Melanie Benjamin - The Aviator's Wife

“No. Just relax. And have fun.”

Then I was being helped up onto the wing, made of that same fabric as the Spirit of St. Louis , but it felt sturdy, stable, beneath my feet. Climbing into the small seat in front, I found a harness that reached across my chest, and secured it. The top wing of the plane formed a kind of canopy above me. There was a stick and a round instrument panel in front of me: the controls Charles had told me about. There was also a pedal at my feet. I was cramped in this cockpit and couldn’t have stretched my legs. I wondered how he had stayed in such a place for forty hours, even in the larger cockpit of the Spirit of St. Louis; his legs were so long.

I felt, before I heard or saw, the propeller turn in front of me; the plane shuddered, and a slap of wind hit my face. The engine sputtered, then roared to life, and I chewed my gum vigorously to drown out the surprisingly loud whine. Then we were rambling down the field, picking up speed; I could feel every rut and bump in the ground as we tumbled over it, still clumsy, so clumsy—how could we ever take wing? The ground came toward me faster and faster, bumpier and bumpier, until suddenly, it was smooth; no more clumsiness, no more friction. It was as if I were suspended in time, suspended in air—and then, as my stomach decided to test its own boundaries, I realized that I was.

I was airborne . My heart was rising in my throat, my stomach first leaping, then tumbling, as we went up, up, up… the tips of trees, green, leafy, so close I was sure I could touch them. Then they were below me.

The plane banked toward the right, and suddenly I was looking back down at the airfield, the buildings, the horse getting smaller and smaller until it turned into a toy. The air slapped and then tore at my face; my eyes stung, even behind the goggles. My ears felt as if they were full of water. This pressure in them built until I remembered the gum. Chewing furiously, I felt first my left, then my right ear pop, and I could hear again the reassuring groan of the engine, the wind whistling past my face.

The plane leveled out. Now I couldn’t stop looking, craning my head this way and that; below, on my right, were hills. Tops of hills! And houses that looked like dollhouses. Fields were laid out neatly in geometric shapes, squares and rectangles.

The clouds remained above us; it appeared we wouldn’t be touching them, after all. But it didn’t matter; there was too much to see, anyway. Too much for me to absorb—I didn’t feel weightless; there was no danger of me floating out of the plane, as I admit I had feared. Although I did feel curiously light, above . Above all the troubles of the world, above all my fears and doubts. Just as Charles had said.

Charles! My heart thrilled at my casual memory of his name, as if, for a brief moment, I was one of the golden people, too. And he was behind me! Again, I had almost forgotten about him even as I trusted him completely. Without a single doubt, I had placed my very being in his hands, certain he would take care of it, of me. And in that moment, that first moment of flight, of my breaking of the rules of gravity—I broke the rules of my heart, as well. For I had strictly governed it until this moment; this moment when I gave it, literally and figuratively, to the man seated behind me. The man steering me through the air, making sure I didn’t fall. No longer did I need to be responsible for my own destiny, to worry about what to do today, tomorrow, next year. I needed only to give in and be , like the simplest of creatures. Like the birds flying miraculously below me.

I wasn’t frightened. Hadn’t I always wanted to be carried away by someone stronger than me? As much as I had told myself that life was no fairy tale, I had always hoped, deep down, that it was. What young girl doesn’t dream of the hero rescuing her from her lonely tower? I had been no different, only more diligent, perhaps, than others in constructing that ivory tower of my own design—a foundation laid of books, the bricks formed of the duty drilled into me by my parents; dreams may have been the paintings on my walls, but doubts and fears were the bars on my windows.

Yet here I was, swept away through the very atmosphere—higher than any tower, far beyond any bars—by the most heroic one of all.

Fiercely, urgently, I needed to see his face, to see if he was real, after all. I didn’t dare turn around, however; I didn’t know how I could . The wind was pinning me to my seat. It took all my strength to look left or right; up or down. It was easiest simply to look ahead.

And so I did. I relaxed, gazing in delight at the rolling land coming up beneath us, marveling at the shadow of the plane racing us on the ground even in this half-light, like a tagalong friend. My ears adjusted to the engine until it was simply background noise. My eyes still stung and watered, but I was used to the cold now. My limbs were stiff, but I didn’t care. I would have been happy to remain up in the sky forever, circling this valley. I was glad for the smooth ground below, the fields in which we could land, if necessary. I couldn’t imagine how he had flown across that endless, forbidding sheet of water for all those hours. How could he have landed, if there was trouble? He couldn’t have. Yet he had taken off anyway, knowing that.

At some point, I became aware that we were gradually descending; what had been blocks and ants were becoming houses and even a few people, once more. Now I could see that the people were jumping up and down and waving; I laughed, they looked so joyous and strange, like primitive cave drawings come to life. I tried to wave back, but my hand was almost ripped from my wrist; sheepishly, I stuck it back into the cockpit, and hoped that Charles hadn’t noticed.

The airfield was now on the horizon, far ahead but getting closer, closer, as the trees began to grow again, the tips just below us, now even with us, now higher… and now we touched the ground. We sped down the runway as swiftly as when we’d taken off; once more I felt the ground, the bumpy, rutty ground, and my teeth rattled in my head. Even though I had been chewing the gum the entire time—it no longer had any flavor, and was the consistency of rubber—my ears popped again.

We slowed; the engine sputtered, and then, with a shudder, the plane came to a stop. It took me a long moment to realize the engine was silent, save for a stray hiss; my ears continued to ring with the noise of it.

I heard a vague sound behind me, as if the wind were speaking. But I was afraid to move, afraid to break my enchanted spell; I was suddenly overwhelmed by sadness. I didn’t want to be back on the ground, back to being cautious, careful Anne. I loved the carefree, even wild, girl I had felt myself to be in the sky. Like a lover, I didn’t want to say goodbye to her.

Someone was talking to me; someone was shaking my shoulder.

“So? Did you like it?” It was Colonel Lindbergh; he was standing on the wing right next to me, reaching in and unbuckling my harness so that his face was just inches from mine. The sudden warmth of his nearness, his hands on my shoulder, then grasping my own as he pulled me from my seat—I was abruptly dizzy, my stomach bouncing about as if it were still riding the currents.

Then my feet were somehow on the ground and a babbling, laughing voice filled the air; it took me a moment to recognize it as my own.

“Oh, did I! I never had such fun nor felt so free—oh, it was wonderful! I wasn’t afraid, not a bit! It was like church, better than church, like being close to God, like seeing the earth the way He intended. Everything looked so different, so much more manageable from up there, didn’t it? And did you see the people waving? Do you think they knew it was us? I can’t wait to go again—oh, will you take me up again? Will you?”