“LOOK AT THE CAMERA! Sweetheart, look at the camera!” I stood behind Charles, beaming at my son. Little Charlie sat in a high chair, waving a spoon, a tiny cake with one candle on the tray in front of him. Daddy and Mother stood behind me; we all waved and cooed and acted much more foolishly than the baby. He simply scowled at us all with comical gravity, his plump fist clutching the silver spoon, until finally he cocked his head as if pondering what strange creatures adults could be.
“Perfect,” Charles said, as he clicked the camera. “That’s a keeper.”
“Should we release it, then?” I walked over to the baby. Now that we had all stopped acting like trained monkeys, he had turned his attention to his cake and was demolishing it with his spoon, cooing and giggling at the mess he made. My heart soared, watching his complete bliss; how marvelous to be utterly content with a spoon and a pile of crumbs! How innocent, how sweet, my baby was! I longed to pick him up and wrap him in my arms as a way to preserve his innocence—to catch it, even, as if it were a giddy virus—but I fought the impulse by picking up a tea towel instead.
The maternal instinct must be smothered; I repeated this phrase to myself a hundred times a day. Charles and I had agreed to raise the baby according to the Watson method, then much in fashion. It was a strict scientific method—Charles Junior’s schedule was planned to the minute, feedings coming precisely the same time each day, along with nap time, playtime, et cetera. Nothing was left to chance, and, most important, the child was encouraged to develop on his own, without the unnecessary, potentially harmful, influence of maternal love and anxiety.
Immediately after his birth, I had been relieved to relinquish control of my child to this method; I couldn’t wait to resume my life with my husband, just the two of us, my body miraculously light and easy again, as if it could fly on its own accord. The nurse I had hired was given precise schedules and charts by which to run the temporary nursery at Next Day Hill. When we were home, we saw the baby only a few times a day; he was presented to us, much like an exotic specimen of flora or fauna to be admired. And when he was placed in my arms, wrapped and pinned into a neat little bundle, I didn’t know what to do. Because I felt no attachment to the squalling, red-faced creature whose greatest desire appeared to be a myopic determination to suck his fist.
I knew he was mine; I remembered struggling out of the fog of ether after he was born, seeing the deep cleft in the chin, exactly like Charles’s, and smiling in relief that he did not look like me; his nose was button-perfect, and his eyes did not slant downward. I felt a bit like a princess, actually, as I fell back against my pillows with a contented sigh; I had done my job. I had produced the heir that Charles—the entire world—had so desired. While I recuperated upstairs, downstairs my parents’ doorbell kept ringing for days, as bushels of congratulatory telegrams were delivered, along with flowers and gifts—Louis B. Mayer sent a small movie camera; Al Jolson offered to come to the house and sing “Sonny Boy” to him in person; Will Rogers sent him a pony. The Sunday after his birth, churches all across the land singled out my child for special prayers; musicians composed lullabies in his honor; schools were named after him. Some in Congress suggested his birth be declared a national holiday.
And Charles, that day—I’d never before seen him so worried, and then so proud when it was all over. Even more proud than when I first soloed in an airplane. He had held my hand until the pains got too much for me and I was put under—and the memory of him beside me, never wandering off to have a cigar or do any of the distracting things men usually did at a time like that, remained with me, each detail etched in my heart. His worried brow, usually so smooth and implacable; his soothing murmurs, not real words at all, and this from a man who was usually so economic with his speech.
And then his face, when I awoke—his mouth open in astonishment as he held his son, gazing down at him as if he were a miracle, as if he’d never believed this could be the logical result of the previous nine months. Charles’s face was stripped of that polite mask he wore so much of the time, naked with hope and wonder.
So it was my husband’s behavior, his vulnerability and concern for me, that I most cherished that day—not the miraculous fact of our child. Little wonder, then, that it took me a while to appreciate him.
