Four hundred combat troops sounds like an awful lot, Joan said.
And thirty-three choppers, Harrison said.
Thing I like about Kennedy, Joan said, he takes advice, but makes up his own mind.
I guess this is it then, Harrison said.
Haven’t we already given the Laotian government helicopters? Grace said. What’s the difference?
Difference is, Harrison said, those were operated by the Civil Air Transport of Taiwan. These will be flown by Americans.
Direct military support, Joan said.
You mean war, Grace said.
Yeah, Harrison said.
The rain stopped. Joan said she’d be back in the morning. Grace and Harrison were alone.
Florence woke, coughing, gasping, every twenty minutes or so. They took shifts, sleeping on the rug by her bed, sitting up to comfort her until she slept again.
It was late, dark, some time around three.
Daddy? Florence said.
Huh?
Daddy?
I’m here, Duck, he said, sitting up.
Her face was milky-white, pale like the moonlight that fell into the room. He stroked her face, brushing hair from her eyes. She looked confused.
Hey, Duck, he said. It’s okay. I’m right here.
She settled slightly, coughed, smiled. He smiled back.
Hey, he said.
Why you call me Duck, Daddy? she said.
He looked at her. He stared at the rug. He bit down hard on his cheeks until they bled.
Well, Duck, he said, when you were born uh, when you were a few days old; this tiny thing; I used to, used to hold you, against my chest, walk about, and sometimes you’d uh, push your face into me and make this strange sound, like a quack, like a duck, so I started callin you a little duck and uh, yeah.
I’m tired, Daddy.
C’mon, he said, let’s go back to sleep.
Harrison woke on the floor, the early sun lighting the room. He stood and crept over to the window. There were no clouds; the sky was a beautiful blue. He looked over to where Florence slept and something inside him broke.
Grace was in the kitchen when he came down, her hand on the handle of the fridge. He stood in the doorway and didn’t move. She looked at him, and he looked at her, and she knew, and her fingers fell from the handle.
The low sun leaked pale light along gaunt tallowy clouds and bleached the bone-cold December ground white.
This is not a eulogy, Irving said. This is a lament. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in the depths, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
All test planes had been grounded. Jim and Grace sat with Joe and Grace Walker. Pancho sat with Chuck and Glennis, together with Jack Ridley and almost every pilot and engineer the Harrisons knew, and plenty they didn’t. Annie couldn’t make it and it was too far for Hal, Grace’s father, to travel.
If I say, surely the darkness shall overwhelm me, and the light about me shall be night; even the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day. For thou didst form my inmost being. Thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb. Let us pray.
They prayed. The silence was as hard as the earth.
Irving spoke some more. A slight breeze picked up and they heard horses bucking and snorting from the ranch close by. The men and women sat very still. The mares whinnied into the cold air. Then the wind changed direction and all that remained was Irving’s strong voice and his steady hands and a small wooden coffin sitting on the hillside in the freezing December morning.
Harrison held his wife’s hand hard and she gripped it until he thought it would turn blue. He turned around, behind him, and whispered, say, Ridley, got any Beemans? Ridley looked at him, nodded, and reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a stick. With his free hand Harrison unwrapped the gum and put it in his mouth then heard Irving say his name and Grace released her grip and he stood and walked to the podium. He pulled a typed index card from his pocket and placed it carefully on the stand. He looked up and said, Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
He sat down. Grace squeezed his hand.
Suffer little children to come unto me, Irving said. For of such is the kingdom of God.
She shook and he held her tight.