On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

"Come on, please don't lie to me!"

"Emily--"

"Just tell it like it is and be upfront, okay?"

"Emily, I don't think they have been in danger up till now, but the Iranians are taking a sensible precaution, okay?"

Emily felt ashamed of herself for getting mad at him. "I'm sorry, Jim."

"That's all right."

They talked a little longer, then Emily hung up and went back to her needlepoint. I'm losing my grip, she thought. I'm going around in a trance, taking the kids to school, talking to Dallas, going to bed at night and getting up in the morning ...

Visiting her sister Vickie for a few days had been a good idea, but she didn't really need a change of scene--what she needed was Bill.

It was hard to keep on hoping. She began to think about how life might be without Bill. She had an aunt who worked at Woody's Department Store in Washington: maybe she could get a job there. Or she could talk to her father about getting secretarial work. She wondered whether she would ever fall in love with anyone else, if Bill should die in Tehran. She thought not.

She remembered when they were first married. Bill had been at college, and they were short of money; but they had gone ahead and done it because they could not bear to be apart any longer. Later, as Bill's career began to take off, they prospered, and gradually bought better cars, bigger houses, more expensive clothes ... more things. How worthless those things were, she thought now; how little it mattered whether she was rich or poor. Bill was what she wanted, and he was all she needed. He would always be enough for her, enough to make her happy.

If he ever came back.

Karen Chiapparone said: "Mommy, why doesn't Daddy call? He always calls when he's away."

"He called today," Ruthie lied. "He's fine."

"Why did he call when I was at school? I'd like to talk to him."

"Honey, it's so difficult to get through from Tehran--the lines are so busy. He just has to call when he can."

"Oh."

Karen wandered off to watch TV, and Ruthie sat down. It was getting dark outside. She was finding it increasingly difficult to lie to everyone about Paul.

That was why she had left Chicago and come to Dallas. Living with her parents and keeping the secret from them had become impossible. Mom would say: "Why do Ross and the fellows from EDS keep calling you?"

"They just want to make sure we're okay, you know," Ruthie would say with a forced smile.

"That is so nice of Ross to call."

Here in Dallas she could at least talk openly to other EDS people. Moreover, now that the Iran business was certain to be closed down, Paul would be based at EDS headquarters, at least for a while, so Dallas would be their home; and Karen and Ann Marie had to go to school.

They were all living with Jim and Cathy Nyfeler. Cathy was especially sympathetic, for her husband had been on the original list of four men whose passports Dadgar had asked for: if Jim had happened to be in Iran at the time, he would now be in jail with Paul and Bill. Stay with us, Cathy had said; it will only be for maybe a week; then Paul will be back. That had been at the beginning of January. Since then Ruthie had proposed getting an apartment of her own, but Cathy would not hear of it.

Right now Cathy was at the hairdresser's, the children were watching TV in another room, and Jim was not yet home from work, so Ruthie was alone with her thoughts.

With Cathy's help she was keeping busy and putting on a brave face. She had enrolled Karen in school and found a kindergarten for Ann Marie. She went out to lunch with Cathy and some of the other EDS wives--Mary Boulware, Liz Coburn, Mary Sculley, Marva Davis, and Toni Dvoranchik. She wrote bright, optimistic letters to Paul, and listened to his bright, optimistic replies read over the phone from Tehran. She shopped and went to dinner parties.

She had killed a lot of time house-hunting. She did not know Dallas well, but she remembered Paul saying that Central Expressway was a nightmare, so she looked for houses well away from it. She had found one she liked and decided to buy it, so there would be a real home for Paul to come back to, but there were legal problems because he was not here to sign the papers: Tom Walter was trying to sort that out.

Ruthie was making it look good, but inside she was dying.