By now, his first birthday, I had. I had fallen in love with my son in approximately the same time it had taken me to fall in love with his father. Not immediately, but over a series of increasingly precious events. The first time he smiled and we were sure it wasn’t gas. The first time he waved when he saw me enter a room. The first time I could brush his curls—reddish blond, just like Charles’s. The first time he sat in my lap and peered intently into my face, patting me on the cheeks, studying me almost as clinically as his father sometimes did—as if trying to memorize me.
I had my heart shattered, as well—just like any woman who falls in love: the first time he said, “Mama,” and looked at the nurse instead of me.
“I suppose I should release one of these photos,” Charles said now, as he put the lens cap back on our Kodak. “Perhaps it would satisfy those vultures, those newspapermen. At the very least, it would give them something new to write about except breadlines and Hoovervilles.”
It was June 1931; the Depression was no longer a nightmarish notion but a grim reality. Yet here in the beckoning warmth of the early summer sun, it was easy to imagine that we were removed, charmed, as if in a fairy tale of our own at Next Day Hill. Mother and Daddy were temporarily home from Washington, where he was now the junior senator from New Jersey. Dwight was doing better, working with a tutor while he continued to stay at a sanitarium in Massachusetts. Con was home from school for the summer.
The gardens seemed to have exploded overnight, struggling early shoots replaced with enormous blossoms and garishly-flowering bushes. The lawn was so green as to look artificial, tidy and manicured, dutifully cared for by an army of gardeners. My baby’s birthday cake had been lovingly frosted by the cook. Betty Gow, our new nurse, was hovering in the background in her light denim nurse’s dress, a blue sweater around her shoulders, ready to remove the baby, should he begin to fuss.
But there were shadows gathering near the manicured borders of our little world. “If you don’t release a photo for his birthday,” I told Charles, as the others went inside to get the presents, “the newspapers are sure to start up that nonsense again about the baby being deformed.”
“I don’t like offering up my son like ransom,” Charles muttered, looking about the garden as if, even now, a photographer might be lurking behind a tree. “Why do they care?”
“If we don’t give them some information, they print the most awful things on their own. We didn’t release a photograph after he was born, so they retaliated by saying he was—he was a freak.”
“You shouldn’t care what they print. I’ve told you so many times.” Charles scowled down at me. Against the brilliance of this sky, his eyes did not look quite so blue, although they were clear and steady as always. His brow was still forbidding and noble; unlined, even though he was almost thirty. He looked very much like the earnest young man who landed in Paris, except that his reddish-blond hair was beginning to recede a little. And he had faint crinkles around his eyes.
“I’m his mother. Naturally, I care what is said about my child, Charles. Naturally, I don’t want people saying that he’s deformed,” I explained, wondering why it was necessary to do so.
Did I look any different to him, after two years of marriage? I was a trifle more plump after the baby, mainly around my hips. I was glad that the fashions had changed, that the slim, boyish figure prized in the twenties was no longer in vogue.
“I know you care.” Charles looked bewildered, shaking his head. But his expression changed as he gazed at his son; it softened, then turned impish in a flash; his lips curled up into a gremlin’s grin. Before I could stop him, he had snatched the spoon out of the baby’s hands.
The baby reacted by crumbling into a sobbing, cake-covered mess; his eyes scrunched up, his face turned red, and tears streamed down his cheeks, dribbling off his chin.
“Oh, Charles!” I hated it when he did this; when he got in what Betty called, in her Scottish burr, his “awful devilish” mood, teasing and tormenting everyone in his path. It was as if the crude, practical-joke-playing young airmail pilot was trying, with one last, mighty push, to break free before he was forever trapped inside the marble statue my husband was becoming.
“Charles, give it back to him,” I pleaded, trying to take the spoon, but he held it high above my head.
“No, we need to teach him that sometimes you don’t always get to keep what you want,” Charles replied, waving the spoon so that the baby could see.
“He’s just a baby!” My heart constricted, then leaped toward my child as if to provide him the comfort my arms could not. I knew that if I took a step toward him, Charles would block my way. I glanced at Betty; she, too, was standing so rigid, yet every muscle seemed to be straining toward the baby. Then she looked right at me, her chin raised, her blue eyes challenging; I was shamed by that look. I’m only a servant, it seemed to taunt me. But you’re his wife, the child’s mother. You can do something about this.
