Her Last Flight(68)

“Listen, Irene. I don’t care. I can only tell you what it looked like. It looked like the two of you were—well, that you were actually . . . in the act of . . .” He shifted a bit, glanced to the window, overcome by the Puritanism that was stamped in his bones. “Embracing,” he said.

“But that’s not what happened. Not at all. Everyone’s got the wrong idea. I can make a statement—”

“Not now, you can’t. Right now, you have got to remain absolutely silent. You have got to remain right here in this house and not speak to another soul outside it.”

Irene stood up. “Where’s Sam? I want to talk to Sam.”

“Sam’s gone, Irene.”

“Gone? Where? Call him back. We’re a team. We—”

“Irene.” Morrow stood up and grabbed her shoulders. “Get a hold of yourself. Listen to me. Sam’s gone back to Sydney.”

She tried to pull away, to run for the door, but Morrow was stronger than she was and held her back, facing him, his eyes versus her eyes.

“Listen! There’s been a terrible accident. He’s got to go home.”

Irene stopped struggling and stared at Morrow’s kind, paternal face. She opened her mouth to say What’s happened, but the words remained stuck in her lungs somewhere, trapped and unable to rise.

He answered anyway.

“Mrs. Mallory’s in the hospital, Irene. She saw those photographs in the newspaper and tried to kill herself. Swallowed some pills and slit her wrists with a kitchen knife. The kid found her on the bathroom floor.”





Hanalei, Hawai’i





October 1947



When Lindquist and I return to Coolibah, I do something I haven’t done since I was a child. I crawl into bed in the middle of the afternoon and fall asleep.

A knock awakens me. It takes me some time to come to myself; I look around the darkened room and can’t quite remember where I am, or why I’m there, and the first thing I recall is the sea cliff and the picnic. Then the flight and the drive back to Coolibah, during which the cat unexpectedly curled on my lap, purring like one of those propeller engines on Lindquist’s airplane.

The knock comes again, a little louder. “Janey? It’s Leo.”

I swear and roll out of bed. The cat, which was apparently napping at the small of my back, startles and jumps. My shirt and trousers lie in a heap on the floor. I pull on the shirt and stagger to the door.

“Everything all right?” he asks cautiously.

“Why do you ask?”

“You’re kind of . . . rumpled.”

“I was taking a nap.”

He looks up at the sky. “Mama sent me to tell you it’s time for dinner.”

“Oh, she did, did she? And did your sweet stepmother tell you what she did to me today?”

“She told me you flew out to Ki’ilau together.”

Some fur twines around my ankles. I nudge it away. “Is that what it’s called?”

“One of my favorite spots. Used to sail out there as a kid and kick around on the beach all day.” He props one hand on the doorframe and tilts his head to one side. “If she took you there, she must really like you.”

“If she does, she’s got a funny way of showing it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to put some clothes on.”

I shut the door in his face, and I have to tell you, it feels pretty good.



After dinner, we play goddamn charades. It’s a Friday, so the children are allowed to stay up an hour late, and apparently this is what the little delinquents like to get up to for mischief. Lindquist makes cocoa. Leo pops popcorn. Because Olle’s still in Honolulu with Uncle Kaiko, Lani comes in from the kitchen to even the numbers. Lindquist, Lani, and Wesley make up one side; Leo, Doris, and yours truly make up the other.

Leo hands me my mug of cocoa, which is piled high with whipped cream, and leans to my ear. “Added a shot of bourbon.”

I lick myself a hole through the whipped cream in order to make sure he wasn’t kidding. (He wasn’t.) “Well, thank you kindly, bartender.”

Now, apparently charades are big in the Lindquist household. They keep a big china bowl in the living room filled with scraps of paper, on which members of the family scribble down ideas throughout the week in preparation for Friday’s extravaganza. (I swear to God this is all true.) As guest of the house, I’m given the honor of drawing the first charade, which is

PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH



in a childish scrawl that surely belongs to Wesley.

“Well, that’s easy,” I say. I stand up and mime spreading peanut butter on a piece of bread.

“Bread and butter!” screams Doris.

I fold my imaginary bread into a sandwich.

“Book?” says Leo.

I roll my eyes and take an imaginary bite from this mother-loving imaginary peanut butter sandwich, and as I chew my imaginary lunch, I wonder what sin I’ve committed that can possibly be so mortal as to condemn me to this purgatory.

“Fried chicken?” says Doris, apparently forgetting about the spreading of the butter, and I may kill myself.

“I know! I know!” Wesley jiggles up and down like he has to pee.

“You’re not on our team, dummy!”