Her Last Flight(112)

GM to rescue at last thank God She will live



The diary fell from his hands. He didn’t have the will. He wanted to listen to the sound of Irene’s going and then slip away into rest, because Morrow was right about one thing. This was his fault, all of it. Irene, her pregnancy, her dangerous days here in Spain, the crackup, his own death—all of it was Mallory’s doing, the work of the devil on his own shoulder, his recklessness, his death wish.

And now he was going to die at last, here in this wreckage in the middle of the Spanish badlands. He was going to get his wish. But Irene would live; that was the important thing. He had not also killed Irene. Instead of wishing Morrow to hell, he should have thanked him. Morrow would take care of her. Morrow would put Irene back on her pedestal in the center of his life, and he would revolve around her to the end of his days, which would be long and many, because Morrow had no death wish. Morrow was not reckless and impulsive and passionate. He would give her everything she wanted, a home and airplanes and probably children. Away from Sam, Irene would thrive. Like Pixie, who had found another father, a better father, and was better off without him. This was the right end, the just end, the only possible end.

God watch over them both, Pixie and Irene. The two living pieces of his heart. God keep them— A thump shook the fuselage. Mallory opened his eyes.

“Se?or Mallory?”

The thick bull shoulders of Velázquez appeared in the hatchway, framed by the sunlight. He had just laid something heavy on the metal deck, like a sack of flour, and now he climbed nimbly over this thing and grasped it under the shoulders and dragged it next to Mallory, without any apparent effort.

“Jesus Christ,” whispered Mallory.

Velázquez shrugged and crossed himself.

“I told the bastard if he tried to get back on my airplane, I would shoot him.”





Ki’ilau, Hawai’i





November 1947



Doris explains to me that they are here on a solemn mission, to scatter Sandy’s ashes on the sea below the cliffs, where her father died. Sandy loved Daddy best, she says. Sandy would drape herself on Daddy’s shoulders while he flew his airplane. She would leap on his lap the second he sat down and stay there, purring, for hours. Sometimes kneading her claws into his trousers, like this (Doris makes claws of her fingers). So this place is just where Sandy would want to settle a final time.

Irene holds the box as we descend along the path on the windward side of the island, where Mallory sometimes came to surf, because the wave on this particular stretch is legendary. That’s the word Lindquist uses, anyway, legendary, but to my mind the proper term is something more like suicidal. Maybe it’s the recent squall, but the surf arrives in giant curls of water that rise from the ocean like gods, sudden and enormous, a quarter mile away. The sight is unreal to me. If it weren’t for Wesley’s small, damp hand, tucked into mine, I think I might fall from the surface of the earth.

We step onto the beach. The sand is hard from the recent rain. Irene takes off her shoes and motions to us to do the same. Together we step into the churning water, up to our ankles. Doris takes my other hand and squeezes it hard. From the corner of my gaze, I spy Leo, who stands with Sophie next to the pile of shoes and socks, about fifteen yards away, as if to protect our belongings. From what, I can’t imagine. Irene opens the box, which is made of wood, about six inches square, and mouths a few words I can’t hear. The kids and I hold tight to each other’s hands. Irene throws out her arm in a wide arc, and the dust makes a glittering smear in the air, hangs there like a rainbow, before it showers into the surf.

“Good-bye, Sandy!” Wesley calls out, in a boy’s soprano, packed with excitement.



After a moment, Irene turns and tells Wesley and Doris to go looking for seashells with Leo and Mrs. Rofrano, because she needs to speak to me. The kids scamper off and Irene sits next to me on the wet sand, Indian style as before, one hand on each knee. A long raincoat covers her usual shirt and trousers, and her back is straight, like a ballet dancer’s.

“There’s something I want you to know,” she says. “I want you to know that he was happy here, as happy as he could be. He did not come here to die. He wanted to live.”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t surf in that, if I wanted to live.”

“But you have to understand that he thrived on that thrill. He needed it. I think it was the war, the things he saw there, the way just about everybody died around him. So he needed to test this thing that had protected him, whatever you want to call it, luck or fate or Providence, to make sure it still existed. Then he could go to sleep at night and feel he would wake up alive.” She pauses. “That’s what I think, anyway. He never liked to talk about it.”

I settle back on my hands and stare at the ocean. “What about you? Were you happy?”

“Not at first. At first I was miserable about the baby, and the burns took ages to heal, whereas Sam was back on his feet in a month. He was my strength. He was the one who flew us to Hawai’i, who found this place, who made contact with the Rofranos and arranged for the sale of the house, so we could have something to live on. He was the one who brought Sandy from California, who held me every night when these terrible dreams woke me, who took me out surfing again when my body could stand it. We bought Coolibah and fixed it up together. Then we had Doris. Every day of that pregnancy was like a torture to me. I was so afraid of losing the baby. I had these nightmares that I was in the desert again, that she was coming out of me. But then she was born healthy and kicking and . . . well, Doris. You know.”