But I couldn’t; I could only watch helplessly as Charles Junior continued to wail as his arms flailed about, looking for his spoon, for comfort, for something. And Charles Senior watched his son with a maddening smile on his face, and I told myself he really didn’t enjoy hurting him so. I told myself this was just his way of toughening up his son, even at such a tender age; that he really felt he was helping him, being a good father; the father he himself wished he’d had.
Tears stung my eyes, and I blinked and blinked, my arms, my chest aching to comfort my child. Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it any longer, my mother came hurrying out onto the terrace.
“What on earth?” She ran to her grandson and snatched him up out of his high chair, not caring that the front of her silk dress was instantly covered in a mixture of tears, saliva, and cake crumbs. She soothed and patted, and while Charles narrowed his eyes, he heeded my silent warning as I grabbed his arm. “Why were you all standing around? My poor little man!” She began to walk little Charlie around the terrace, bouncing him up and down in her arms so instinctively that I was jealous; I was even more jealous when he quieted immediately and nestled his head against her shoulder, his face still wet with tears.
But jealousy was overshadowed by frustration; why couldn’t I simply ignore my husband the way my mother just had?
Because she would soon go back to Washington. And I would remain here with my husband, dependent on him for everything.
“She’s spoiling him,” Charles growled, throwing the spoon back down on the high-chair tray.
“It’s his birthday. He deserves to be spoiled on his birthday.” I joined my mother and son at the table, which was soon towering with the birthday presents that Con and Daddy brought out. And I couldn’t help but contrast this obvious, ostentatious display of affection for my son with the cruelty—yes, cruelty—just exhibited by Charles. I felt my loyalties torn, not for the first time, between the two; between my child and my husband.
After we helped open all the presents—the baby was more interested in playing with the ribbons than any of his actual gifts—we lingered. It was such a beautiful afternoon that no one in my always bustling family seemed in a hurry. For once, we were all content simply to sit and be.
“Daddy, you’re looking a little tired.” I turned to my father with a smile. “Are they working you too hard in Washington?”
“Nobody can work a Morrow too hard,” he replied. Yet he remained slumped in his chair, unaware that he had crumbs of cake on his necktie.
“Well, just you wait. I’m afraid it’s going to get much, much worse.” Mother shook her head. Her gray hair, bound simply in a low knot, looked almost white in the sun. She had new lines on her face, too, just like Daddy; lines that were not there before he became senator.
“I know,” Daddy predicted, stirring slightly. “Hoover hasn’t exhibited any grasp of the situation, I’m sad to say.”
“I don’t know about that,” Charles replied. He turned his gaze elsewhere, to that far-off star on the horizon only he could see. Once I had found this inspiring, a symptom of his courage, his vision. Now I had to admit I sometimes found it aggravating: It was as if those of us nearest to him could never really matter enough.
“Hoover’s a good man,” my husband continued, squinting into the distance and sighing at what he found there. “It’s the system that’s broken. Capitalism is inherently flawed. Look at what’s happening in Germany. There’s an example of something broken, but at least its leaders are looking for solutions. They’re not content just to sit back and slap a bandage on a gaping wound, and hope the fat cats get around to doing what’s right.”
My parents exchanged a look. I knew they didn’t want to contradict Charles; no one ever wanted to contradict Charles. When they looked at him, everyone still saw that brave boy of ’27—that unique and fearless boy who had captured the world’s heart and imagination. The man of ’31, however, was harder to love.
“Well, let me tell you, young man,” my father began, as I tried to distract him by waving at the baby, who was still in Mother’s arms, reaching for a strand of pearls that she deftly pulled away from his chubby hand.
“Dwight, Charles, no politics at the table,” my mother murmured, but Daddy couldn’t be stopped.
“You want to become a socialist nation?” he continued. “Like Germany? Where there’s very little in the way of free press these days?”
