Prologue: Past 

I remember it like it was yesterday, the first day he came 'round. First the noise - the engine setting the whole sky to shaking; then the sight of him jumping from the cockpit - wheels hardly stilled - coming down the road to my father's place kicking at the dust like it needed any help to get up and into everything.

Of course I knew he was back before then. There'd been talk in town, at the grocers, the post office; 'bout how he'd come back different - keeping to himself, sullen even as some had it, quiet. They felt cheated by the loss of him, how he'd once been, and I could understand that.

But better that than them hadn't come back at all, I always said, though it drew a few slanty looks. None of them that'd gone away had come back the same, had they? But then, most of them hadn't had his light, hadn't had his light go out like that. He just shied around a few weeks then went and sold his father's place for a rickety old crop-duster. Then talk was how he must have gone crazy, too, on top of everything else.

But I knew different, knew it in my heart. Just can't keep that one down on the ground.

It was hotter than Hades, that first day. Even before I had breakfast cleared you could tell come noon there'd be no living in it. Well, the heat makes a good day for washing at any road and that's just what I'd planned to do. Guess around here you learn to see the good in the bad, take what comes. Hot wash water makes the air feel cooler, cool rinse just makes you feel human again. And the hot wind would have the whole lot dry in no time. It would just leave me time for a quick bathe in the creek to cool off proper before Dad would be needing his dinner.

So there I was, tromping down the lane, hair in a rag, towel over my shoulder, loosest, most worn dress on I could find, when that plane flies over my head scaring me half to death and before I've had time to even think about running back to the house to change here he comes strolling free as you please down the road to my Dad's farm. My dad's farm.

Lachlan.

I'd have known him anywhere and here he was practically in my own front yard. He stopped and just nodded as we drew close, squinting up the side of his mouth. Gave me a chance to take him all in, see for myself just what was what. And look I did.

He was taller than when he left - boy grown into a man - and leaner, though still sporting the broad shoulders and full chest that had kept me awake more nights than I could count, wondering what it would be like to fold myself against the warm, solid size of him. Despite their talk so much about him hadn't changed: the way he looked like he didn't give a damn and how he stood now with his hands in his pockets, head tilted to one side, cocky forelock already slipping into that irrepressible curl. But gone was that easy grin I'd always loved, even though it had never shone on me.

And there was something else, too ... something beyond just the quiet face and the leaner build.

The war had changed him. Sure, it had changed all of us, changed everything, but he'd seen more of it than most and it was there, a darkness behind the blue of his eyes, a shadow behind the squint. I guess killing's killing, even from a couple miles up.

Yeah, the years, the war, had changed him, but they hadn't changed the things looking at him could do to a girl. Could do to me, had always done. I would have been happy just to stand there all afternoon.

"G'day, Nan."

Even his voice made me shiver in the stifling heat. I remember feeling foolishly flattered that he even remembered me - skinny, freckled thing holding up the wall at local dances while he catted around his pick of the girls. Truth was the war had changed me too, brought me my mother's breasts, fuller hips and a curl to my hair just when there was no one to notice.

"G'day, Lachlan. What brings you 'round these parts?"

He put out a cigarette under the toe of his boot and considered the dirt for a moment, thick hair the color of fall wheat shining in the sun. Then he looked up.

"I heard your dad might be needin' some help, now old Hank's gone off."

Sure enough Henry Tompkins, our hired hand, had run off with Sue Trainor only a week before and here was Lachlan, of all people, coming down the lane to apply for the job.

I couldn't help but squint right back at him in the bright sun. Never imagined him for a farmer, him always dreaming of wings. What would it be like having Lachlan working here? I couldn't fathom it: him living here, cooking his meals, seeing him every day in and day off. Just thinking of it made my heart race, my body warm and not with the sun. Taking a deep breath I thought I almost got a fleeting tang of his scent in the wind and had to swallow.

"So's he about? Your dad?" 

"Hmmmm? Oh, yeah." I shook myself and hoped he'd see my blush for heat exposure. Why couldn't he have showed up on a day I didn't look like a farm hand myself? But then, when was such a day? I swallowed again and gestured back the way I'd come.

"He'll be off behind the barn 'bout now - just there. I'll show you if you like."

