Flying Angels(8)

   “Maybe you will one day,” Audrey said, trying to calm her.

“Maybe I should find a job here, or in Baltimore. At least I’d be close to you. I’m going to miss you so damn much.” They had been together constantly for three years. The tears spilled down Lizzie’s cheeks then, and the two women hugged, thinking of their futures, which weren’t what either of them wanted. Audrey had no choice. She wouldn’t abandon her mother, and Lizzie couldn’t fight her overpowering father, and her mother agreed with whatever he wanted. Their entire family followed his lead in all things. Her brothers never challenged him either. Neither had she so far. She was due to start the job he’d found for her in Boston in two weeks. They expected her to live at home, which was what proper young women did. She would have liked to get her own apartment, possibly with some other nurses, but she knew her parents would never let her do it. She would be living under their roof until she married. And Audrey had to live with her mother anyway. She hadn’t applied for any nursing jobs. She had her life cut out for her too. She would be at home, nursing her mother.

   Ellen was entirely aware of the sacrifices Audrey made, and grateful for them. She stunned Audrey with the graduation present she offered her. She told her about it the night before graduation.

“I want you to make plans for a vacation, Audrey,” she told her firmly. “I’ll pay for you and a friend. I want you to fly to Hawaii. I’ve already spoken to Will about it, he is stationed in Hawaii now and loves it. He says he can take some leave to escort you around. I assume you’ll want to take Lizzie, but that’s up to you. I want you to have a real vacation, in a beautiful place. And not sometime in the distant future that never happens. Figure it out. Mrs. Beavis can stay with me for a week or ten days. I already asked her and she agreed. And you go kick up your heels. You’ve earned it. I’m very proud of you for getting your nursing degree, especially since I know you did it for me. But now it’s your turn. So figure out when. You can fly to California from New York, and from there to Oahu on Pan Am. I’ve already put the money aside for the trip, and I won’t take no for an answer!” Audrey looked at her in astonishment, and rushed to the phone to call Lizzie in her dorm and tell her about it.

“And you’re coming with me!” Audrey said, talking a mile a minute. “It’s my graduation gift, and she’s paying for me to take a friend. And you’re it. So find out when the hospital will let you take a week off. And Will said he’ll arrange to take leave then, and he’ll escort us around.”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe it. I would die to go there,” and to spend a week with Audrey’s brother, which Audrey suspected. He had never shown anything more than brotherly interest in Lizzie, but she hoped that maybe now that she’d graduated, he would treat her like a grown woman. And whether he did or not, she couldn’t wait to go somewhere exotic and tropical like Hawaii. It was an incredibly generous gift, and even more so because Mrs. Parker wanted Audrey to take a friend with her.

   Both girls were dreaming of it when they went to sleep that night. And graduation the next day was deeply emotional. Will hadn’t been able to come, since he was in an advanced combat training program for two weeks that he couldn’t get out of. And Ellen made a heroic effort to see her daughter graduate. She had to be strapped into her wheelchair so she wouldn’t fall out, and Mrs. Beavis came with them. Audrey suspected it might be the last time her mother would be able to leave the house, but Ellen wasn’t going to miss her daughter’s graduation any more than she would have missed Will’s from Annapolis three years before. Nothing, and no illness, was going to deprive her of this moment. She was profoundly proud of Audrey, who had passed her exams at the top of her class, with Lizzie not far behind her. Ellen had come to love her too, as a dear girl and a wonderful friend to Audrey, her only friend. The two young women were a staunch support to each other.

Lizzie’s parents had come to the graduation with both her brothers. Her father looked stern and proud as he watched her graduate, and her mother had tears in her eyes when Lizzie accepted her nursing pin and diploma. It brought back memories of her own graduation.

Lizzie told her parents about the invitation to Hawaii right after the ceremony, and was still elated at the prospect.

“We’ll see,” her mother said quietly. “We’ll talk about it.” Her response hit Lizzie like a bucket of cold water, and she stopped and stared at her mother. They were not going to do this to her again, infantilize her and tell her what she could and couldn’t do. She was a grown woman.

   “No, Mother, we won’t ‘talk about it.’ I’m going. I don’t know when yet, I’ll have to figure that out at work, but I’ve been invited and I’m going.” There was iron in her voice, and both her parents could hear it. It was a new side of her they had never seen before.

“That’s a long way to go, and you’d be two girls alone,” her mother said, looking nervous.

“It sounds fantastic to me, and Audrey’s brother will take leave and chaperone us. I’m going,” she said, and turned away then, as her brother Henry winked at her.

“You tell ’em, Sis,” he whispered, and she nodded. They negotiated with their mother, but none of them ever stood up to their father. Henry had wanted to study architecture but was continuing medical school in the fall instead. Only Greg really wanted a medical career, and he had been influenced by their father to go into orthopedics instead of pediatrics, because orthopedic surgery was more lucrative. Benjamin Hatton, their father, was a force to be reckoned with. But Lizzie wasn’t going to let anyone take her vacation with Audrey away from her. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her, and a chance to spend a week with a dazzling guy she’d had a crush on for two years. Whatever happened, nothing could induce her to miss it.