“They’re not socialist yet, Daddy,” Con interrupted, with her sunny, earnest smile. “Hitler didn’t quite steal the election from Hindenburg, although he might on the next ballot.”
“I doubt the German people will elect Hitler,” Charles said with authority. “Although I don’t disagree with some of his party’s practices, really. At least he has vision.”
“I don’t know what to think of the situation over there,” Daddy said, with a shake of his head. “I don’t like either of them. Hindenburg’s a holdover from the days of the kaiser.”
“Hindenburg’s just a puppet. It’s immaterial. Germany doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things; it will never recover from Versailles, although if it does, it will be because of a man like Hitler—someone who has energy, anyway. Someone who can engage the people. But the truth is, we have dangers enough here at home.”
“Dangers? From without or within?” My father glared at Charles.
“Both,” Charles replied mildly.
My father nodded and slumped back down in his chair, breathing heavily. He stirred himself a little, turning to Con. “It’s good to see you taking an interest in current events, missy.”
“How could I not?” She shrugged. “With a senator for a father?”
“My daughters,” Daddy complained. “They run the show, the women in this family. Be glad you’ve got a son,” he said to Charles.
“As do you, dear,” Mother said, so mildly that it took a moment for her words to register. Con and I exchanged wary glances, while Daddy merely nodded, and slumped even farther in his chair.
“It’s been so long since we were all together as a family,” he said wearily. “Anne, just when we get you and Charles to stay put for a while, your sister has to go missing. What’s so important in Maine that Elisabeth can’t come out here even for her nephew’s birthday?”
“She still needs her rest,” I reminded him.
“Has she even seen little Charlie since he was born?”
“Oh, Daddy, of course she has,” I answered as I felt the tips of my ears burn, and I looked down at my lap. Although, to be truthful, she hadn’t seen him very much, so busy was she with her new school—and with avoiding me. Taking trips to Nassau, to Maine, all in the name of recuperation; at least, that’s how she put it to the rest of the family.
With me, however, she was more honest. Woundingly so.
I remembered her first visit after the baby was born. I was still in bed, my breasts painfully hot and engorged, my lower body wincingly tender, when Elisabeth swept into my room, an enormous stuffed giraffe in her arms.
“Goodness, look at you!” she exclaimed, while not doing precisely that—looking at me. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes so bright I suspected tears. She made a beeline to the changing table, where the temporary nurse was fussing over the baby. Elisabeth gazed at my child in awe for a moment before abruptly turning away and fumbling in her purse—for a cigarette, I suspected—until she seemed to remember where she was, and shut the clasp with an exasperated sigh. She looked about the room as if she’d never seen it before, jumpy, ill at ease; I knew she would vanish again in a moment if I didn’t speak first.
“Could you see about some tea?” I asked the nurse, who nodded, returning the baby to his bassinet before she left the room. Then I patted my bed, beckoning to my sister. “Elisabeth, please. Sit for a moment. I’d like to—I’d like to talk to you, like—”
“Like we used to?” Elisabeth smiled ruefully but joined me. As she settled herself carefully at the foot of my bed, I studied her. She was still so thin, pale; almost translucent. I could see the blue veins beneath her porcelain skin. Her blond curls seemed to have lost their luster as well, although it was hard to tell; she had them so tightly encased in a plain brown snood.
“Well, not quite like we used to.” I smiled over at the bassinet in front of the window, where my newborn was cooing and sighing.
“No, it will never be like that,” Elisabeth admitted, nervously pulling on the tips of her gloves.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you—” I began, before Elisabeth held up a hand.
“No, don’t do that, Anne. I know you haven’t. I haven’t, either. We’ve been like weekend guests in this house, always so terribly polite to one another, but that’s all.”
“I know,” I admitted. “It can’t be easy for you, with all this fuss.” I gestured around the room at all the flowers, the enormous baskets of fruit and candy sent by congressmen, senators, the president of Smith. Even President Hoover sent a bouquet from the White House.
