The Invention of Flight Read Online Free PDF Page A

they’re responsible for their own happiness,” she would say across cut-flower arrangements at dinner parties. Mrs. D. never heard of a woman giving birth to a defective baby without saying “She must have had too many drinks or smoked or taken drugs” or of a new case of cancer without tracing it to an earlier tragedy, improperly dealt with. Her own life has been flawless, her health, after the TB, perfect, and she believes she can take credit forthat. A regular churchgoer, she’s proud she gives the Lord so little trouble. She never asks for anything when she prays, aside from world peace and other things she has little control over, and she’s sure that the amount of His time she frees up by causing so little trouble every day helps someone somewhere, the Kentuckians of this world who are always, it seems, so miserable.
    She takes her cup of coffee over to the table and sits down across the crystal goblets from Mrs. Lovelace. As frustrated as she’s been with that whole family, she’s excited by the opportunity to help them. “Now, tell me what’s wrong,” she says, “Mrs. Lovelace.”
    Mrs. Lovelace reaches inside her blouse and pulls out a Kleenex from somewhere among a tangle of straps, then starts tearing it apart distractedly and sniffing. “It’s that man,” she says, and in between sniffing and periodic sobs tells Mrs. D. a long story about her husband’s drinking problem, how he’s beaten her for years, but never badly, and how finally yesterday when he came home and started beating her fifteen-year-old pregnant daughter by her first marriage so that the poor sensitive girl had moved out to stay with a friend and said she wouldn’t be back until the husband was gone, Mrs. Lovelace had decided to kick him out and told him as much. “And he just laughed in my face,” she says, and she rips the Kleenex further as Mrs. D. watches the fibers hit the air and settle on some of the green goblets. “I decided that if I stayed home from work and I got me someone to help, I could move all his belongings out of the house and change the locks and then he’ll see who’ll fix his supper and who won’t.”
    Mrs. D. stands up and starts moving the glasses overto the counter. The beatings don’t shock her really, even incest, which in this case it occurs to her is probable, especially since the man is technically the child’s adopted father and not her real father and so could probably convince himself, if not the daughter, that it was all right, and especially since Mrs. D. has never seen any boys the daughter’s age over at that house—even that wouldn’t shock her. That’s the sort of mess people get themselves into, and now since this woman has asked for her help the only thing to do is to decide on the right course of action and follow it. She turns back to the table and finds out from Mrs. Lovelace how long the beatings have been going on, how severe they were, all the time shaking her head at the nerve, the cold-heartedness of the man until she finally decides that yes, Mrs. Lovelace is right, he can’t live there any more. “You do have to think of your daughter, Mrs. Lovelace,” and Mrs. Lovelace, affecting a martyred look says, “Yes, my daughter.”
    Mrs. D. pours some coffee for her, fixes her a slice of buttered bread, and says, “I’ll go change and then we’ll start moving,” and she leaves the kitchen and goes upstairs. She puts on an old house dress and tennis shoes and looks at herself in the mirror, thinking as she does so that she’s never looked better. Her hair is still naturally dark, her makeup perfect, her eyes as lively as when she was younger. Nothing bad, nothing really out of the way, has ever happened to her. She shivers with excitement, runs her hands down her arms, smoothes her dress. You never know what a day will bring, she thinks, and