Barbara Sills was having trouble with the autoclave door. The hinges were rusty and her furious tug-of-war sent metal flakes sifting to the floor. She was glad to see Doctor Tex's wife and the small, older blonde woman trailing behind her.
"Ellie! Is that your mom?"
"Margaret Pierce, meet Barbara Sills. Barbara, Margaret."
They shook hands and smiled at each other. The autoclave door swung open with a screech.
"I've been trying to open that all day," said Barbara.
Margaret smiled. "We had one like it in Korea and I had nothing but trouble with it. When I went to work at a hospital I thought I'd have something newer, more modern. Nope. Same piece of junk."
"Where's Tex?" Ellie asked, looking around.
"He's on another house call. Diabetic leg wound. Woman had maggots in it. Can you believe that?"
Margaret shrugged, having seen her share of them in Korea.
"So, where's the Doc's father, Charles? I've heard so much about him. Look, I even baked this morning,' said Barbara, handing Ellie a burned black pan.
"Oh, peach cobbler! The pan's still warm," Ellie said.
Barbara smiled. "I'd offer coffee but we're fresh out and Orrie hasn't any on the shelf. But Margaret, I'd love to talk to you about Korea at some point. My late husband served there."
"Why don't you come out to the house tonight? We've got plenty of food. It's better than those crappy TV dinners you eat," Ellie said.
"Nah, honey, I have a date. But I'll drive out for lunch one of these days. My schedule's up and down. Just make sure Tex's dad gets some of that cobbler before it cools off."
"She and Charles would make an interesting couple," Margaret said when they got back in the car.
"Yeah. You know her husband was thrown from a horse? Miserable way to die. Well, it's all pretty bad no matter how you slice it," Ellie said.
Like overdosing, Margaret thought, although she didn't say it out loud. Who was she to talk? She'd been on lithium for years now. Ellie wasn't wired the same way. She had been more like her father, internalizing and brooding over problems, or covering everything up with a smart remark. She seemed a little calmer now. Margaret thought about Ellie's head hitting the side of the dning room table, like the crack of a baseball bat.
"A purple one!"
The Jeep screeched to a halt. Ellie was up and out, looking up into the cloudless sky. Margaret got out and shaded her eyes against the sun. A purple Braniff plane was flying directly above them.
"That's the two-thirty. It's usually a green one! There's a late one at night, but I never know that one's color. That's not a 727 either."
They watched the plane and its vapor disappear into the blue horizon. "It makes me think of the outside world," Ellie said, and her mother suddenly felt a little heartbroken.
"We'd better get that cobbler home," Margaret said, finally.
XXXXXXXX
"This is fabulous. What's the baker's name? Barbara Sills? Like Beverly?"
Charles sat alone at the table, spoon in hand and the cobbler in front of him. Hawkeye was now training his efforts on the leaky faucet. Margaret was handing him tools as if they were surgical instruments.
"Charles, you're going to look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy when we leave here. Wrench," Hawkeye said.
"Fie on you. I intend to enjoy my stay in this desert."
Ellie rolled her eyes and put the chops in a huge frying pan. She was not and would never be a cook. Orrie usually had to give her tips on how to cook certain cuts of meat, but just the thought of cooking didn't make Ellie terribly happy. Tex liked to barbeque, so on many nights they'd drag the grill out and throw all kinds of stuff on it.
"Tweezers. Margaret, hurry up"
Tex came in, tired as usual. That leg wound made him a little nauseated. He said hello to all of them and sifted through the refrigerator for a beer. "I see you got Bev's cobbler," he said to Charles, who just nodded. "She said she might come for dinner tomorrow night. Maybe we can barbeque?"
"Absolutely," Ellie said, tears running down her cheeks. She was slicing an onion. Margaret had given up on her plumbing assistance and just wrapped her arms around Hawkeye's waist.
"If Barbara comes, maybe you guys could have a gang bang,' Ellie said, annoyed because her parents were blocking the sink. Tex spit his beer out and started laughing. Margaret turned red.
"Ellie Pierce...uh, Winchester! If you were younger I'd spank you for that."
Ellie was still trying to get to the sink. "Well, you'd have to leave that up to Tex now."