“Anne, that day—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I interrupted. My face was glowing with embarrassment; suddenly I saw her again, seated in Connie Chilton’s lap, so helplessly compliant.
“Yes, it does. It does matter, and we both know it. The thing is—I’m so ashamed, Anne. You don’t know how it is—I’m just so ashamed.”
I didn’t reply; I didn’t know how to.
“Connie and I—the way you saw us—it’s something I’ve fought for so long. I don’t want to be that way—truly, I don’t. I think we can be friends, working next to each other, but then something happens—something comes over me. She isn’t ashamed, though, and I think that’s what makes it worse. It seems I can’t please anyone! I can’t have a life—the life that you—and now the baby—oh, Anne! I want that, I do! I want a normal life, with a husband and a child, and I don’t know how to do it. I just don’t! Not with my illness, not with my weakness!” She bit her lip, tears falling down her cheeks before she could brush them away. Still, she wouldn’t look at me.
“Elisabeth, I don’t understand. Although I want to.” And it was true; I desperately desired to know what was within my sister’s obviously tormented heart. But it was so beyond my understanding, my imagination, even. And my imagination had never failed me before.
“I know you do, Anne. Just know that I love you—truly, I do! And that I’m happy for you. I’ll be all right—somehow, sometime. I’ll figure this all out. Oh, look at the time!” She consulted her watch and gave a little start. “I need to get down to the school, Connie will be expecting me. She sends her love, too. Anne… Anne, please try to understand—for me, it’s hard right now, seeing you this way. With the baby, a husband, so happy. I want that so much, and yet—it’s just hard. I seem to make a mess of things lately, so many things, and I don’t want to do that to you. Please understand if I spend some time away. Please understand if I keep to myself—and for goodness’ sake, try to make Mother understand. Will you?”
I nodded, suddenly, terribly, sad. Now that I was a mother, I wanted fully to be a sister again. And a daughter. I felt a powerful need to reestablish ties, to define roles, to understand the mysteries and frustrating intricacies of family. I’d hoped, somehow, naively, that the baby would bring Elisabeth back into my life—but now, I knew he would do the opposite. I watched as my sister stood over his bassinet, gazing down at my son while her entire body trembled—with longing, I thought. With absolute, heartbreaking longing.
“Elisabeth?”
“What?” She wouldn’t turn around, and all at once I realized how fully our roles were reversed; she looked defeated, small, bending over her nephew.
“You’ll be fine—” I sounded exactly like my father, with Dwight, and stopped. “I mean, please know you’re welcome here, always. This is your home, too—more than it is mine. And you know that we’ll be moving, anyway—it’s just, I want my son to have his family, just as we did when we were growing up. I want him to know what family means—I want him to know his aunt Elisabeth.”
Her face lit up at that, and then she smiled, rushed over to kiss me, and whispered goodbye.
That was the last time we’d had a real conversation. Almost a year ago, now. While dutifully present at most family gatherings, Elisabeth managed to remove herself from the rest of us, even Mother. And her health was not improving; the doctors warned her that her heart was permanently damaged from her rheumatic fever.
I felt my mother’s piercing gaze upon me, but I looked away, smiling at my son. My blissfully innocent infant son, who looked up, recognized me, and beamed. I felt myself being pulled toward him. It was as if there was an invisible thread between his lips and my heart.
“I think we’ll be able to leave in a month,” my husband said, snapping that thread. My chest tightened; why did he have to bring this up today, of all days—on his son’s birthday? On my birthday, too—for today was a twin celebration; there would be champagne and cake for me later that evening.
“Oh, Charles, let’s not talk about it today.” I had to look away from my baby’s bright, trusting gaze; I wasn’t worthy of it.
It had been four years since Charles’s historic flight to Paris. The Spirit of St. Louis, now hanging from a rafter in the Smithsonian, looked flimsy and old-fashioned compared to the huge, gleaming new planes and ships. Despite his fame, which seemed only to increase with each passing year, Charles worried that there were few routes left uncharted; few things left for him to conquer. After all, he wasn’t even thirty.
