The Aviator's Wife (35 page)

“What do you think of Aubrey and
Con?” I asked, abruptly changing the subject to one that had been festering in my mind for a while now. Elisabeth’s widower had married her youngest sister in 1937.

“I think it’s wonderful. Aubrey was lost, the poor man. Widowers always have to remarry, have you ever noticed that? Women are fine on their own, but men … anyway, Con will keep him on his toes. She needed a project like him.”

“And
what about love?”

“Oh, they love each other, Anne! I’m not sure that’s the most important thing in their case, however. Not like with you and Charles. If you didn’t have love, I’d worry more about the two of you. But Con and Aubrey, they’ll be fine.”

“Thank you. I think.” I sipped my brandy and, despite my resentment at her breezy attitude, knew she was right. “But Elisabeth—isn’t it disloyal,
somehow?”

“Elisabeth is gone, dear. The living have to live.”

“But it’s as if she never married him at all—it feels as if they’re erasing her, somehow.”

“I don’t think that’s true, dear. Not for them.”

I shook my head. Mother reminded me of Charles in other ways as well. I was the caretaker, I realized; the caretaker of the dead and of their memory. If no one wanted to think about Elisabeth,
then I would. If Charles didn’t want to remember Charlie, then I would have to remember him for the both of us. I admired both my mother and my husband for their energy, their dogged focus on the future.

I also, for the first time, pitied them. For despite the pain of loss, as time went on, the memory of those I’d loved warmed my heart more than grieved it.

“I’m glad you’re so happy for them,”
I told my mother. “And I’m very glad about your appointment, Madame President! Now, where are you keeping my husband?”

“Upstairs. Dinner is at eight, as usual. I’ll have something sent up for the boys; I’ve already prepared the staff. Now I must run off to a meeting.”

“Of course you must.” I embraced her, delighted and proud, even as I felt myself unable to keep up with her any more than I was
able to keep up with Charles. The world was falling to pieces around us, and all I wanted was to find somewhere to hide myself
and my children from the wreckage. While my husband and my mother came running out, arms open wide, to make something good from it. Something worthwhile.

The only problem was, I knew that their definitions of “worthwhile” were dramatically different.

“
I MIGHT HAVE KNOWN
,” Charles said that evening. “Your mother. What did she say, about not turning her back on those overseas again?”

“Just that. Nothing more.”

“Nothing more? She said it to spite me. She’s never forgiven me for taking you away to Europe.”

“That isn’t Mother,” I said crossly as we dressed for dinner, turning away from each other, oddly shy—or uncomfortable, I wasn’t quite sure which—in our state
of undress, after the weeks apart. He was in his boxers, pulling up his dress socks over his lean shins and snapping them into their garters. I was in an ugly, utilitarian slip, and I felt that way—ugly, utilitarian. After three pregnancies, my figure was losing its elasticity. I had a definite pooch to my stomach now, and my breasts sagged, even as we both hoped for more children.

For some reason,
our reunion had not gone well. Almost from the first hello, we had snapped at each other. “Your little speech to the reporters was unnecessary, Anne,” he had said after he pecked me on the cheek.

“You might have remembered to send two cars to pick us up, as we had to leave the trunks behind,” I had retorted.

I wondered if that was how it was going to be, now that we were back in the United States,
back among so many others who had claims on us; so many issues suddenly crying out for attention. One thing I had learned—among all the lessons he had set
out to teach me, and others he had imparted unconsciously—was that we were at our very best, as a couple, when alone.

“Mother’s not petty like that.” I chose an outdated brown evening dress I had left behind, years ago, as my trunks had not
yet been unpacked; even before I put it on, I felt dowdy. I turned around so Charles could zip me up. “She’s like you, actually. You both believe you’re absolutely right about everything.” I was surprised by the bitterness in my voice. Still, I made no effort to hide it. “You forget how active she was in the fight for women’s votes, back when I was a child. And she and Daddy—well, they were both
Wilsonians, and passionate about the League of Nations. She hasn’t changed.”

“She knows perfectly well how I feel about the situation.”

“She’s not married to you, you know. She’s her own person.”

“What does that mean?” He turned to me, eyes narrowing.

“Nothing.” I turned away and started rummaging in my travel case for some earrings.

“Well, she’s agitating for war, don’t think otherwise.
And now she’ll have the whole of Smith College behind her. She’s beating the drums, just like Roosevelt.” He sneered that last word;
Roosevelt
had become a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Well, you yourself said it’s inevitable.”

“It’s inevitable in Europe. But not here—unless people like your mother scare the American public into thinking that it is.”

“She’s not scaring anyone—for heaven’s sake,
she’s done nothing yet! She doesn’t even take office until next term.”

“She’ll probably join one of those Jewish refugee societies next,” Charles said, as he tied his tie with vengeance.

“So what if she does? You yourself said how awful it was that England was having to deal with so many refugees.”

“That doesn’t mean I think they should wash up here instead. You think we should allow more Jews
into America? To influence
the press? The government? The movie industry—for God’s sake, they’re all Jews there, every one of them, running all those studios, brainwashing the American public. Any minute now they’ll start making movies portraying Hitler as a clown, or worse. Yet not one of them has been to Germany recently. Not one of them has seen anything firsthand, like we have. Do you honestly
think we should send our young men—our sons—to fight because of
them
?”

“I don’t—no, I guess, not when you put it that way—I don’t think that; I don’t think we should send young men off to fight. But, Charles, Mother believes in what she’s doing. Just as you do. Don’t you see how I admire you both for being so passionate?”

