Chapter 6 #3
Pancho scoffed. “My son will get a taste of flight as sure as I bleed red. And I’ll wager he’ll love it. It’s in his blood.”
“I’m warning you, Florence, I’ve let you have your way in this marriage far too much. But I will not allow you to risk the life of the only child you’ve given me.”
“There’s nothing you can do to stop me from teaching my son to fly,” she declared.
Angry silence and faint static came across the phone line.
“Stop your bellyaching, Rankin. You enjoy plenty about our marriage. Which is to say you like living high on the hog off my money.”
“The true riches in life are family,” he said heatedly. “What good is a mansion without a family to share it with? I married so I could have children.”
“You know why I won’t have more children. The law says I’ll lose my pilot’s license and have to redo all my flight qualifications after having a baby. The government has decided pregnancy is an illness in women.”
“So you admit you choose flying over being a proper mother?”
“I do not admit that,” she retorted. “You want to have more children? Then get busy doing something to change the law.”
“Florence, it’s far past time for you to grow up. You’ve flown all over the countryside and had your fun. But it’s time for you to settle down and be a wife and mother. William is growing up without you.”
Pancho wasn’t immune to that bit of truth. She paused for a moment because it was hard to swallow.
“I am planning to travel less . . . just as soon as I win this race. Then I’m coming home to teach William how to fly.”
“I forbid it!”
“You can’t stop me. And I’ll remind you, Rankin: I pay the bills. All the bills.”
“I will happily live a humble life surrounded by family. You will not infect William with your insanity.”
The phone at the other end slammed loudly in her ear.
Stunned, Pancho sat there fuming. But her temper couldn’t hold back foreboding that her husband meant his threat.
Women did get put in asylums for hysteria, which covered a lot of ground.
Could he really have her declared mad for no other reason than she chose to fly airplanes?
What would such a thing mean? What would happen to her if he succeeded?
Could he lock her away in an asylum? Subject her to electric shock treatment?
Take her mansion? Her money? Her airplanes? Oh, God, her son?
A divorce might protect her, but it would forever tarnish William’s social standing. As the product of a divorce, he’d be shunned. A pariah.
Slowly, she hung the earpiece on its hook.
Granted, she wasn’t the world’s best or most attentive mother.
But she paid for the very best nannies and tutors for William.
He lived mere steps away from his many cousins and doting grandmother.
He’d always seemed happy and well-adjusted in spite of her frequent absences.
She did love William. Being permanently separated from him would gut her.
A fist banging on the glass-paneled door made her jump.
“Pancho!” Marvel called. “You’re the next speaker, and the guy before you is almost done droning on about nothing.”
Right. The race. The banquet. Her duty to women and aviation.
She had a choice to make. Family . . . or the future.
She sat there, thinking hard. What to do at this crossroads in her life?
All at once, certainty filled her. As if there were any question of the right thing to do.
She surged to her feet as her confidence came roaring back.
No. Rankin didn’t get to bully her and steal her wings.
What she and the other women gathered here were doing was Important.
Capital I. They’d all made sacrifices to advance the cause of aviation and conquer the skies. She could do no less.
It was up to courageous women like her and her friends to carve out a place for women in aviation and insist they be recognized for their contributions to the field.
Breaking free of the bounds of gravity was the greatest accomplishment humankind had ever achieved, and there was still so much more to do and learn.
She didn’t fly just for herself. She flew for everyone who’d ever looked up at the sky and yearned to go there.
She flew for William. And she flew for all women.
As Louise had said, good-paying jobs for women in aviation were on the line. The next ten days were going to change America’s view of women and their place.
She was not going to let any man tie her down, lock her away, and force her to be only a wife and mother. She could be so much more. By golly, she was going to show Rankin—and the whole world—just how much more she could be.
She pushed open the booth’s folding door and gave Marvel a brave smile. But a jolt of worry whisked down her spine. Rankin could still make trouble for her. Plenty of it.
But flying was in her soul.
And William is in my heart.
If Rankin wanted a fight, she would give him the biggest fight he’d ever seen. She would keep flying and keep her son, come hell or high water.
Just as soon as she finished this race.