So he was planning a bold, dangerous expedition to chart an air route over the Arctic, and then to the Orient. Naturally, I would be his copilot. This was what I had been training for since we were married; I understood that now. Charles had been training me not only to fly and navigate, but also—to leave those I loved, to loosen the ties of my family, to divorce myself from anything and everyone, except him. Including, even, our son.
And I was an excellent student. I always had been; after all, I was a Morrow.
I learned Morse code, so that I could earn my third-class radio operator license. I mastered celestial navigation. I had learned to fly our massive new Sirius seaplane, by far the largest aircraft I had flown.
My heart was proving more difficult to conquer, however. Lately, whenever I had to say goodbye to my baby, I couldn’t do so without tears.
“Charles, how long do you think we’ll be gone?” Nervously, I began to play with a cloth napkin, embroidered with an M, for Morrow. Charles had yet to reveal the true extent of the trip to anyone, least of all me. The Lone Eagle—sometimes I wondered if he would always be that, even with a wife and a child. In so many ways, he still lived his life as that young airmail pilot, alone in his cockpit, planning his future without regard to others’ expectations.
“At least six months. I’ve been thinking that if we get to the Orient safely, we might as well try to circle the rest of the globe. It would be foolish not to continue.”
“What?” The baby, startled, began to cry again. “Six months? The entire globe? When did you decide all that?”
“Just recently. There’s no rational or technical reason why we can’t undertake something of this scale. Juan Trippe at Pan Am is salivating at the opportunity.”
“You discussed this with Trippe before me? Then let him do it! No rational reason? What about Charlie?” Reaching for my son, I kissed him on his cheek, tasting the salt of his tears. My arms were wrapped fiercely about his squirming body.
“What do you mean? The baby will be adequately cared for by Betty. Isn’t that the whole point of having a nurse?” Charles turned to Mother, genuinely puzzled.
“Well, of course, but—this is rather a long time to be away,” she replied, even as she looked at me, her eyes wide with sympathy.
“I think it’s a bully idea,” Con said, her eyes dancing. “What fun! Will you bring me back a kimono?”
“It’s a fine, fine thing.” Daddy’s voice was approving, although he looked wistfully my way, as if already missing me. “You’ll do our nation proud.”
“Anne.” Charles moved his chair closer to mine. “You’re overwrought. We’ve been planning this trip for months.”
“I know, but—it’s just that I didn’t realize we’d be gone quite so long. And, oh, Charles, the baby! He’s at an age where he’ll—he’ll know when I’m gone. He didn’t before, he was too small, and so it didn’t seem to matter whenever we flew away. But now—” Stifling a sob, I buried my face in my son’s soft curls.
“Anne.” My husband’s voice was low and coaxing, like a well-tuned engine. “Come, now—I don’t want you to become a slave to domesticity. We’re too fine for that—you’re too fine. I don’t want to lose you to the nursery forever.”
“I know, I know, and I don’t want to let you down! But we’ve never been away from Charlie for more than two weeks before—and now you’re talking about six months!”
“Anne, this is our life—flying. It’s what we do. It’s why I married you, because I knew you were meant to be my copilot. I thought it was what you wanted, too. I thought you liked flying with me.”
“Oh, I do! Of course I do—I love it!” As I met his genuinely confused gaze, I remembered the trip to Mexico, when we photographed the ruins; the intimacy, the purity of our love, too fine for words. How could I ever give that up?
“I suppose I could fly with someone else.” Charles said it thoughtfully, as if puzzling out a complicated problem. “Of course, any number of pilots would leap at the chance to accompany me. Wiley Post wired me this morning, in fact.”
“No!” It was as if he’d suggested taking a lover; that’s how betrayed I felt. “No, no, of course, you can’t fly with anyone else except me! But Charlie—he needs me, too!”
My husband grabbed my hand and said the one thing that made sense only when he said it. “I need you,” he murmured. “Anne, I need you. You’re my crew. You’ll always be my crew.” Then he let go of me and settled back in his seat, waiting.
