Wings

“What should we say?” He turned to his wife for advice. He relied on her judgment more than he realized, and sometimes more than he wanted to. But he trusted her, particularly about their daughters.

“I think we should let her do what she wants. She will anyway, Pat, and shell be happier if she feels she can make her own decisions. Shell come back to us, no matter how many planes she flies in California. She knows how much we love her.” They called her into their bedroom then, and Oona let her father tell her what they had decided.

“Your mother and I want you,” he hesitated and glanced at Oona for a second, “to make your own decision. And whatever you decide, we're behind you. But if you go,” he warned, “you'd better come back, and damn often.” There were tears in his eyes when he hugged her, and she clung to him and kissed her mother, who was crying.

“Thank you… thank you…” She hugged them both, and sat down at the foot of their bed with a sigh. “It's been a hard decision.”

“Do you know what you're going to do?” Oona asked. Pat didn't dare ask her, but he already suspected what Cassie had decided as she nodded and looked at them with a shiver of excitement.

“I'm going.”

But leaving them was harder than she'd feared. She met with Desmond Williams at the Portsmouth the next morning, and signed the contract with him. She had black coffee and toast, she was too nervous to eat anything else, and the details of what he was telling her were so exciting that she kept getting confused. They were going to arrange a flight for her from Chicago to Los Angeles. There was an apartment, a car… uniforms… a chaperone when they felt she needed one… a wardrobe… escorts, a weekend place in Malibu she could use. A plane for her personal use, whenever she wanted to fly home. And the kinds of planes she had always dreamed about flying.

Her schedule began in five days. There would be a press conference, a newsreel, and a test flight of a new Starlifter right off the bat. He wanted her to show America just how good she was. But first he wanted to show her what his planes could do. He was going to spend the first two weeks with her, mostly flying.

“I can't believe it,” she said to Billy as they lay in the sun on an old unused piece of runway later that morning.

“You sure did get a big break,” he said enviously. But he was happy here, and for the moment he had no desire to go back to California.

“I'll be home in two weeks for a visit, no matter what,” she promised him and everyone else.

Her parents gave a big dinner for her the night before she left, with all her sisters and brothers-in-law, their kids, Chris, Nick, and Billy. Bobby wasn't there of course, although she had seen him two days before at Jim Bradshaw's wake. He had been talking quietly with Peggy, and holding one of her babies.

But it was Nick she stood next to all night, whom she couldn't bear to leave. She derived so much comfort and support from him, and had for so many years, that now she didn't know how she would survive without him.

The next morning everyone was at the airport when she left. Nick was flying her to Chicago in the Vega, and after she kissed her mother and sisters and Chris goodbye, she went over to her father. They both had tears in their eyes as he looked at her. He wanted to ask her to change her mind, but he would never do it.

“Thank you, Dad,” she whispered into his neck as he held her close to him.

“Be careful, Cassie. Ray attention. Don't ever get sloppy in one of those fancy planes. They won't forgive you for an instant.”

“I promise, Dad.”

“I wish I believed you,” he smiled, “damn female pilot.” He was laughing then through his tears, and gave her another bear hug and then sent her off with Nick. Chris and Billy were waving from the runway too, when they took off, and Cassie heaved an enormous sigh. It had been harder leaving home than she had ever dreamed, and all she could think of were the people she was leaving there, instead of the places where she was going. And as she turned to look at Nick, her heart felt heavier still. She wanted to hold onto every moment she had with him.