Tex was still laughing and even Charles was trying to hide a smile. Hawkeye turned away, but his shoulders were going up and down. "Honestly, you have a mouth just like...Hawkeye, stop that," Margaret chided.
So they ate and Tex burst out laughing twice just thinking of Margaret's muddled face. "I can't help. Its just such a funny thing," he said, gasping for air. The beer was kicking in a bit.
"Oh my God, Tex, the two-thirty plane was purple today. Shorter than the usual 727, too," Ellie said.
"That must be one of their smaller ones. Someone said there was an orange one the other day."
His stomach lurched as soon as he said that. Tex put his fork down and watched his father eat two helpings of pork chops.
XXXXXX
Hawkeye took his bowl of ice cream on the back porch. Ellie found him out there, just sitting in the swing and staring at the sky. She joined him.
"Big sky out here," he said.
"Sorry about Ben."
Hawkeye's gaze fell. "Maybe it's for the best." He loved Ben, no question, but the kid had always been a little behind. Or maybe it was just the fact he was always being compared to his father and big sister. Margaret was very protective of Ben, in the way mothers and sons bond.
"How's Mom dealing with it?"
"Your mom still has her up and down days. Want to hear something funny? The day before we left Maine she mentioned taking scuba lessons."
"Lord,' Ellie said, rolling her eyes.
Hawkeye put the bowl down and draped an arm around her. "Are you doing okay? Tex says you've been a little up and down lately."
"Dad, if I told you I wanted to go back to work, would you be surprised?"
Hawkeye shook his head. Ellie was quiet for a long time. When he turned to look at her, one tear was rolling down her cheek.
"The ocean's like the sky," she finally said. "I can't count the stars. I'll never know what's at the bottom of the ocean. But right now I feel like I'm losing the parts I do know. Maybe I just should have been a doctor or a nurse. It would have been easier on everyone, especially you and Mom."
Hawkeye smiled. "Honey, it wasn't in the cards for you. You're an explorer. Your grandpa could never get over how you took to the water. And remember that time you jumped into that pond to rescue that little girl? And if you were a doctor, you would have gone to med school and never seen the world. I envy that, and even though she'd never say it, so does your mom."
Ellie looked at her father side-wise and laughed. He picked up her bad hand and very gently opened the clenched fist.
"Did I ever tell you about the time your mother threw a sugar bowl at me in the Mess Tent?"
"Nope."
"And how I got back at her by blowing up 300 condoms and attaching them all to her tent?"
"Dad, that's a lot of condoms, even for you," Ellie said. She knew what he doing. Hawkeye was trying to distract her as he examined her hand. He finally let go of her fingers and wrapped his arm back around her. The wind blew slightly, ruffling the cottonwood trees. The porch swing creaked slightly as they rocked back and forth and Ellie was glad to have her daddy close enough to hug. Tex watched them through the window and looked at his own father, nose in a book, detached.
The falling twilight was shattered by the ring of the phone. Tex groaned and let Charles answer it. When he put the receiver down on the coffee table, Tex was already looking for his car keys.
"Not for you, son. It's some odd Japanese man looking for Ellie," Charles said.
Ellie didn't sound terribly excited when she answered the call, but grew progressively breathless as the conversation continued. Still talking, she scrounged through the closet and found her blueprint case.
"Yes, well, I'm pregnant and won't be doing much traveling in the next year or so. What? Your wife is too? That's great! We could always meet up in Oklahoma City if the government's paying for it. Bring her! No, no good food here unless you like cowboy stuff."
She spread them on the dining room table and talked for two hours, occasionally pointing at the drawings with a ruler. It was late when she finally hung up.
"Who was that?" Tex asked, standing in the kitchen doorway.
"You won't believe it."
"Try me."
"That's Yoshiru Amoto. I've never met him, but I've heard of his underwater capsule project. He heard about my old plans and Bob at Woods Hole passed on our phone number. He wants to bring me on as a consultant. Nice guy! He's only about two years older than I am," Ellie said, smiling and looking a little anxiously at her husband.
Tex, who never wanted anything more than for Ellie to be happy, just smiled. "That sounds great, honey," he said. She rushed forward to hug him.
