Melanie Benjamin - The Aviator's Wife

Reeve, the easiest (and most spoiled, we all knew it, were all responsible for it, even Charles), followed her sister to Radcliffe. But even before she left for school, she was never home; the most social of my children, she was always vacationing with friends, sleeping over, going to parties.

And I was alone. For the first time since before I married Charles. I’d thought marriage would mean I’d never be lonely. Now I knew: Marriage breeds its own special brand of loneliness, and it’s far more cruel. You miss more, because you’ve known more.

The calendar—once so full of dates and appointments and concerts and practices—was increasingly just row after row of empty white squares. One morning I picked up a pencil to write something in—a trip to the grocery store, maybe, so it didn’t look so dauntingly vacant, but then dropped it. Charles was away, as usual, and I had no idea when he would be back. The older boys were gone by then, Scott was at camp, Anne was spending the summer with her aunt Con, Reeve was vacationing with a friend. Determined not to feel sorry for myself, I decided to go for a walk. I left the tidy, orderly house—strange, how every sink and appliance decided to behave beautifully now that I had little use for them—and marched toward my cabin, far down the hill, in that little dip of land.

But I paused in the middle of the yard and looked around. It was June, and I wore a blouse, dungarees, loafers. The saltwater spray from the ocean far below occasionally flew up and got caught by the wind, misting me gently. The leaves were full, canopies of green splintered with golden rays of sun. A couple of rusty bicycles leaned against a shed, my garden beckoned, a hammock, strewn with paperback novels, half-eaten apples, waved gently between two trees.

This had been—still was—a good home in which to raise children, I decided, and allowed myself the warmth of satisfaction. I had raised these children, these two adults, three adolescents who never failed to astonish me with their opinions, their fully formed personalities, their rebellions large and small. There had been a time when I thought I could never love a child again; there had been a time when I couldn’t imagine how to raise one past the age of twenty months. Always, I had an image of a child, and a birthday cake with one candle, and then—someone whisking it away, out of my arms, and having to start all over again.

But I had done it. I had seen them through teething and toddling and adolescence; heartache, tears, stupid jokes and silly laughter. Here, in this strip of land where Charles had hidden us away, only occasionally remembering to come and find us, I had raised a family. Me. By myself.

I knew, finally, that Charles would never really come back to me here. Especially now that the din and racket of children were dwindling, not explosive enough to find its way up to the stratosphere, where he, and only he, resided. He was back to where he had started; the Lone Eagle, jettisoning anything that might weigh him down. Even me.

So I began to build a life for myself. It wasn’t easy. I felt guilty—I, who had written a book that urged women to do just this! I, who had sounded so strong on the page; at times I couldn’t recognize my own words, because I was still so often afraid in my life. Afraid to anger my husband. Afraid to disappoint him.

Afraid to recognize that he had disappointed me.

My guilt at my success, my need to be his “good girl,” combined with my anger at no longer being invited to share his world, no longer being quite so necessary to my children; for a time I found solace in psychoanalysis with the doctor who was treating Dwight.

Charles punished me by moving his belongings out of our bedroom before flying off again, leaving me behind.

But the analysis helped; gradually I was able to release my anger, my grievances, setting them free in the wind that blew up from the sea outside my door. I also released any notions of us settling down in our golden years, or flying together once more, just the two of us.

The next time he remembered to come home, he sat across from me at the dinner table, empty chairs on either side. When he asked me what was for dessert, I told him instead that I wanted to sell the place.

“It’s too big for me, alone.”

“You’re not alone.” He actually looked surprised.

“Charles!” I had to laugh. Where did he think the children were? Hiding somewhere in the attic? “Of course I’m alone, more and more. Oh, yes, technically we have three teenagers still at home, but they’re never here. The older boys are gone for good now.”

“They’ll be home for holidays.”

“Yes, for a little while, but do I stay here, shut away from everything, until then? Just waiting for them—and for you?”

He pursed his lips. “Anne, you know I have work to do.”

“I know you say that, and I know you’re gone all the time. I wish I knew what you did and where you went, but you never tell me.” I wasn’t goading him or accusing him, I was simply stating a fact.

“Of course I do.”

“No, you don’t. You say you have a meeting, or a conference, or a route to inspect. That’s all. You don’t give me your itinerary, you don’t tell me when you’ll be home, I have no way of contacting you except through Pan Am. But you expect me to be here, waiting for you, anyway.”

“Did your psychiatrist tell you to say that?”

“No, and don’t even try to pretend you know what a psychiatrist does. This is me talking. Anne. Your wife.”

He continued to eat, and I had to wonder if he’d heard; he was growing deaf, after all those years of sitting in noisy airplanes. He had always looked down on those—like me—who put cotton in their ears. “It diminishes the experience,” he’d snort. But he was too proud now to admit he’d been wrong.

“You don’t know what it means to me, to know that you’re here,” he said after a moment, his voice soft and unexpectedly appealing, and I knew that he had heard me, after all. He came around the table and pulled out the chair next to me, taking my hand in his, and I couldn’t prevent a gasp at the touch of flesh against my own. It had been so long since he had touched me; I hadn’t realized how long. Days, weeks, months; endless, yearning Arabian nights. It had been ages since anyone had touched me; I didn’t even get the halfhearted hugs of teenagers anymore.

“It’s precisely because you’re here,” Charles continued, murmuring, low and throaty like a perfectly tuned engine, “and that you’ve always been here, running things, keeping us all going—that I can do the work I need to. I couldn’t accomplish half so much without you, Anne. I thought you knew that. You’re my crew.”

Damn him! I retrieved my hand, pushed myself away from the table and stomped into the kitchen, where I stared out the window. Oh, he knew exactly what to say, and when to say it. Just when I wanted, needed , to believe that he didn’t understand the workings of my heart so I could take it back for good—he proved, once more, that he could master anything.

I picked up a chocolate layer cake, store bought, even though I knew he didn’t like that. But I was used to simple eating these days; poached eggs, toast, soup. With so little to do, I no longer employed a full-time cook. Then I strode back to the dinner table; he had returned to his seat at the head. I plopped the cake in front of him. Charles frowned, but sliced into it, anyway.

“What are we going to do, Charles?” I took my seat again, and carefully folded my napkin, placing it next to my coffee cup. “Realistically. Logistically—that, I know you understand. I don’t want to stay here alone. If you want me to remain at your beck and call, waiting for you occasionally to remember me, I can very well do that somewhere else.”