“What do
you
believe?” Again, his eyes narrowed challengingly. For the
first time, my husband asked me this question. Until now, he had always assumed I believed what he did. And I had assumed that, too. Wasn’t that one of the reasons I had married him—because I wanted to be just like him? Heroic and grand and good?

But now I wasn’t sure what “good” meant. Too many participants in this increasingly terrible situation claimed to have goodness on their side.

Anne
Morrow—the Smith College graduate daughter of Ambassador and Mrs. Morrow, both advocates for the League of Nations—would answer, “I’m with Mother. The Jews need to be saved. Hitler is a dangerous man.” But I would say these things because they told me to, or hoped, by their example, that I would come to believe them on my own.

But I was no longer Anne Morrow; I was Anne Morrow
Lindbergh
, the
wife of a legend who was an admirer of Hitler—and an increasingly vocal proponent for keeping America out of any European war.

Fleetingly, guiltily, I envied my mother; old enough to have
outlived her parents, a widow without a husband to think of. What if, like her, I had the time to think for myself? To have the honest courage of my own convictions, and not the false courage of borrowed ones?
My marriage would be different, that much I knew.

But would it be better?

I shook my head, tempted by the notion but not blinded by it. My duty now was to my sons, whose needs I had neglected for their father’s for far too long. I had to settle Jon into school, find a doctor because Land was prone to ear infections, and move us all into a house. I had also just come out of years of purgatory,
purgatory I had wandered with only my husband for companionship and security. Once, I had thought I could leave him, but it had only been Jon and me. Now, with two sons and hopefully another child on the way (for I suspected I might be pregnant, although it was too soon to be certain), I couldn’t risk pushing Charles away from me. “I’m on your side, of course. I mean—I’m on our side,” I continued,
sitting on the edge of the bed so that I could slip my feet into a pair of evening shoes. “It’s
our
side. I’m with you. Of course, I don’t think we should go to war. Not over Germany, anyway; not over the Jewish influence.”

“Good girl.” Charles smiled, that rare, prized personal smile, relaxed, so that all his teeth showed. And I smiled back, waiting for that familiar, belonging glow to fill
me up, make me better,
stronger;
as good as him.

But I waited in vain. For the only thing that filled me up was a shameful weariness, an enveloping languor that made me wonder how on earth I was going to make it through dinner, let alone the next few weeks, seated between my husband and my mother. Forced to decide, once and for all, who I was now: the ambassador’s daughter?

Or the aviator’s
wife?

CHAPTER 14

May 1941

W
E DROVE THROUGH A TUNNEL
, so dark I felt like a ghost, my skin a pale wisp of smoke. I moved closer to Charles, who patted my shoulder absently as he smoothed the papers on his lap. And then we were born into the light; dazzling, blinding, relentless light. A roar greeted the sight of our car; a wild, frightening roar. The driver steered the car down a
narrow path, lined on all sides by waving, shouting throngs fielding, like weapons, signs bearing my husband’s name. Then we stopped, and Charles emerged from the car first. His appearance whipped the crowd into an even greater frenzy; the cheers were so unhinged I heard violence simmering just beneath the surface of approval. I was afraid to step out of the car; afraid of what could happen tonight.
It seemed that anything was possible these days; anger was so prevalent, rippling like waves over our country. Outside Madison Square Garden, the anger had been directed toward us. Cries of “Nazi! Fascist!” had greeted our arrival. Rocks had been thrown at the armored car.

There was anger inside the Garden as well, but Charles was not the source of it. Rather, he was the white knight leading
this seething crowd toward their common enemy—President Roosevelt. The guards were having a difficult time holding back the
swarming crowds; my limbs felt like lead, my chest as if I’d swallowed a block of ice, as I finally slid out of the car.

“Lindbergh! Lindbergh for President!” roared the crowd. Flashbulbs popped, more blinding than ever in my life; I had to shield my eyes from the relentless
glare. My ears rang from the noise of the crowd, all around me, above me, as well—I felt like we were truly in a fishbowl. And I couldn’t help but think of what good targets we would be, were someone to aim a rifle at us.

Somehow I followed Charles down a red carpet to the podium, where others were already seated—Father Coughlin himself, the leader of the Christian Front; Norman Thomas, the leader
of the American Socialist Party; Kathleen Norris, a popular writer; Robert R. McCormick, the publisher of the
Chicago Tribune
. We took our seats, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was sung, and one by one the others spoke. Brief, heartfelt speeches on the necessity of staying out of the European war, and of building up America’s defenses instead of building up England’s. I did not pay them any mind;
I was concentrating on Charles. He looked relaxed; his limbs loose, his hands still, even as his jaw was set in that familiar angle of determination, and those blue eyes were more focused and intent than I had ever seen them. I was glad he did not turn his gaze upon me, for I felt it might burn a pinpoint hole, just like a magnifying glass would, through my skin.

Finally Charles rose, and every
voice in the cavernous arena fought to shout the loudest. “Lindbergh for President!” “Lindbergh for President!”—the chant started in some far-off corner, building and building until my face throbbed from the intensity of it.

Charles did not acknowledge the chant; he simply stood tall, full of purpose and right, and in that moment I knew I was seeing my husband finally make the transition from
boy hero to monument.
He was giant, he was granite; he was supported by the stone foundation of his convictions. And despite my fears and misgivings concerning the entire situation, my heart thrilled at the sight of him; no one but him could have rallied such a mismatched group of people. Communists, Socialists, anti-government radicals, pacifists; left on their own, they would simply have languished
and died.

But Charles had rallied them all; he had taken up the mantle of leadership as easily as he had slipped into his first leather flight jacket.
America First
, that was his cry. America First—Lindbergh would keep us out of war.