Chapter 5

As I healed the dreams became more vivid and often terribly frightening.

Mornings always brought a fresh wave of pain as my body recovered from sleeping in one position too long. As I carefully raised myself off the bed, I tried to stretch and shake the pain away. If it wasn’t my first day back to work, I might have been tempted to stay in bed a while longer, but the excitement of going back to work superseded the morning pains.

Flight training and the make-believe courtship of Rosemary took up my every waking moment for the next month. Each weekday morning, I reported to Joe, and we took the Cessna 172 out of the hangar for a two-hour lesson. Some of those first lessons were all about taxiing, preflight procedures, lessons about maneuvering within the airport, and other non-flying, skills. We hit the books after flying for another two hours, and then after lunch, we flew for another two hours, ending with a daily debriefing that lasted about thirty minutes.

By the time I had ten hours in the air, which was within the first week and a half, Joe claimed that it was time for me to experience my first solo flight. That scared me. It was a good thing that Joe waited to spring it on me until after we’d made a few takeoffs and landings.

“It’s time for you to try this alone. You’re ready. Remember that the plane is lighter without me, so you’ll lift off a bit faster and be just a bit floaty as you flare to land, but no one I’ve ever trained is as ready as you are right now.” He patted my back and walked to the edge of the taxiway to watch, holding a walkie-talkie tuned to our frequency.

The tower cleared me for a rolling entry to the active runway, and before I had a chance to worry about what I was doing, the plane was climbing gently off the asphalt, and I was piloting my way up to the sky. I carefully made the four turns necessary to line back up with the runway, announced my intentions, and landed so smoothly that I wasn’t sure it really happened.

Joe was almost as excited as me about my solo. “I’ve tried to drag out your training before turning you loose because that’s what we do, but you are so far along there is no way to drag this out any longer. Cal, I think you might be a bit of a natural at flying. That’s what I will put in my weekly memo to Pete about your progress.” That was incredibly high praise, and I cautioned myself not to let it cause me to let my guard down and do something dangerous out of misplaced confidence.

Zachary and Maeve demanded every detail of my adventure, congratulating me on my first big step to becoming a pilot. We went out for pizza and Pepsi that night, and I was the center of attention, which made Rosemary quite unhappy.

When she trotted off to the restroom with her phone, I apologized for monopolizing the conversation and promised to do better. That set Zachary off, and he had to be calmed down by Maeve before he lost his temper with Rosemary. Even with Rosemary’s frustrating behavior, I was deeply pleased with myself that night.

Once my first solo flights were behind me, Joe got me deeply into flight planning and visual flying by landmarks, to help me become proficient without the use of GPS and autopilot. Once he felt confident that I could find my way to a pre-chosen airfield without getting completely lost and do so only using visual references and paper maps, he graduated me to flight plan creation using pinpoint timing and fly-by-compass reckoning.

Those days were a bit of a drag simply because it’s more brainwork than it is instinctive. I liked looking out the windows, identifying landmarks, and adjusting for windage more than using my watch as a timer to make turns by the compass heading. Joe thought I needed to be able to fly almost anywhere just by using the maps and the compass. He was quite firm in his resolve, and I learned to like it, whether I liked it, or not.

Rosemary was civil to the point of almost behaving politely. By the Monday before New Year’s we hadn’t strayed near to the point of a good night kiss or holding hands unless there was an audience to impress. She did not revert to her former, vindictive self, but neither did she offer me any hope that we would be anything more than distant acquaintances.

For my part, I tried to give Rosemary some little token each time we dated. It started with roses. She couldn’t have cared less, but I suspected that she was very little different than every other woman. She wanted to be noticed, so I noticed her with small gifts and kind words. The night I gave her a wrapped Precious Moments figurine, she broke down and smiled. I think it was the first time I ever saw her with anything other than a neutral look on her face. “You have a nice smile,” I commented. “You should let it out more often.”

Her parents were insistent that I spend Christmas with their family, instead of on my own. “You two making any headway,” older sister, Maureen asked as we waited for the main dinner course to be served. “Rose looks like she wishes she were somewhere far away, and Cal looks a little bit lost.”

“You hush. No teasing your new brother-in-law,” Maeve said with just a hint of steel in her voice. “Rosemary is doing just fine so far, and I won’t allow anyone to pick on her in her condition.” Clearly, she was referring to the slight baby bump that suddenly seemed to appear within the last week. Rosemary colored when Maeve brought up the obvious. Very soon everyone would notice her condition and our sham wedding was about to be perfectly timed to avoid any potential scandal. Why couldn’t I be marrying Maeve? I really wanted to look under her blouse ... just saying.

The family Washburn seemed to go out of their way to make me feel welcome at their table. Rosemary was civil if distant, and Zachary insisted I join him and his son-in-law in the ‘Entertainment Room’ for a college football game. The conversation was light and eventually, I relaxed enough to enjoy the time.

That night a new chapter in my never-ending dream appeared. This time my alternate self encountered a lovely, terribly disabled, little girl.