Ellie ran out to the porch to tell her father, but Margaret was out there with him and they were kissing a little. Feeling a little embarassed, she decided to let them enjoy their time together. Music floated up from the basement, a classical song she couldn't identify. Tex was sitting in the living room, so she ran in and plopped down on his lap, kissing him a little more intimately than he expected. For a moment, they just stared into each other's eyes.
Then they scrambled up the stairs and down the hall to their bedroom, slamming the door behind them.
XXXXXXXX
"Who just slammed a door?" Margaret said, mid-kiss.
"Don't pay any attention to that. It was the wind," said Hawkeye, leaning back towards her.
"It's perfectly still out here."
He rolled his eyes and kissed her again. They sat in the pure silence of the praire.
"Kind of grows on you out here, doesn't it?"
Hawkeye nodded and intertwined his fingers with hers. There was a sudden, high whine overhead.
"That's the late plane," Margaret said knowingly. They watched the plane make its progress across the dark, cloudless sky. Somewhere, a coyote howled.
"Remember when you threw the bowl at me and I tied all those condom balloons to your tent?" Hawkeye asked, just trying to make sure he hadn't dreamed up the incident.
"Three hundred of them. Yes, I remember. We could have used them the first year we were married," she laughed.
As Korea grew further away from them it seemed more and more dream-like. Not like those terrible crystal clear days he sat at home in Crabapple Cove, sure he'd never see Margaret again. Korea was a memory covered with gauze and wrapped up in Hawkeye's heart. Then there was that time they went to LL Bean and he couldn't find her in the crowd. He had a terrible thought. They'd only been married a month and he wondered if he'd dreamed the whole thing, that she'd never come to Maine and they'd never been married and he was just alone in the bustling throng. He was beginning to panic when she tapped him on the back and he jumped about a foot in the air.
"I'm glad we came,' he sighed, brushing his lips against her forehead. "I love you so much. More than the sky and the prairie and the 10:35 Braniff flight to Phoenix, blue, green or purple."
She smiled and ran her hand along his thigh.
XXXX
Ellie stayed up until morning, using the kitchen table as a drafting board. She knew it was a little manic and foolish but the ideas just kept pouring from her pencil. Charles was the first person up.
"Have you been up all night, dear?"
Ellie answered him without looking up. Charles couldn't read the blueprints. he could, however, see the monstrous cup of coffee she was drinking.
"Women in your condition should not be up all night drinking coffee by the gallon," he said, elicting an annoyed look.
"Charles, I'll have this wrapped up soon and I'll take a nap. Shoo, get some breakfast or something."
Hawkeye and Margaret walked out of their room, both yawning and wiping their eyes. "Ellie! You've been up all night," Margaret said, her jaw tight. Ellie was also famous for pulling all-nighters during finals time and that drove her mother nuts.
"Geez, I already got the third degree from Charles Emerson. I'm going to bed already," Ellie said, rolling up the blueprints and tossing them in the closet.
She passed Tex on the stairs, mumbling under her breath. He shrugged and made the wise choice to stay out of her way. Besides, Margaret was in the kitchen again and the smell of bacon was beginning to permeate the air.
"I should like to see your office today, son," Charles said, after the breakfast dishes were done.
Tex sighed softly and shrugged. "Okay Dad. Why don't you spend the day with me. Hawkeye, do you want to come along?"
"Nope. I'll stop in but I think I want to explore the town a little bit," he said, knowing that Charles just wanted some quality time with Tex. "Maggie, got any plans?"
"This house needs to be cleaned and I want to just check the farm out. Why don't we all just meet in town for lunch? If Ellie's not up by then I'm sure she wouldn't mind me using her car."
Ellie did get up before lunch. Margaret was dusting the windowsills when Ellie came down, shielding her eyes from the sun.
"I see the butterfly has risen from her coccoon," Margaret laughed. Ellie, cranky with so little sleep, just rolled her eyes. "Everyone's having lunch in town if you want to join us. If not, I need your car."
