Melanie Benjamin - The Aviator's Wife

My body had been yearning for a change as desperately as my heart had. For I responded with a passion that first surprised, then enflamed Dana; that night, two middle-aged people who had each, in their own way, thought themselves beyond the pleasures of the flesh discovered that they weren’t, after all.

That night, I slept in his arms. I had never slept in a man’s arms before. This was not something that my husband ever allowed me, not even early in our marriage.

I discovered that there is no pleasure sweeter than timing your breath to match another’s until you both rose and fell at the same pace, drifting, drifting along together—finding peace, everlasting.

The only sadness I allowed myself was the realization that it had taken me over fifty years to find this out. And when at last I did, it wasn’t with my husband.

CHARLES NEVER SUSPECTED—at least, that was what I told myself. How could he? He continued to drop in and out of my life like an annoying mosquito, on his way to Washington or from the West Coast or across to Europe—Pan Am business kept him going to Germany quite a lot—or, more puzzling, to places like the Philippines, the Galapagos Islands, the Australian outback. Occasionally he summoned me, declaring it was time we had a vacation together, and I went, keeping up, grinning for the occasional photographers—fewer and fewer as the years went on; acting the role of the aviator’s wife once more. Counting the days until I could shrug it off and return to what was now my real life with Dana.

Occasionally the children accompanied us on one of Charles’s enforced family outings. These always happened to be in some Godforsaken jungle or rain forest where we had to sleep in tents and use outhouses, and follow him on endless hikes through humidity and bugs as big as pigeons.

“It’s good to explore worlds different from our own,” he declared, even as sweat soaked through his khaki shirt and he slapped at mosquitoes. “Isn’t this wonderful, for us all to get away like this? This is how people should live!”

One by one, the children married—I almost thought out of desperation, so they would have a good reason to excuse themselves from these miserable “vacations.” Charles and I showed up at weddings, playing the role of proud parents; he was more and more uncomfortable with any kind of spotlight, barely concealing a scowl when people fawned over him, even if those people were his new in-laws. I found myself soothing ruffled feathers as expertly as my mother once had.

Civilization , Charles said, with a disgusted grunt, wanting no more of it. Once he had pored over scientific manuals; now he read Thoreau. If he hadn’t been Charles Lindbergh, most would have called him an eccentric old coot.

I had always issued a standing invitation for him to stay with me in the apartment, just as he had asked, but he only took me up on it once, in the late fifties. His flight overseas had been delayed and so, for once, we both found ourselves in the city. Absurdly, I was beside myself with excitement; he had never before seen it and, fool that I was, I still craved his approval in some stubborn, uncooperative—and childish—part of my heart. So I bustled about, feeling like a little girl playing house, ordering in a lovely dinner, arranging flowers, inviting some of my most trusted friends, those who would be least likely to irritate Charles.

With only a shiver of shame—and anticipation—I included Dana.

Charles sat, stonily silent, throughout the evening as we all talked about music and theater and harmless gossip. Even after I deftly steered the conversation to airplanes and science—Sputnik had just been launched, using the same rocket science Charles had championed with Robert Goddard—he barely contributed, his answers only a mumble, and he rubbed his eyes tiredly, like a small child forced to stay up past his bedtime.

My friends flashed me sad, sympathetic smiles behind his back. Dana was unusually tight-lipped, and unusually gallant, in the face of Charles’s sullen presence; he kept rising whenever I ran to the kitchen to refill drinks, and offered repeatedly to help me find things I had misplaced, like the corkscrew, or the box of matches I used to light the fire.

“Didn’t you put them in the coffee table drawer?” Dana asked, before clamping his mouth shut and turning white.

Charles, however, did not appear to have heard, and I realized that I could have embraced Dana right in front of him, torn off his clothes and had him right on the living room carpet, and Charles would not have noticed. Charles Lindbergh could never see himself as a cuckold, and I should have been relieved.

I was not. Shaking with barely suppressed rage, I didn’t even bother to frown at Dana, whose eyes were dark with guilt and fear.

Finally everyone left, far earlier than planned. My friends—all except Dana—kissed me on the cheek as they went out the door. After they were gone, Charles finally came to life; leaping off the sofa, he sneered down at me.

“What a lot of orchids you’ve collected, Anne! What a bunch of nothings! Not a person of substance in the bunch, not even Dr. Atchley. I used to think he, at least, was someone sensible. But to hear him go on and on about the theater, of all things!”

“I enjoy spending time with them,” I murmured, still livid. Charles had embarrassed me, he’d not even noticed my lover sitting next to him; he’d not said one nice thing about my apartment since arriving. I concentrated on extinguishing candles, gathering up glasses, as outwardly serene as Mamie Eisenhower herself. “They’re really quite interesting if you would only give them a chance. But of course, you wouldn’t.”

“You’ve changed, Anne. I’m not sure I know you anymore.”

“Well, you read my book, didn’t you?” I laughed acidly. “That was rather the point.”

Charles snorted. “I don’t know why you’ve surrounded yourself with a bunch of New York society types,” he continued as he followed me around, watching me intently, frowning if I clanged a glass or dropped cigarette ash, but pointedly not offering to help. “Haven’t I always told you you’re too fine for that? Too special?”

“Is that why you want me to live stuck out in the middle of nowhere? Is that why you only see me five times a year?” I asked, still smiling, determined not to let him see he had any effect on me. “What do you think I do for the rest of the time, Charles? Sit and wait for you to remember where you’ve stowed me away?”

Charles did not answer me that. And after I had turned out the last light, I led him down the hall to the bedrooms, although I hesitated in the door of mine. Now that he was here, finally here, I did not want him in my bed. Our bed.

“I’ll bunk in there.” Charles pointed to the guest room; he’d already thrown his old gray travel bag on the bed, his sole piece of luggage. “If you don’t mind. I need a good night’s sleep, as I’m leaving for Brussels early in the morning.”

“No, not at all. Well, good night. There’s an extra towel in the guest bathroom.” Flush with relief now that I knew he would not intrude any further, I leaned up to him. With a grunt, he kissed me on the cheek; he gave no sign that he had missed my body any more than I had missed his. We both retreated inside our separate bedrooms, and shut the door at the same time.

Charles was gone the next morning before I was up. He had stripped the sheets off his bed and folded them up neatly, like a good houseguest.

AFTER ANNE JUNIOR DISCOVERED the letter from Dana, things were different between us. We went through the next few days as planned, getting her ready for college; I kept a serene smile on my face and would have answered any question she asked. But she asked none.