I wanted to hold him in time, keep him right where he was, talking to me from the other side of the cattle grate. Talking to me.

"Nah, no worries, Nan. Wouldn't want to keep you from your swim on a day like this." A wave of his hand seemed to take in my bound hair, the towel on my shoulder, my holey shoes all at once. Then he stepped passed me, too quick!

"'Ta, then."

"'Ta"

It was over.

Part 1: Present (Under Glass)

So it began. Lachlan moved into the room out back that Henry had had and helped Dad with the farming. I wouldn't have figured him to like workin' the earth, the sky always being his calling, but our crops did better that year than they had in a long time.

And before long my hands stopped shaking when I poured him his tea or took his plate. Though when he and Dad had left the house I'd sometimes sit and just be with the feeling of him, sip my cup next to his empty chair or stand for a moment looking out the window of that small back room.

The work of my day came to take longer and longer. Straightening up the place made it look like he'd never been there, as if I'd imagined him, and I hated to do it. I could hardly make his bed without putting my hands on the sheets he'd slept in, smoothing them down imagining the shape of his body beneath my palms. I wanted take his scent into me and wear it like perfume.

But washing day became a particular trial. What once I'd rushed through now kept me busy for hours as I reluctantly wrung the dust and the smell of him out of his work shirts and clothes; made them clean and anonymous, things with no past.

Like Lachlan.

It seems most our boys came back from the war missing something: a hand, a leg, or worse - something you couldn't see. And it wasn't many days of watching Lachlan waft about the farm, going wherever the work took him before I realized he'd lost something, too.

His future.

Somehow something he'd seen or done had taken it away from him, that part of him that could dream and plan for what's to come. It was as though he couldn't imagine anything beyond plowing that field, even the sowing of it; he never asked me what was for dinner, didn't care to tell the days of the week apart from each other. I watched him shrug when Dad asked his mind, laugh when his old mates spouted their plans, even shy away from girls down the pub when they got too close. It was as though he could no longer bear to think the future had anything to offer him.

And just as Lachlan's future had been taken away from him he'd left some part of himself back in the past, too, in the places he'd been. Every now and then I'd find him stuck there, standing in the field or sitting in the cockpit, just staring. Then I'd gently take his arm, murmur his name and bring him home.

But it wasn't always so peaceful. More than a few times, in the silence of night, I was woken by his voice coming from the little room out back, moaning or crying out. And once I heard a name: "Lil."

Not that there weren't girls in the now, too; just nothing ever lasted. Still I couldn't help lying sleepless those nights he'd slip off in Dad's car, waiting for the wash of headlights across my wall and listening for the gentle chug chug of the motor. Then I'd roll over and dream it had been my hands mussed his hair, my lipstick marked his neck and stained his cupid-bow mouth.

And me? I waited for those nights he'd come and sit with me in the parlor or on the front porch, read the paper or ask about the book I'd just had from the library. But often as not we just sat, listening to the radio or the quiet, alone in our thoughts, together.

We made quite a pair: man with no future, girl with no past.

Through it all he kept flying, though he never once took me with him. Sometimes before dawn but more often at sunset I'd hear that old engine cough and rattle, then break into a roar and off he'd climb into the empty blue. But he always came back. Always came back to me. He was even asked by the Town Council to take on passengers as an attraction for the County Fete, for a small fee of course. To my surprise, he agreed.

That was the day I imagined things could be different between us.

Part 2: Present (Tense)

It was a fine, clear morning. I walked Lachlan out to the plane knowing it would be hours 'til I saw him again, if at all. The only sound was a few birds twittering to each other and the slap of wet weeds reaching out to hold him as we walked on by. The near silence wrapped around the two of us like a blanket we were sharing.

Lachlan kept his plane out in one of our fallow fields and when we arrived I stopped short to watch him ready for take off. He made it such a production of it! I was more than happy to be his audience.

It was like a dance: how he moved about the fuselage to check the tail flaps, caressed a wing, turned and came about to the prop, then ducked under to the other wing before gliding back to the bonnet to have a look inside. I couldn't have kept my eyes off him if I'd tried: the way that rowdy curl fell over his forehead; how the morning sun lit the inside of his blue-gray eyes; how the clothes I'd washed and ironed only yesterday stretched across his broad shoulders, his long arms, muscular thighs and fine rear end. I know it was shameful; I couldn't help but look. He took my breath away.

