On Wings Of The Morning by Marie Bostwick Read Free Book Online Page A

our parting brought her nothing but pride, but I could see her eyes shining with tears. She looked so small standing next to the battered old Ford. If she’d crooked a finger, or blinked an eye, given me the smallest indication she’d wanted me to stay, I would have. It just didn’t feel right leaving Mama all alone, but we’d talked it out a hundred times, and she was determined that I had to go out in the world and make something of myself. It felt wrong to leave her, but not as wrong as it would have felt to let her down.
    I threw Whitey a thumbs-up, indicating I was ready, and we started taxiing down the runway. As we picked up speed, the miracle that never would cease to amaze me happened again. Fighting headwinds and gravity, the nose of the plane lifted off the ground, and we were airborne. We took off toward the west, straight into the afternoon sun, and as we gained altitude, worries and contingencies fell away as surely as the earth fell away from our wings. I felt suddenly large and limitless.
    Whitey made a wide arc across the sky, looping back to find the southeasterly course that would take us to Oklahoma City, and we passed over the airfield again. Mama stood below, sweeping her arm wide above her head. Thinking that I wouldn’t be able to see them from the sky, she let the tears flow freely, but I could see she was smiling through her tears, and I knew that she’d meant what she said. She really was proud of me, and as much as she wanted me to stay, she wanted me to test my wings even more. It was all right to go.
    Looking across the horizon, a short mile from where Mama stood, I could see another car parked by the side of the road and another figure standing shadowed against the earth. Paul waved both arms above his head, bidding me farewell. For a moment, I could see Mama and Paul at the same time and somehow I knew that no matter what happened to me, Mama would be all right. In my mind, I thanked God for both of them and prayed that somehow the distance between them would be closed. Then, as quickly as the thought formed in my mind, Whitey pulled back the stick, we climbed higher, and I lost sight of them.

4
    Georgia
    Chicago, Illinois—January 1940
    Â 
    T hirty-three dollars and twenty-eight cents. That was all. In my heart of hearts I knew that the ten-cent-an-hour raise I’d been given in recognition of faithful service to the housewares department of Marshall Fields wasn’t going to make me rich, but as I tore open my pay envelope, I prayed for a miracle of loaves and fishes—a divine intervention that would mystically transform my little raise into a figure that would be enough to pay for flying lessons and my bill at the grocer’s. It didn’t happen.
    â€œSo much for the power of positive thinking,” I mumbled as I folded the check in half and tucked it into my pocketbook. The truth was, it was a nice raise, but it wasn’t enough to finance my dream. I’d tried everything I could think of—working every overtime shift I could, baby-sitting on evenings and weekends, walking to work to save the fare it cost to ride the El, but it wasn’t enough. I’d even taken a couple of bookkeeping classes at a nighttime secretarial school, hoping that bookkeeping would pay better than sales did, but the jobs I’d been offered didn’t pay any more than what I was making at the department store.
    Compared to most girls my age, I was making good money—enough for food, rent, an occasional night on the town, and, thanks to my store discount, a nice wardrobe—if that was what I’d wanted to do with it. None of my old girlfriends from St. Margaret’s were making as much as I did, and they were all jealous that I had a generous discount at Chicago’s most fashionable department store.
    I’d met Frances Ruth Callaghan, Fran, my best friend from St. Margaret’s, for lunch in the store coffee shop just the week