That was it, was all; Charles Lindbergh wouldn’t beg, he wouldn’t plead. He had said all he would on the matter, and it was up to me. Bending my head down to caress my baby’s hair, as golden and silky as corn tassel, with my cheek, I felt my heart begin to form a fault line, and I knew that it would forever be split in this way. Charlie needed me—of course he did. He was my child. He didn’t even know how much.
Charles needed me—and, oh, it was a miracle that he did! Once more I felt that giddy disbelief that he had chosen me, of all the people on earth. He’d given me the world and all the sky above it; he was also capable of taking it all away from me with a single gesture. Who on earth would I be without him?
I knew, with a weary resignation, that whenever he asked, wherever he went, I would follow. Charles was the wind that blew me hither and yon, that lifted me off this earth, kept me aloft, pulled me along like a helpless kite, but also gave me wings with which I could touch the sun.
What chance did a baby have against him?
“Of course,” I said, still resting my cheek against my son’s downy head. “Of course, you’re right. We should go as far as possible, and it will be tremendous. You simply took me by surprise, that’s all.”
To my astonishment, Charles kissed me on the cheek. He never did that in front of anyone—not even my parents. “Good girl,” he said softly, and I looked into his approving eyes, and felt everyone else—even the child in my arms—fade away.
Everyone, except for him. I smiled and reached out to touch the cleft in his chin that so enchanted me; the happiest moment of my life had been when I realized our baby had one just like it.
“Excuse me? Mr. Charles?” The head gardener, Johnson, came running around the corner of the house. All the help deferred to Charles now, instead of Daddy; it had happened slowly, but inevitably, and Daddy didn’t even seem aware of it.
“Yes, Johnson?”
“It’s—it’s—” The older man stopped to mop the sweat from his brow with a large, dirt-streaked handkerchief.
“What is it?” Charles’s voice sharpened.
“There’s an intruder, sir. Some poor woman demanding to see little Charlie. Said she has something she has to tell him on his birthday.”
“Oh, not again.” I tightened my grip around the baby even as Betty Gow ran up, as if to do the same. I smiled, touched by the concern in her eyes. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” I assured us both.
Betty nodded, unable to prevent herself from holding on to the baby’s chubby leg.
“I’ll deal with it,” Charles said grimly. He patted his breast pocket—I knew there was a pistol in a holder. There was always a pistol in a holder.
The shadows had fully encroached on us now; I shivered, and not entirely from the chill in the air. Without the bright, transporting sun to trick us, it was all too evident that this was no idyllic fairy tale after all.
For we were under siege, pure and simple—and we had been since our son’s birth. Since before, even; I’d given birth here at Next Day Hill, my bedroom fitted as an operating theater, because we couldn’t risk a hospital; there were too many reports of staff being bribed to allow reporters and photographers into the delivery room.
And now people showed up at our door—they simply showed up, as if we had invited them! As if we would welcome them into our home and say, “Thank you so much for coming!” I hadn’t answered the door myself in so long, I wasn’t sure I remembered how. We paid private detectives to do so now, and there were police camped out at the end of the drive. Even so, people sometimes got past by climbing over neighbors’ fences, or hanging from trees. There were the usual reporters and photographers with no assignment other than to capture a shot of Charles Junior. But there were others; people who, as the Depression wore on and on, had nothing else to do. And no one else to turn to.
One man said that he had to touch the baby in order to be cured of cancer. One woman swore that her own child had been stolen from her at birth, and that she was sure we had done it, and that the baby was hers. Countless clairvoyants insisted on looking at Charlie’s palm, touching his head, or reading his chart. Most were simply confused people looking to my child for help in some way, although there were others who were less confused.