Last, for an encore, Lachlan would leap out of the cockpit, sweep under the plane and draw the chalks away. But that day he added a coda: a big, bright beautiful smile aimed right at me. I stood speechless as he took a step toward me and held out his hand. Could he mean to take me flying, this time at last? I felt my heart leapt against my chest. But as I raised my hand to take his, the forgotten pail I'd packed him of cold ham, biscuits and ginger beer came with and called me a fool.

That's what he'd wanted, of course, and while he took it I cursed false hope and prayed my ever-present blush wouldn't show in the gold morning light. But Lachlan must have seen something, for in the next moment his smile had faded and I felt his fingertips brush my cheek.

I must admit I thought I could die right there and, for a moment, thought I had. Lachlan seemed to stare right into my guilty heart, steady hand warm on my face, as if seeing something for the first time. Then, like he was waking from a dream and didn't know where, that hand quickly dropped away and he took a step backward.

For a second, I saw a look of such surprise and mingled sadness on his face it nearly broke my heart, but it was quickly erased by a boyish smirk. He even winked as he stepped to the plane s'if I was one of the girls down the pub. I felt damp and cold.

Then, one foot on the wing ready to go, he looked back.

"Don't worry, Nan, flying's not for you. You're like the trees, the flowers -- part of the earth 'round here."

A moment later he was up and in the cockpit, goggles slipped into place already tapping gauges and flipping switches.

But as I faded back into the weeds I heard the engine sputter to life and, just above the roar, Lachlan's voice as if in benediction.

"You're my roots now, Nan. Don't you go anywhere."

It was a grand day. In town Dad and I met with friends and neighbors watching the parade, playing the games and generally celebrating the day. We picnicked and lounged on the grass of the town square, and later laughed and waved every time Lachlan's plane buzzed the steeple, taking some new thrill-seeker up for a ride. I didn't even mind that most of them were girls setting their caps for him. His murmuring voice kept circling in my head: "You're my roots now, Nan. Don't you go anywhere."

Still it felt like a long time till I saw him again and the voice had grown quiet. Darkness fell and the band started; the crowd broke down into couples drifting in under the lights. I found myself a quiet spot in the dusk where no one would notice me squinting my eyes up looking for him, and tried to see behind the lights.

Nearby the dancers twirled. So beautiful: the girls in their starched and pleated best flying like birds in a storm; men laughing, a little sloppy a little dusty but doing their best to stand up smart and straight.

Oh, how I envied them, always did. Back even when we were kids and Lachlan was cock-of-the walk-at all the dances. He always seemed lit from something deep inside, something unbreakable, something gone now lost over a field in France maybe.

I'd never danced with Lachlan, never even stood up with him that close 'cept this morning, but I'd watched him plenty and dreamed more. I knew for sure what it would be like: my one hand so small in his, my other feeling the coiled strength in his round shoulder, his right resting on that declining plane between my waist and my shoulder blade. Then together we'd move: him going so gracefully he'd hardly have to lead, I'd just be drawn after him like a magnet. I could almost feel Lachlan's solid wall of a chest pressed against my soft one, smell his own uniquely spicy Lachlan smell and sense his thighs, his - separated by thin cloth and thinner air from mine.

I knew I was being foolish that evening, imagining Lachlan could ever be interested in such a one as me, no better than a farm hand myself. But I couldn't help it - the lights, the music, the warmth of the evening, and the warmth of his voice still breathing over my ear - "Nan."

How was I to know he'd come to stand right behind me? When after a time I convinced myself to turn away, find Dad, stop dreaming and get myself home to sleep I turned and ran right into the great warm wall of him.

I don't know when but he'd gone to the trouble to spruce himself up. He was wearing a fresh shirt and I could see the collar was damp from where he'd slicked his hair and washed up a bit. A little flying dust still stuck just under his eyes and I couldn't fault it.

I stumbled back and he caught me, large square hands bracing my arms. Dream-like, I felt those hands slid around my body, take my hand and waist. Then, wordlessly, Lachlan stepped away and swept me across the floor.

