“Well, because of a couple of things. It was made after WWII, when passenger planes took over from military planes, and all the manufacturers decided to make longer fuselages so they could fit more passengers.”
Loralee smiled to herself as he used his first two fingers to indicate the fuselage, just as she’d done as a flight attendant when indicating the locations of the exits.
Owen continued. “The nose is a lot rounder than today’s planes, which kind of dates it, and though it’s possible it could be a couple of other models, maybe even the DC-seven, which came later, the DC-six outsold Lockheed’s Constellation and pretty much everything else out there at the time. It wasn’t the prettiest but it was the fastest.”
He looked around to make sure he wasn’t talking too much—a habit Robert and Loralee had taught him to be aware of—and when he noticed that everybody was still listening, he continued. “On my dad’s model, which has a lot more detail, you can tell what it is because it’s got piston engines. That technology was pretty much as good as it was going to get by the mid-fifties, when the piston engines got replaced by the turbo props, which were a lot faster and smoother.”
“Do you think it’s the same kind?” Merritt asked quietly, looking at Gibbes.
Gibbes shrugged. “I’m not sure.” Handing the wing parts to Owen, he said, “I’m going to bring something down from the attic for you to take a look at, if that’s okay.” He glanced at Loralee and she nodded, not sure she wanted to see what had been in the attic, judging by Merritt’s and Gibbes’s reactions the previous day, but if Gibbes thought it was okay, then it was.
He continued. “Maybe you can tell me what kind of a plane it is.”
Owen nodded eagerly. “I can try. I’ve got a book that has pictures of all the different kinds of planes, so we can check to be sure. But I’m not usually wrong.”
Loralee put her arm around Owen, proud of how smart he was, but wishing that in addition to his smarts he’d also been given a filter that would tell him when it was okay to say things like that and when it wasn’t. Like right then, surrounded by adults who needed his help, it was okay. At the lunch table with boys his age he wanted to be friends with, maybe not so much. Her heart squeezed in her chest for a moment as she thought of all the things she still needed to teach Owen, and she hoped her journal had enough pages.
Gibbes returned with a large and handmade model of a wingless plane and placed it on Owen’s neatly made bed, next to two battered wings that might have once been attached to the plane if there had been a place without holes to put them. If she hadn’t been told beforehand what it was, Loralee would have thought it was some kind of a time capsule, like the one city councilmen liked to bury in the foundations of new government buildings. When she still lived in Gulf Shores, she’d submitted her favorite tube of lipstick as well as a pair of newly invented SPANX for the capsule that was being cemented in the foundation of the new city hall, but had been disappointed when they’d been rejected in favor of an iPod and an American flag. She’d thought her submissions had been a lot more about who they were as individuals, but it was clear the councilmen lacked imagination.
She stepped forward, noticing the hairline cracks that looked like black threads covering the fuselage, like Humpty Dumpty after all his pieces had been put together. Small oval windows dotted the two sides of the plane, some with clear cellophane-looking windows still intact, a few with jagged tears, but most missing completely. Loralee walked to the other side of the bed and saw the uneven hole in the plane’s side. The edges were curled outward, as if something from the inside had blown out the hole. It looked like a toy that had been played with really roughly. Or that had been in an actual crash.
“Cool,” Owen said slowly as he walked around his bed, peering into the little windows and the hole, then picking up one of the wings and turning it over before replacing it on the bed.
Loralee took a peek into one of the windows, then jerked back when she realized there were miniature people seated inside. “This was in the attic?”
Merritt nodded. “Not exactly what I thought I’d find. There are also baskets of sea glass and other materials to make wind chimes, along with a few other items.” Her lips pressed together the way people do on planes when they were about to be sick.
Loralee covered her mouth, hoping to direct her words out of Owen’s hearing. “It’s a little creepy, isn’t it?”
“You have no idea.”
Their eyes met and Merritt even smiled a little before looking away, as if she’d become aware that they’d just shared a confidence.
“Is this the same kind of plane as the LEGO one?” Gibbes asked.