For mixed in with the thousands of cards and letters congratulating us on Charlie’s birth were requests for money; letters that told of deprivation, desperation, punctuated with tears. And requests were sometimes followed by threats; threats to kidnap my child and hold him for ransom. Although Charles tried to shield me from this knowledge, I was aware that more than one person with a weapon had been apprehended at the end of the drive. As the mood of the country grew darker, the resentment I had first glimpsed in Elisabeth’s waiting room had turned on the First Couple of the Air. We were blessed, we were successful; what had been celebrated two years ago was now a source of anger and resentment. The qualities that had brought Charles such acclaim—his stoicism, his dogged pursuit of perfectionism, his ability to float above the ordinary details of mere mortals’ lives—were ridiculed and debated now. “What more do they want of me?” Charles had grumbled recently, showing me a headline that asked the sour question, “What Has Lindbergh Done for Us Lately?”
It appeared now they wanted his happiness. Or, barring that—his child.
“I’m sure it’s nothing, but take the baby inside, just in case.” Charles spoke to me soothingly—exactly as he had when we were in the plane, so long ago, and we lost the wheel on takeoff.
I must have looked more worried than I intended to show, for his features softened. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and he smiled gently, warmly, down at the two of us—his son and his wife. “It will be all right, Anne. Don’t worry. You know I will protect you and the baby, always. I’ll reason with whoever is here—if we can only keep reasoning with them, surely they’ll leave us alone eventually. But you see, now, that this flight couldn’t be timed any better? You see how important it is? It will divert attention from the baby, and back to us. We can withstand it. He can’t.”
“Yes, but—oh, Charles! This is why I’m so afraid to leave him! What if something happens while we’re gone? While I’m—you’re—not here to protect him?” I nodded at the gun in his pocket.
“We’ll hire additional detectives, and the police will step things up. I’ve already planned it all. We can’t live our lives in fear, Anne. You do know that?” He searched my face anxiously, testing me, as always. And for a moment I faltered; my child in my arms, I knew only that he would be safe as long as he remained there.
Then I nodded, even as I couldn’t quite stifle a sob, and so I had to lean into Charles’s chest to muffle it. I felt his strong arms reach awkwardly around and hug me to him until I dried my eyes and pushed myself away. With a bright, understanding smile—that same carefree grin that I always flashed to the photographers—I shifted the baby in my arms.
My son waved at Charles and said “Bye” so happily that I thought my heart would shatter right then. I followed Mother, Daddy, and Con through the French doors into Daddy’s study. Charles strode off, his hand still inside his vest, around the side of the house; Johnson followed a few paces behind. I had to smile at the sight of the gardener wielding a small spade, as if that could help.
Some of the servants crowded into the study with us; Violet Sharpe, one of the housemaids, cried out, “Oh, the poor little thing,” and began to weep. Con rolled her eyes and went to comfort her; Violet was always rather excitable.
“Shhh,” I whispered to Charlie, still so blissfully unaware in my arms, babbling happy baby nonsense. “It’s all right. Daddy will take care of you. Daddy will always take care of you.” But I couldn’t prevent myself from imagining what might happen when Charles would not be there to take care of him, even with the policemen at the gate.
“Anne, dear?”
I turned; Mother was watching me, her eyes soft with concern.
“I’ll stay home with the baby and Betty,” she said firmly. “I’ll cancel my plans. Will that help, my daughter? Will that make you less fearful?”
I nodded, so grateful I wanted to sing for her, dance for her, do something unexpected and charming and grand. But I had to content myself with a soggy smile over my son’s head.
And I thought back to my childhood, to all the times I had missed her, all the times I had wondered why she had to rush out the door, late for an appointment. Nothing to compare to how long I was going to leave my own son, of course. But I had missed my mother, anyway, as all children do.
Now I wondered—had she missed me as well? All those years; had she missed her children, had she been forced into all those activities by her husband, too? Was she now trying to make up for it?
I smiled at my mother with new understanding, grateful to be old enough, finally, to have a second chance, to forgive, to reconnect as women, mothers. I kissed my son on the top of his soft, fragrant head; he smelled like Ivory soap and warm flannel. And I whispered a plea for his forgiveness, too.
For now, I could only look forward to the day when he would be old enough, wise enough, to grant it.