I closed my eyes and found I didn't need them. It was a slow waltz and Lachlan led us effortlessly through it. I leaned my head against his jaw and felt a little stubble comb into my hair. We were joining. I breathed deeply and took his smell into my lungs, a heady mix of beer, petrol and something else - something unfathomable like the clear blue sky. I drank it in deeply.

His grip tightened; he pulled me closer and my arm slid over the crest of his shoulder and around to the back of his neck. I felt the cool drops of his washing slide between my fingers and wanted to take them to my tongue. His hips moved against mine, the subtle muscles and sinews powering his legs shifting and sliding against me. I felt my breasts stiffen as his shirt whispered against the fabric of my dress. I almost forgot to breathe as we moved in perfect rhythm.

Too soon the dance ended and we pulled apart. Lachlan squeezed my hand and I felt his voice low against my cheek.

"Cheers, Nan; that was grand."

Then, hands in pockets, he faded away into the crowd. I ducked my head and went to find Dad.

Seems I'd been taken flying after all.

Part 3: Present (Opening)

We never spoke of it - haven't still - but I know it meant something to Lachlan too, that dance. I could see it in the way he moved about the house, how careful he was to not actually touch anything, me. But he left the shape of his body everywhere like ripples in the air I could almost see. It felt like we were dancing all over again, sharing the space of the house and the fields, sharing the not talking about the one thing we both were thinking of all the time - how well and easily our bodies fit together on the floor.

Still, mostly, things went back to normal. Sun rose, work got done, meals were eaten, sun set and stars showed. Summer went on.

It was another blazin' day, just like the one he'd shown up in, when I knew it was done between us. The air just seemed to hang on you like a hot sheet in the middle of the night. I went down for a bathe hoping at least the creek'd be moving. It wasn't.

After having a bit of a scrub down, I sank back into the water wanting it to hold me in place of him. I curled up and sank down under.

In the quiet water everything that was invisible above became solid and clear: the light slicing in green, the air in bubbles bobbing up around me, a whole lot of nameless stuff just floating by, crystalline. Only I felt unreal, weightless, inconsequential: free. I remember wondering if this was how Lachlan felt flying; as if being out of place only made it all make more sense.

We made some picture, Lachlan and me: the sweet, lucky charmer and the plain little never-noticed used to gaze on after him. For good or ill the war had changed all that. Out here on the farm time went by: I grew up, curves started showing. But before, where no one had looked, now there was no one to see. And up there? flying out over Germany and Holland? It seemed time had stopped for him and now there was no going back or forward. Yeah, some pair, us.

That's when I saw him. He appeared in the clear little window the water made over my head, coming down the creek bank for all the world like I'd made him up out of dreaming. And I could have: shirt hanging open and off his shoulders with the heat and the walk, hair all mussed and dusty, body moving easy thinking there was no one there to see. Just me.

I was so surprised I lost my breath and came bursting to the surface hoping the water could wash my hair, my dress, my heartbeat into smooth order. I sputtered and swiped the wet out of my eyes and came face to face with him: Lachlan crouched on a rock, smiling quietly, corner of his mouth tucked up just a bit.

"So this is where you sneak off to, eh Nan?" He cocked his head to one side and I watched that cheeky forelock fall loose.

His voice washed a wave of soft coolness over me on that hot day, but his face troubled me. He'd put on his "no worries" face; the one he used to cover up the real face, the trouble face. I'd seen it, oh, plenty times before but today I could see something else under there too, something new. Behind the gray-sky-blue eyes was a hesitation, an unsuredness I'd never seen in him before, like he was flying off the map on a cloudy day.

So I tried to dish his teasing right back at him, to play along.

"Yeah, but what are you doing here? Dad'll be looking for you."

"Nah, we've knocked off. Too bloody hot."

I made a show of squinting up at what sky peaked though the trees. "Could be just as bad tomorrow."

"No, not possible."

Then Lachlan began to pull off the shirt was mostly hanging on him anyway. Still, I watched transfixed as the full round flesh of his shoulders and arms came into view. I'd washed that shirt only two days ago; it was one of my favorites, soft and worn in. I remembered stopping myself from slipping it on, taking it down from the line all warm and hazy. It took a sharp nod of Lachlan's fair head, forelock dangling, to bring me back to the here and now.

"Turn your back."

"What?"