This was not good news to Ellie. Margaret wasn't a great driver. In fact, since her vision had worsened, she'd become pretty poor. Hawkeye had let her use his own Jeep to pick up groceries one weekend and she drove it straight into the mailbox. He fumed and ranted on the phone to Ellie that night, mad at how Margaret had tossed the incident off and a little frightened because it seemed like the beginning of a new chapter somehow and the end of an old one. That day he looked at an old picture that hung on the staircase wall. It had been taken years before, when Ellie was not quite seven and Ben not quite four. They were all sitting at a picnic table smiling. Ben was cute in his little overalls. Ellie was grinning, already with the long legs and the glint in her eye. Hawkeye was holding a thermos and just looking younger, not much different. But he liked this picture because of Margaret, who was shading her face from the sun and smiling at her family, not the camera. He loved her now, but then he'd loved her in a different way. And this thought just occured to him because of the dent in the Jeep's bumper.
"Mom, I'll take you to town. It's okay. Let me just take a shower," Ellie said. "Didn't they tell you the only place to eat is in a bar? It's pretty seedy, and Charles probably won't like it."
Ellie disappeared around the corner and the sound of the shower blasting drowned out the muffled thumps of the bathroom cabinets closing. Margaret ventured upstairs to take a closer look at the master bedroom. It was painted white, with only a thin layer covering the rough boards on the walls. The roof slanted but the window was large. What wasn't white in the room was blue...the sheets, the rug and the bedside table were all covered in verious shades of blue. It was a pretty room and she was engrossed by it, accidentally startling Ellie when she walked in, wearing a towel.
"This is very pretty, honey. You guys have fixed the house up very nicely."
"Thanks, Mom. All of this had to be ordered from Montgomery Wards. If I stayed with my in-town options, it would all be hung with garden hoses and big spray."
Margaret sat on the bed and Ellie left the room, presumably to change. "Mom, could you cut my hair a little before you leave? It's gone crazy again," Ellie shouted from the bathroom.
"Yes, just let me know when."
The kitten popped out from underneath the bed and Margaret grabbed him. He squirmed and leapt from her hands, taking leave under the bed again. "This cat is just like Pickles," she said as Ellie came back in.
"I thought about that last night. Remember how Pickles would attack that spot on the wall in the upstairs hallway? Or how he'd watch TV? Maybe this is Pickles reincarnated. I'd like that."
The drive to town was a repeat of the previous day's rocking and rolling Jeep adventure. They passed a DOT crew doing a gravel fill job on the wash out. Dust blew everywhere, covering the side of the Jeep and dulling the windshield. When they pulled up to the clinic, the rental car was there. Before Ellie could even walk in, Tex rushed out and grabbed her arm, pulling her to the rear of the building.
"He's driving me crazy. I'm not going to lunch."
"Tex, what's he doing?'
"Once again, I can't do anything right." There were tears in his eyes. "He's complaining about the equipment, the house, the car..."
Ellie opened her mouth and shut it. Tex put his hands on her shoulders. "I told him we do the best we can. And we're making a difference. But he doesn't care. I'm supposed to be one of his surgeon yes-men up in Boston. Since I said no, he's going to make my life miserable." His tears flowed freely now in dusty rivulets down his face. Tex put a hand in Ellie's hair and crushed his face to her shoulder. She was shocked at his open emotions, but not so much she couldn't kiss his ear over and over.
"Have you talked to my dad?" she asked, holding him tighter.
"He knows...he saw us today. There's nothing he can say. I'm not Ben, I'm not his son. My mom says Dad will never change."
"Oh, some people do, I think. Imagine how he'd be if Korea didn't happen. That glimmer of human compassion probably wouldn't even be there. It takes a big epiphany to make big changes. Maybe he just needs another one," Ellie said, kissing his ear again.
"I'm going to sneak back in through the door here. I don't want Dad to see me crying, then I'll just upset Margaret. Take them to lunch and for God sakes, get Dad out of here. Tell him...tell him he needs to see the old junkyard. He likes old cars," Tex said, wiping his eyes with his palms.
He kissed Ellie and bounded up the steps. All through lunch Charles was quiet, but that was okay because as usual Hawkeye and Margaret did most of the talking. Luckily, the junkyard was a hit with everyone. Hawkeye and Charles walked around to inspect the old cars and Margaret sat with Ellie in the shade.
"We'll have to drag your dad out of here," said Margaret, laughing."Oh no, is he sitting in that car?"
"Mom, Tex is really upset with Charles," Ellie said, not wanting to upset her mother but just trying to re-state the obvious. Margaret just nodded.
