Ms. Sandvig smiled back. “Are you Benedict’s new friend? I’m delighted that he found you at last. He was so upset when you disappeared.”
Benedict turned the phone toward his face and looked meaningfully at the screen. “Ms. Sandvig. I was hoping you could tell Merida about the work we’re doing in Baltimore.”
“Oh! Yes, right, Benedict. Merida, I don’t know if Benedict has told you anything about our operations, but we provide twenty-four-hour day care for parents in need. Not just women, we help single fathers, too.”
“I know.” Merida’s fingers shook as she spelled. “I used to live in Baltimore.”
“Do you know we care for over one hundred children twenty-four/seven? We have our new preschool and after-school programs.”
“One hundred?” Merida couldn’t believe it. When she had been there, they had never been able to care for more than ten at a time, and turning desperate parents away had been heartbreaking.
“We teach the children so much. When our children go to public school, they perform so much better than their similarly underprivileged counterparts and—”
Benedict turned the phone toward him and made the cut-off gesture.
Ms. Sandvig laughed ruefully. “I’m sorry, Merida, I do tend to get carried away. We can always use help and of course if you can’t help in person I promise your donation will be used in ways that will make you proud.”
Merida nodded and indicated she would send money.
Ms. Sandvig sobered. “I don’t know if you realize how much of our work is possible because of the man sitting next to you. He has given his time and influence in every way, and every penny it took to construct the Merry Byrd Classroom Facility was his and his alone.”
Again Benedict made the cut-off gesture.
“All anonymously,” Ms. Sandvig said hurriedly.
Merida’s lower lip quivered.
Benedict brought the phone back to his face. “Thank you, Ms. Sandvig. I think you convinced her.”
“That you’re a wonderful man?”
“My secret plan all along.” Benedict hung up and said to Merida, “Actually, my secret plan was to convince you that Merry Byrd left a great legacy behind. I would never have helped those people without the lessons Merry Byrd taught me. All these years, I have missed her so much.”
“How did you know…?” Such an embarrassing question! But she had to know. “When we had sex, how did you know it was me?”
“All cats are not gray in the dark. All women are not the same while making love. I simply had to forsake the visible and recognize the union of the soul.”
She flung herself at him.
He toppled over onto the floor, lost the phone, held her and rubbed her back while she cried. When she’d caught her breath, she signed, “I’ve been so angry at you. What happened that day? Please tell me what happened.”
“You really don’t remember?”
She shook her head.
He settled his back against the ottoman and pulled her into his arms as if he needed to have her close. “I wanted to go up with you. It was your solo fight; I wanted to see your face while you were at the controls. I knew you would … look like you did when we made love.” He smiled at her, smoothed her hair off her forehead. “I got a couple of calls. One from Bob. He told me you had to be alone on your solo flight; I couldn’t go up with you.”
“True,” she signed.
“I said I’d come down to see you off. About fifteen minutes later I got another call. Emergency, business, they needed me, they had to have me. I was so used to doing whatever had to be done I sent a message to you and the flowers and headed over to corporate headquarters to put out the fire. About halfway there, I thought—what am I doing? This relationship is first in my life. Not the business.” He took a shaky breath. “So I turned and came to the airport. You had just finished the walk-around check and were ready to climb in for the cockpit check when I caught you…”
“Benedict! You’re here.”
He held two gift boxes. “I couldn’t miss this.”
They smiled into each other’s eyes, two fools in love.
“I brought you a present to celebrate your inaugural flight.” He offered her the box.
She lifted the lid and looked. Inside were two crumpled pieces of worn leather. She lifted one out; it was an early-twentieth-century flying helmet with flaps that draped over the ears and a strap under the neck.
“The auction house claimed it was verified to be one of Amelia Earhart’s flying helmets.” He set down the box, took the leather out of her hands and fitted it over her head. “Merry Byrd, Aunt Amelia would be proud of you.”
Joy choked her; she couldn’t speak. But she knew a little sign language, so in a precursor of the future, she used her hands to say, “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” he said. Leaning down, he pulled another leather helmet out of the box. “I got one, too. It’s not from a famous flyer, but it does have a fleece lining. Apparently it was pretty cold in those old cockpits.” He pulled it on and wrapped his arm around her. He pulled her close for a photo, then showed it to her.
She was blushing bright red and irrepressibly beaming. “Get rid of that!” she said. “Geeze, how embarrassing. I look like a kid getting a treat.”
“All we need are goggles and a scarf.” He opened the other box. “Here they are!”
She laughed at him, at how happy giving her this stuff made him. “Hang on to those. I was heading into the cockpit for the preflight checks.”
“I’ll wait here.”
She climbed into the well-used, much-loved four-passenger Cessna 182 Skyland. The door sealed well, the seat was adjusted correctly. She ducked her head to get into the cockpit, slipped into the pilot’s seat, holding her checklist in one hand, and began her preflight cockpit check. The engine fired quickly, the fuel tank was full, the radio cooling fans and instrument gyros sounded normal. She checked the flaps. “That’s it.” She marveled at how calm she could act when her heart beat so wildly. She climbed down the stairs, removed the wing tie downs and the wheel chocks, and walked to the front of the plane to do the final visual.
He offered her the goggles and the wool scarf.
“Okay.” She felt silly, but she donned them. She sniffed. Frowned. She filled her lungs. “Benedict, do you smell that?”
“Yes,” he said. “Smells like a fuel leak.”
“The engine was fine a minute ago. I checked. I’m going to kill the motor.” She climbed back into the plane, turned off the ignition.
Nothing changed. The engine continued to run.
Benedict appeared at the open door, watched her.
She pulled the mixture control all the way to the lean.
The engine ran. The smell got stronger.
Suddenly, decisively, Benedict said, “We need to get out of here.”
“But we’ve got to get the motor to turn off. This is Bob’s living. He trusts me to—”
“Smell the gas? Something is very wrong. Merry Byrd, out of the plane. Now!”