. He couldn't imagine Kate being lonely, she was too full of life and too self-sufficient, it was that which attracted him to her. Even at eighteen, she was a whole person. From what he could see, there were no pieces missing, no needs he was expected to fill and couldn't, no expectations or reproaches. She just was who she was, and was on her own path, like a comet, and all he wanted was to catch her as she flew by.

She told him then about wishing she could go to law school, but having to give up the dream, because it wasn't a suitable career for a woman.

“That's silly,” he responded. “If that's what you want, why don't you do it?”

“My parents don't want me to. They want me to go to school, but then they expect me to get married.” She sounded disappointed. It seemed so boring to her.

“Why can't you do both? Be a lawyer and get married?” It sounded sensible to him, but she only shook her head, as her hair swirled around her, like a dark red curtain. It added to the sensual quality about her, which he had been fervently resisting. He had done a good job of it, she didn't even sense that he was attracted to her. She just thought he was being friendly and kind.

“Can you imagine a man who would let his wife practice law? Anyone I'd marry would want me to stay home, and have children.” It was just the way things were, and they both knew it.

“Is there someone you want to marry, Kate?” he asked, with more than a little interest. Maybe she'd met someone since Christmas, or had known him before. He didn't know that much about her.

“No,” she said simply, “there isn't.”

“Then why worry about it? Why not do what you want till you meet the right man? It's like worrying about a job you don't even have yet. Maybe you'd meet a nice guy in law school.” And then he turned to her with a question. Their legs were barely touching as they stretched them out before them, but he didn't try to hold her hand, or put an arm around her. “Is getting married that important?” He hadn't even come close to it, at thirty. And she was just eighteen. She seemed to have a lifetime ahead of her for marriage and babies. It was odd to hear her talk of it, like a career path she had chosen, rather than an inevitable outcome of what she felt for someone. He wondered if that was the way her parents saw it. It was certainly not uncommon. But unlike most women, who seemed more clandestine to him, she was so open about it.

“I guess marriage is important,” she answered thoughtfully, “everyone says it is. And I suppose it will be to me one day. I just can't imagine it right now. I'm not in a hurry. I'm glad I'm going to college first.” It was a reprieve for her, from her mother's plans for her. “I won't even have to think about it for four years, and by then who knows what will happen.”