"Hawkeye told me when we were in the clinic. Charles has his ways of being a bore. When he showed up at the 4077th, Charles wanted to go out with me. I almost said yes...but then I witnessed how he treats people. I was just getting over a divorce and your dad was starting to come into my life a bit more. The war did make Charles more human...but he's still a work in progress. But no more so than the rest of us."
At that moment, Hawkeye and Charles approached, laughing and slapping each other on the back. "I'd drive that Model T the whole way back to Maine," Hawkeye snorted. "Just give me a waterbag and a can of Burma-Shave." Margaret wrapped an arm around him. Charles stared at the ground. She turned him down thirty years ago and he's still jealous, Ellie thought, wincing. The rich man never got what he wanted most and that was Margaret Houlihan Penobscot Pierce. A sobering thought that was even worse because Tex knew it, too.
Orrie sent them out to the Double L Ranch for steaks. Hawkeye put on a game face when the ranch hands flirted with Ellie. Charles sat glumly in the car, watching the darkening skies. Margaret fell in love with a silver pony that ran in senseless circles around the corral. The old trail boss let her feed the pony and apple and carrot. She babbled the whole way back, Hawkeye nodding in the driver's seat and Ellie desperately wanting just to get in her Jeep and leave them all behind. Charles sat with a cooler full of steaks in his lap, still watching the clouds roll by.
XXXXXXXX
The cookout went as scheduled that evening. Barbara did show up, even though the animosity between father and son had colored her day brown. Tex and Charles stayed away from each other. Tex was in charge of the grill, enjoying one skill his father didn't possess as well. Barbara sat on the porch with Ellie and they played whatever card game popped into their heads. The Pierces were trying to play croquet on the parched lawn.
"Hey, pick those wickets up when you're done! I don't want to be tripping over them like at home," Ellie shouted as her father knocked the ball into the weeds for the fifteenth time.
Charles watched all this from the living room. His book wasn't all that good. Part of him felt bad about his actions that day.
"Hey Charley!"
He winced as Barbara stuck her head in the window. "Get out here and park your carcass and play cards with me!" He sighed and put the book on the arm of the chair. It was about the Hindenburg. They spent a surprisingly agreeable hour playing gin.
"This is about the best steak I've ever had," Margaret said, putting down her plate. Hawkeye and Charles nodded in agreement.
"That's one of the upshots of cattle country," said Tex, cleaning his plate with a slice of bread. They were all sleepy from the food intake, and about an hour later none could really move off the porch. Hawkeye, Tex, Barbara and Charles were all drinking longnecks and listening to the wind. Clouds billowed and boiled, blocking out the last rays of the sun. A stiff breeze blew now and then, but it was cool and ruffled the white curtains and made them hover like ghosts.
Lightning lit the sky and Ellie dragged her chair down off the porch for a better look. Tex shrugged and joined her, putting his chair next to hers and wrapping an arm around her shouders. On the porch, Hawkeye couldn't really make out what they were saying, but Tex pointed his beer bottle at the sky a few times and Ellie waved her arms around in the direction of the storm and kissed Tex right at the jawline.
"They're cute, aren't they? They really do make a great couple," Margaret observed, moving next to Hawkeye.
"I can see it in his eyes. We...you and I...were like that."
At about 10:30, the clouds had formed an enormous seething mass to the west. Charles sat on the side of the porch, staring at it. The gold and green mass of clouds occasionally lit up with lightning. Ellie was now standing at the end of the sidewalk, staring at the them. They could just barely make each other out in the gloom. Otherwise, the sky to the east and directly overhead seemed clear.
The red lights of the 10:35 Braniff came overhead, and its jet noise followed a minute later. They all watched it make its way through the dense atmosphere.
The plane broke through a light spot in the wall of clouds. The jet noise lingered overhead. A faint breeze blew. The world fell into a slow motion.
There was an explosion, a sudden crackling sound like wet wood in a fireplace.
Blinding light came from the clouds, and two fireballs fell toward earth, spiralling rapidly.
A soft rain began to fall that reeked of kerosene.
Off about a mile in the distance, a glow was spreading on the horizon.
And no one said anything or moved at all until Ellie screamed from her place at the end of the sidewalk.