Chapter 5

I had spent Thursday and Friday talking with mom, Aunt Evelyn, and Uncle Rafe. Their stories had confirmed what Daddy had already told me. No one seemed comfortable talking about their time at Pearl Harbor. Aunt Evelyn told me a hilarious story about how she met Uncle Rafe. What a goof. And learning about the Eagle Squadron and his escape from occupied France was fascinating. Uncle Rafe had never talked with me about it before. I knew that Danny and Sam knew all about it, but I had never been interested. Until now.

His escape from occupied France sounded very dangerous. I asked him what motivated him to get home, instead of hiding out with the resistance for a while. He said it was Aunt Evelyn. She was the last thing he saw before he plunged into the water, and she was the reason he had to get home without delay. She was sitting next to him when he said that and I saw her carefully wipe away a tear. Whatever may have happened before, there was no doubt in my mind that they loved each other deeply now.

It's funny, but through all my hunting and questioning, I never doubted the love between my parents; that Daddy might have married mom because he knew he couldn't have Aunt Evelyn. He and Aunt Evelyn were good friends, but I had never seen or heard anything to make me think there was anything but friendship between them. I knew that my parents loved each other, without question. It was actually sickening at times, but as I grew older I began to appreciate it more. It was the kind of love that I wanted. Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Rafe were no different; their love for each other was obvious for all to see.

After all my questioning I spent a lot of time thinking about what I had learned, trying to sort the new information into a logical pattern. My guess was that Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Rafe had fallen in love, and when he got shot down she turned to my daddy, or he turned to her. Uncle Rafe was the only family that Daddy had, after all. Both Daddy and Aunt Evelyn admitted that seeing each other, at first, was very painful, but later it was a comfort to be able to share memories about Uncle Rafe. But now I was sure that memories weren't all they shared.

I was excited about my smooth detective work. Nobody seemed to think my questions were out of line, or suspicious. Of course, I'm a great actress. I do a pretty good ingénue, if I do say so myself. Mom rarely fell for it, but I could always count on Daddy to believe me. I simply acted wide- eyed and interested, which wasn't very hard this time, because I truly was interested, and everyone fell for it. What they all went through before, during and after the attack was captivating. It was easy enough to slip in question about their friendships and feelings as they were telling me about everything else. I just made sure that I had an innocent look on my face whenever I asked something a little too personal. They usually answered it.

But as excited as I was, I wasn't sure if or when I should tell Danny. What would he think? My first instinct was to run to him and tell him everything I had found out, but he hadn't been very talkative. Every time I went to talk to him, on the bus, at home, or at school, he would give me some excuse and walk off, or just ignore me. That wasn't like him. I thought it might be because I was seeing more of Thomas during and after school, but on Friday night I overheard a conversation that he had with Aunt Evelyn and I knew that the old woman's words weren't far from his mind, either.

I had gone over to ask Aunt Evelyn a couple more questions about working in the hospital after the attack, though my real purpose was to find out some more information about what happened when Daddy and Uncle Rafe left for their training with Doolittle. Hearing Danny's loud voice in the kitchen I stopped in the shadows of the porch, not wanting to interrupt. He was not an angry person, and I had never heard him raise his voice to his mother, even in frustration.

Aunt Evelyn was trying to explain how Uncle Rafe didn't want Danny to fly because he was concerned for his safety and didn't want to see him get hurt or worse. I could hear the regret in her voice. She knew this was causing Danny pain. But I could also hear her worry. I had thought I was going to be sick, watching his plane stall as he glided over the farm. He was my best friend. Aunt Evelyn had been watching her only child up there. I saw her break into tears twice, though she tried to hide it, in the days that followed Danny's stunt. She had had to live through Uncle Rafe and Daddy being shot down...I can't even imagine how horrible it must have been to think that it might happen to her son right in front of her. How would she have survived that?

Danny had laughed humorlessly at her placating words. "Flying is the one thing I love to do...and he won't let me do it! How many times do I have to apologize?"

"Danny, try to understand," Aunt Evelyn tried again. "He wants you to be safe. You're young...maybe we let you fly too soon..."

"I bet Uncle Danny would have let Sam fly by now if the same thing had happened," Danny interrupted harshly.

"We're not talking about Danny and Sam," Aunt Evelyn replied. "We're talking about you and your father. And I...."

"Well, I wish Uncle Danny was my father!" Danny said. "At least then I'd get to fly!" I heard loud footsteps going up the stairs and then the slamming of his bedroom door.

It was totally silent in the kitchen after Danny's abrupt exit. I couldn't see Aunt Evelyn's reaction because I was hidden in the darkness of the porch, but I heard the scrape of a chair and the sound of someone sitting down heavily. When I knocked on the door a few moments later, Aunt Evelyn looked pale and shaken. Danny's comment had obviously upset her. I didn't have the heart to ask her any more questions, so I made up a story about wanting to borrow a photo album. She waved me off to the living room. When I came back to leave, she hadn't moved. She just smiled weakly at me. I realized that I needed to talk to Danny soon.

Would telling Danny what I had found out help him or hurt him more, I wondered. I wasn't sure. I couldn't relate to this situation at all. I had known since I was a little girl that Danny Walker, the man I called Daddy, wasn't my real father. My real father was named Michael Helmsford and he died in New York City a few months before my mother and I left China. My mom didn't like to talk about him, but Daddy had told me some. He also let me know that from the very beginning he had considered me his daughter and he had never treated me different.

But, I realized, my situation was different than Danny's - if he really wasn't Uncle Rafe's son. I knew that my real father was dead and that even when he was alive he wasn't interested in being a father. My parentage was never kept a secret from me. But if what I suspected was true...then all the adults in our family had been living a lie, if not outright, then by omission. Danny's father wasn't some faceless dead guy, he was the man he called uncle.

It wasn't until late Saturday afternoon that I was able to talk to him. He'd had a baseball game earlier that day, which we'd all gone to, of course. I had planned on walking home with him and talking to him then, but he must have slipped out while I was chatting with Thomas. By the time I got home he was nowhere to be found around the house or the barn, but that didn't worry me. I knew exactly where he was.

Walking away from his house, I followed the well-worn path through the fields to the old swimming pond. I could hear the boys laughing and splashing. It was a warm May day. The sun was shinning and small clouds were skittering across the sky on a slight breeze, a perfect Tennessee day. A part of me wanted to put on my swimsuit and jump in with my brothers, maybe start up a game of Marco Polo like we used to. But the other part of me, the grown up part, didn't think it was such a good idea. I wasn't a child anymore; I was a young woman. Besides, I had other things on my mind. I needed to talk to Danny.

Coming down the path, I entered the shady coolness of the little copse of trees, our special hiding place. "Hey," I said softly, a small smile crossing my face. He was exactly where I thought he'd be. We'd been coming here for years. The sun was low enough in the sky that the entire clearing was shady and cool. Danny was stretched out in the middle of the clearing, his arms pillowing his head. He looked up at the sky as if he didn't have a care in the world, but I knew better.