Wings

And as he walked away, for no particular reason except that she was proud of him, Cassie shouted after him, “I love you!” He turned and showed a sign that he had heard her, and then he was gone. And at last it was his turn in the small red plane as he climbed, and he climbed, and he climbed, and she watched him sharply. She thought she saw something then, and she narrowed her eyes against the sun, and she was about to say something to Billy. Sometimes she felt things even before she saw them. But before she could say anything, she saw what she had feared, a thin trail of smoke, and she found herself looking up at it, willing him to the ground as swiftly and as safely as he could get there. She wasn't even sure he knew what the problem was yet, but he did a moment later. His engine had caught fire, and a moment later he was plummeting to the ground faster than he had risen. There was no stopping him, no time to say anything. There were the familiar gasps that meant something terrible, as everyone waited. And Cassie was mentally willing him to pull up on his stick as he fell, and she clutched Billy's arm, but she never took her eyes off her brother's plane. And then he was down, in a column of flame, as she and every man at hand rushed toward him. But the flames were furious and the smoke pitch black. Billy reached him before anyone else and she was right beside him. Together they pulled him from the flames, but he was already gone, and every inch of him was burning. Someone ran toward them with a blanket to quench the flames, and Cassie was sobbing as she held him. She didn't even realize she had burned her arm very badly. She didn't know anything, except that Chris was in her arms, and he would never see again, or laugh, or cry, he would never grow up, or be rude to her, or get married. She couldn't stop crying as she held him, and she heard a guttural cry above her, as the plane exploded and threw shards of metal at the crowd. Billy was pulling on her to get her away, and she was still holding Chris as her father tried to take him from her.

“My boy…” He was sobbing… “My boy… oh, God… no… my baby…” They were both holding him, and people were running and screaming all around them, and then powerful arms lifted Chris from her, and her father was led away, and in the distance she could see Jessie crying, and all Cassie knew was Billy was holding her, and then she saw her mother sobbing in her father's arms. And everyone around them was crying. It had been that way the year before, but this was worse, because it was Chris… her baby brother.

She was never sure what happened after that, except that she remembered being in the hospital, and Billy was with her. The arm didn't hurt at all, but people were doing things to her. Someone said it was a third degree burn, and they kept talking about the accident… the accident… the plane… but she hadn't crashed. She hadn't crashed in her plane, and she kept saying as much to Billy.

“I know, Cass. I know, sweetheart. You didn't do anything.”

“Is Chris okay?” She suddenly remembered that there was something wrong with him, but she couldn't remember what, and Billy just nodded. She was in shock. She had been since it happened.

They gave her something to sleep for a while, and when she woke up, the arm had started to hurt terribly, but she didn't care. She had remembered.

But Billy was still there, and they cried together. Her parents were there too by then. They had come back to see her. Her mother was almost hysterical, and her father was heartbroken, and Glynnis and her husband Jack were there, but everyone kept crying. Glynnis told her Jessie had gone home with friends of Chris's, and her parents had had to call the doctor.

Because Chris was so badly burned, the casket was closed, and the wake was the following night at the funeral home in Good Hope. And the funeral was the next day at St. Mary's. Everyone he had ever gone to school with was there, all his friends, and Jessie. She was in terrible shape, surrounded by her sisters, and Cassie made a point of going to kiss her. It was a terrible thing for a nineteen-year-old girl to live through.

Bobby Strong was there, and he came over and talked to Cass, but Peggy just couldn't. Some of Chris's friends from college had come too, and almost everyone who'd been in the air show, just as all of them had gone for Jim the year before. It seemed such an idle death, such a stupid way to die, climbing to the sky just to prove how far you could go, or worse yet, that you couldn't.

Cassie felt as though part of herself had died, and as she followed the casket out of the church, she and her father had to hold up her mother. It was the worst thing Cassie had ever seen, the worst thing she'd ever been through.