The day Wilomena Jeanette Parker renounced her years of university study to become a Hot-Air Balloon Operator was a sad day for the entire Parker family. Wilomena’s brother, Clement Parker, took it the hardest. He took it to heart, in fact, and would not speak to his sister for sixteen days. On the seventeenth, Wilomena’s birthday, he decided to forgive her and went out by himself to the field where she worked.
Wilomena, who might have been a medical doctor, was wearing all white. Her long brown hair drifted up among ropes that fastened the balloon to its basket. Clement Parker stood beside his car with a piece of chocolate cake for her on a stiff paper plate. The late afternoon sky was cloudless, endless. The balloon was purple, regal, not ridiculous the way he had imagined it would be. His sister stood with a grey-haired man who held a small black terrier in his arms. Dear Wilomena, he thought, I hope you know what you are doing.
Clement made his way across the field looking down at the grass, at his patent-leather shoes sinking in the mud. Wilomena, already in the basket with the elderly man and his dog, called out to her brother to hurry if he wanted to come for a ride. Clement was surprised by his sudden desire to go up with his sister, by his fear of being left behind. He steadied the chocolate cake with his thumb and ran toward her in a way he hadn’t done in many years.
Once in the balloon, Clement found himself silenced by the barking dog. The pointed tops of pine trees, the black-roofed houses, the narrow backyards and disappearing rock gardens all filled him with a terrible sorrow.
Wilomena stood close to the old man, letting the terrier lick the chocolate icing off her fingers, laughing. This was the moment Clement thought he might strangle her, the moment he imagined his sister’s body dropping down through the sky, landing broken near the front steps, back home where he might help her start again.