I TALKED TO HER EVERY DAY. WE FINALLY SAW OPEN CITY together, necked and ate popcorn during the film. She absorbed popcorn and passion in equal amounts. I received my grades, ninth in the class. Maggie earned As in both her courses, much less a surprise, I told her. I did not press her for a decision. I assumed that I had won. I assured her that we could come back to America at various times during our wanderjahre as she called it. A month at Lake Geneva.
I even surreptitiously reserved a date at Saint Luke’s on the Saturday before the beginning of Lent.
I also, being a prudent man, registered for the second semester.
I came home from Loyola on registration day, nervous and frustrated from my encounter with the bureaucracy, still aching from my bumps and bruises, hopelessly in love, and in a black mood because I did not quite fully possess my beloved yet.
Joanne was home on her mid-year vacation. I greeted her churlishly and stomped upstairs.
A quarter-hour later she knocked on my door. “Are you decent?”
I was lying on my bed, disgracefully decent. “What’s up?”
“Maggie called a couple of hours ago. She’s taking the Broadway Limited to Philadelphia. Her stepmother had a little boy. The baptism is Sunday. She wanted to say good-bye. I didn’t know she had a stepmother. Is she going to stay in Philadelphia?”
“Probably.”
“Are you going to live there?”
“In Philly? Certainly not.”
Trust Joanne to delay an important message, I thought, remaining immobile on my bed.
Well, the decision had been reached. I’d lost. Too bad. I felt relieved. Nice girl, but too much, really, when you stopped to think about her rationally.
I wonder what Kate is doing tomorrow night.
I seemed to hear some strange noise. Not exactly flapping wings, but …
Rumors of angels?
“Get off your fucking ass and go get her.”
“For an angel you have a very dirty mouth.”
“You forget that you imagine me as a fleet admiral. So I use salty language … I said go get her.”
“I don’t want her anymore.”
“I told you that we’d put a lot of work into her.”
“So what?”
“We made her a good lay to attract you, moron. She’s special, very special.”
“You could call me asshole. It’s a word senior officers love.”
“I don’t want to shock you. I said—”
“I know what you said. So you made her a good lay to capture me. So what? Why don’t you take care of yourselves?”
“You took the theology courses. You know we can’t act without human cooperation. That’s you, asshole.”
“Find someone else, moron.”
“You like losing your woman?”
“Doesn’t make any difference.”
“Bullshit.”
Then I realized I didn’t like losing. Period.
Pilots, man your planes!
I bounded out of bed, grabbed my flight jacket, rushed down the stairs and out into the cold January air. I piloted a protesting Roxinante at flight speed down Washington Boulevard to Union Station.
It was a clear late-winter afternoon. A waning full moon had risen above Lake Michigan. The demons were still there, lurking for the time they would be unchained.
If I remembered the schedule correctly, the Broadway Limited left in fifteen minutes.
Union Station was a great heartless smelly cavern even in those days when it was jammed with people. Like the station in Tucson, its aroma was a mix of stale water, human sweat, and diesel fuel, but all in much larger quantities.
A stinking cemetery, I thought, as I raced through it toward the gate from which the Broadway left, for dead hopes.
Would she be on the train already?
Or would she be waiting for me at the gate?
She was waiting.
“Sorry, Mag,” I said breathlessly, “I was late getting home and Joanne muffed the message. Congratulations on being a sister!”
“Allen Richard Ward.” She beamed. “Six pounds five ounces, mother and child doing nicely now. The little guy had some bad moments, so they baptized him on the spot. Sunday they’re going to fill in the ceremonies at the hospital.”
“Tell you what.” CAG One was flying on instincts now, fogged in and forced to trust the words that sprang to his lips, “Cancel your reservation, come out to River Forest and have supper with us, and you and I can fly down there tomorrow on United and spend the weekend. You can call from home.”
She was tempted. Oh, God in Heaven, was she tempted.
“I bought a one-way ticket, Jerry.”
“Easier to cancel.”
“They need me, all of them. I talked to Irene, my stepmother; she needs me worst of all.”
“You can do both, Maggie Ward,” I insisted as I held her upper arms, gently but firmly. “You can do anything you want. It’s only a couple of hours by plane. We’ll have the money to make it possible to spend time in both cities.”
“Philadelphia is my home, Jerry.”
“Were you ever as happy there as you were at our place on Christmas?”
“That’s unfair,” she bristled.
“All’s fair … and don’t tell me this isn’t love because it is.”
“I’ve made up my mind.”
“Change it.”
The conductor was shouting “ ‘ll ‘board!”
“Why?”
“For me. You love me. Don’t try to pretend you don’t.” My grip on her became tight, fierce.
“You’re breaking my heart.”
“No, Maggie Ward. You’re breaking your own heart. And mine too.”
The conductor shouted again. The Broadway Limited was making chugging sounds, impatient to begin its mad race to Paoli and Thirtieth Street and then on to Pennsylvania Station in New York.
“Let me go, Jerry,” she begged. “I have to be on that train.”
But she didn’t struggle.
“No, you don’t. We can fly there tomorrow.”
“I want to be on that train. Please.”
“You’re saying no to me?” I released her. “You’re ending in one railroad station what began in another?”
Clever shot. She hesitated.
“I have to, Jerry. I have no choice.”
“Don’t give me that. You do too have a choice.”
“I must run.” She turned to the gate and lifted her bag.
“It’s a no to me, Maggie Ward?” I called after her.
Inside the gate, she turned to face me again and nodded.
No, Jerry Keenan. Thanks, but no thanks.
Well, I’d tried and that was that.
Her face a mask of pain, she lifted her hand in a half-wave, and then, lugging her familiar heavy bag, rushed to catch the impatient train.
I turned away and walked slowly through the massive cavern. I heard the Broadway Limited begin to move.
A broad-shouldered person in a trench coat with a gray fedora pulled down over his forehead glared at me with sad blue eyes.
You could fold wings up under that coat.
I ignored his sad eyes.
The Broadway Limited was bearing Maggie Ward out of my life. January 22, 1947. Six months to the day. Six months—I glanced at my watch—four o’clock in Tucson; six months and nine hours.
Her guilts and my hesitations had won.