The Aviator's Wife

Mother shook her head impatiently. 'You need to...stop looking for heroes, Anne.' Her speech was slow, slurred, but understandable. 'Only the weak need...heroes...and heroes need...those around them to remain weak. You're...not weak.' I remembered those words. I knew they were true, all of them. True about me, and true about Charles. I brought them out, every now and then, as I kept working -- on both the manuscript and myself. And, perhaps on my definition of my marriage. No, my prayer for my marriage; a marriage of two equals. With separate -- but equally valid -- views of the world; shared goggles no more, but looking at the same scenery, at the same time.

Marriage breeds its own special brand of loneliness, and it’s far more cruel. You miss more, because you’ve known more.

I still can't stop marveling that this same boy chose me; and I'm glad that I can't, for we should rejoice in being seen, needed. Loved.

JEALOUSY IS A TERRIBLE THING. It keeps you up at night, it demands tremendous energy in order to remain alive, and so you have to want to feed it, nurture it—and by so wanting, you have to acknowledge that you are a bitter, petty person. It changes you. It changes the way you view the world; minor irritations become major catastrophes; celebrations become trials.

dreams may have been the paintings on my walls, but doubts and fears were the bars on my windows.

Only the weak need … heroes … and heroes need … those around them to remain weak.

Dana taught me that the ability to grieve deeply also meant that a person had the capacity to love deeply, laugh deeply, live deeply -- and that this was a capacity to be cherished.

To live for oneself is a terrifying prospect; there is comfort in martyrdom... p 364

Who was this woman before me, her face imprinted with the expectations of others? I was Mom. I was Wife. I was Tragedy. I was Pilot. They all were me, and I, them. That was a fate we could not escape, we women; we would always be called upon by others in a way men simply never were. But weren't we always, first and foremost -- woman? Wasn't there strength in that, victory, clarity -- in all the stages of a woman's life?

Unlike men, women got less sintimental as we aged, I was discovering. We cried enough, when we were young; vessels overflowing with the tears of everyone we loved.

... afraid of everything because nothing truly terrible had happened to me, yet.

A woman's life, always changing, accommodating, then shedding, old duties for new; one person's expectations for another until finally, victoriously, emerging stronger. Complete.

Only the weak need... heroes... and heroes need... those around them to remain weak. You're not weak.

I will fly, alone. Wearing my own pair of goggles, my view of the world just as unique, just as wonderful, and his was, but different. Mine.

At the age of twenty-five, he had conquered not only the entire planet but all the sky above it.

His eyes were so blue as to be startling; I decided I’d never seen blue eyes before, until that moment. They were the color of morning, the color of the ocean; the color of the sky.

My stomach was so full of butterflies and other insects with busy, brushing wings—entirely appropriate under the circumstances, I couldn’t help but think!—that I could hardly fall asleep. And when at last I did, I know I slept lightly. As if I remembered, even in my slumber, that I had a dream beneath my pillow that I did not wish to crush.

What need was there for words, when we had just shared the sky?

Now and adult, allowed a glimpse of these first cracks in my family's perfect surface, I couldn't help but wonder what else I didn't understand about us all. p 60

Were we women always destined to appear as we were not, as long as we were standing next to our husbands?

Would my son love me, when he was old enough to know what love meant? p 181

Unlike men, women got less sentimental as we aged, I was discovering.

But it was never over for me; I never quite found my way out. Sorrow was my constant companion, even though I no longer wept. It was the shadow that followed me on sunny days, the weight pressing down upon my spirits on cloudy ones.

And I knew, as I had always known but somehow forgotten to remember in these past years, that I could never have done it, that no one else could ever have done it. That I would never know anyone as brave, as astonishing -- as frustrating, too, but that was, I was forced to admit finally, part of his charm -- as the slightly stooped elderly gentleman standing beside me in the shadows, listening while schoolchildren read of his exploits. The man who was, for better, for worse, my husband. The man who I loved, in spite of himself.

reverently that I knew it was a part of him in a way, it turned out, I could never be.

pray to the God of my childhood that

were, the dangers, and the importance

That was the first time I realized my life was no longer my own.

Unlike men who needed approval, he didn’t speak loudly or use hyperbole. He simply was.

Suddenly my mood shifted, as it always seemed to do whenever I was with my family. Away from them, I could be confident, almost careless, with my words and ideas.