When I awoke the vision of little Jennifer stayed with me all day.

Zachary called one of his many underlings and ordered the company G-5 readied for departure to Knoxville for a nine A.M. departure on January second. He entertained us in-flight by telling stories about getting started in the computer business, while Maeve looked on adoringly and commented from time to time. Heather Anne was truly well behaved, and Rosemary kept her thoughts to herself, probably dreading what would happen once we were husband and wife, and her parents left her alone with me.

As for me, I enjoyed imagining just what ‘being a faithful wife to Calvin,’ might include ... with Maeve, not necessarily Rosemary.

The plane was ready to go when the driver pulled up alongside. The shock on the faces of the mechanics was priceless when they saw me alight from the Washburn limousine and follow them up the stairs into the jet. I would have given a lot of money to be a fly on the wall in the break room after the jet took off.

Mr. and Mrs. Washburn chose to sit together with Heather Anne between them, on the long sofa along the port side of the aircraft. Rosemary sat alone, in the very back, as far as she could get from me. I chose one of the plush, recliners on the starboard and enjoyed the morning sites as we climbed out and headed towards Knoxville. The flight was quiet. Heather Anne snuggled herself as close to her grandparents as possible and promptly fell asleep. Maeve covered her with a fleece blanket and held Zachary’s hand as we flew along.

With time on my hands and nothing to occupy my mind, I considered my new (albeit unwilling) family. Zachary Washburn was the epitome of a rugged, individual. At six-foot-four, he towered over everything he challenged. Somehow six-four on Zachary was the same as seven feet on any other mortal man. His hair was cropped short, probably for utilitarian reasons. His favored mode of dress was a summer-weight suit, with an open-necked shirt, that was cut to allow for a lot of movement. Zachary apparently despised dealing with clothing limitations as much as he despised them in business.

His face was hard, except when he contemplated Heather Anne. It was then that his entire visage softened into a loving, indulgent, expression. It was painfully obvious that the little girl would always have the power to wrap her grandfather around her little finger and he would love the restriction.

Maeve appeared tired. Her usual sunny expression was pinched by worry, and it made me wonder if she was worried for Rosemary, or over what Rosemary might do to take revenge on them for spoiling her perfectly spoiled lifestyle. It could have been neither. She might have just been tired, but my money was on the daughter.

In other circumstances, I would be distracted while fantasizing about what was under Rosemary’s blouse instead of her mother, but my mind continually drifted back to the mother, not my soon-to-be wife. The fact that we were about to get married, coupled with the explosive anger, and occasional dripping disdain Rosemary had for me, was enough to blunt any imaginary relationship I could conjure up. Anger and resentment aside, Rosemary had a perfect complexion and innate grace that appealed to me. It was too bad that she had the personality of a premenstrual rattlesnake.

Rosemary pouted in the back all the way to Knoxville. Once the jet stairs were safely down, she gathered herself enough to follow her parents out to the waiting limousine, which surged away from the airport and headed out of town.

Gatlinburg was in full swing on the day after New Year’s. People were everywhere. Our driver apparently had foreknowledge of our agenda, because he took us straight to the Clerk’s office, which was shockingly open, where we were whisked through the marriage license protocol. Before we knew it, we were pulling up in front of a sweet, little wedding chapel and being ushered inside with no wait whatsoever.

‘This is it,’ I thought as the Reverend approached to begin our wedding ceremony. If I’m going to back out, this is my last chance... ‘ And then I manned up and went through with it. The ceremony was quick and painless. The only rub was when the clergyman pronounced and added, “You may kiss the bride.” Rosemary took a deep breath, shuddered just a bit, and kissed me with what could have been mistaken for passion.

The whole thing was over so fast that I never got into the event. Maeve beamed. Zachary smiled, and Maureen kept her thoughts to herself. Heather Anne carried the flowers, and everybody praised her for being so much help. Maureen’s husband was busy at work, or so they said.

“Are you my new Uncle, Calvin,” she asked sweetly, shortly after we were safely back inside the limo. Maureen started to explain things, but Zachary interrupted his oldest.

“My Darling, Heather Anne. Calvin is your very own, brand-new uncle, and I hope you decide to like him as much as he seems to like you.” His indulgent smile and soft tone seemed to settle Rosemary down. I could feel her relax a bit beside me on the third seat.

Everyone was hungry, so Maeve had the driver take us to a lodge at the top of the mountain, and we feasted on a lunch that would have befitted a king. Eating distracted all of us from having to talk about the eight-hundred-pound elephant in the corner. I suspect we all wondered when Rosemary’s self-control would falter and the tantrums would begin, but she remained rather passive throughout the meal.

The first big surprise came when Maeve and Zachary announced that the ‘happy couple’ were being dropped off at a remote log cabin they had rented for two weeks so that we could, ‘be alone and get better acquainted.’ Rosemary literally flinched when Zachary added to Rosemary, “You two need time alone, with no distractions, so your mother is keeping your phones and iPads. You’ll have to learn to be together without all your usual distractions.”