I watched his smile broaden just a little, and a little of the old feckless Lachlan peaked out and made my heart skip. "Can't have you seeing me in the all-in-all now, can we?"

"Oh! No, course not. No." So I turned, wishing all the while for eyes in the back of my head. Even as I listened for the whisper of cloth against skin my brain was spinning.

What was he doing here? It wasn't like Lachlan to knock off in the middle of the day. No matter what the heat he always seemed to find something to do, not to be idle, not to let his thoughts get loose. And here he was now come to my bathing spot unusually playful. And there was that thing, lurking behind his eyes, a thing that had driven him out of the house and out here. Well, maybe he just needed a little cool off, I reckoned. Like me.

It wasn't until I heard a tell-tale splashing I dared turn back.

And Lachlan was gone. I had just enough time to wonder if it hadn't all been wishful thinking before he broke the surface with a great splash and his tossing head threw water everywhere in a tremendous glittering arc. Then he effortlessly arched back and lay on top of the water, floating free.

And there it was, right in front of me, the pretty package I'd dreamed about these past long nights. And I couldn't help it - I let my eyes do what my hands had only dreamed of, glide down over the broad forehead, boyish cheeks, strong nose and cupid's-bow mouth I knew so well - the deep crystal blueness I could practically drown in - to long arms drifting carelessly away from a high chest. Now there was a space just right to nestle into, and I wanted badly to rest my head there and rub my nose in his soft sparse hair, breathe him in. Then the flat belly unexpectedly tender passed, I saw more soft hair growing between narrow hips, and the round length of his powerful thighs all gathered around what lay coyly beneath his white undershorts, just rising above water level.

I lost myself just looking at him. Felt me there lying at his side, stretched against the firm length of him; left behind the girl crouched in the pool, water to her chest, eyes wide and wanting. Lord knows what my face showed. I can only imagine I looked very much like a cat with cream when cream is strictly off the menu.

That must be what Lachlan saw when he straightened, a look of naked lust and hunger breaking on my little farm-girl's face.

What I saw when I met his eyes was the new thing behind just growing bigger and bigger, 'til it took over his whole face - soft lips pressed to almost nothing, eyes grown little-boy-wide, water fairly dripping off those long lashes.

We just stared at each other, and through it all I could feel the flush climbing out from between my breasts to swallow my throat and catch my face on fire. I couldn't believe it, what I'd done; I might just as well have lifted my skirt up over my head I felt that naked to him. It was embarrassing, it was mortifying, it was more than I knew what to do with. So I did the only thing I could think of: I slipped.

I just let the basin floor fly out from beneath my feet in hopes the creek would swallow me up, take me to that quiet clear place I'd been held in before, hoped beyond hope I could just sink away and maybe when I came up he'd be gone and this all would never have happened.

There was a moment of bubbly confusion, then the cool clear green of the water surrounding me with quiet. Then his arms - I felt Lachlan's arms enclose my body and pull me to him. He caught me in his arms and held me as the water had, securely, safely. Then I almost drowned - my mouth pressed against his shoulder I wanted to breathe him in but couldn't - and the next moment we'd come to shore. I held on for dear life.

I felt him lay me out and the hot hardness of rock beneath my back (the stone he'd first sat on), felt a hand run quickly over my body (I felt scalded where he touched me), then (most unbelievable) his lips press against mine. Soft and hard all at once, his lips matched to mine and just pressed down gently, firmly. The thought flitted across my brain, still submerged in pathetic anguish, that he meant to give me the kiss of life but it was over way to soon.

Then his arms wrapped around me again, pulled me against him, started rocking me to him on the stone - back and forth, back and forth, like he was comforting a child. His voice dropped words in my ears that ran straight to my heart warming, though it was blurry with water and feverish fear.

"Nan, Nan, don't leave me. Don't leave me. Not you, not one more, not any ever again. You can't leave me, Nan. You can't. Not you. I need you. I need you here, on the ground, waiting for me. With me. With me."

Low and quick it came, skipping over his words like he was sorting through stones -- "You don't know what it's like, Nan, how many times ... how many ... sometimes when I'm up there, up in the blue, I feel it all just slip away - like there's nothing, like nothing ever happened, like nothing ever did, like there's nothing there at all. And then I think I could go, just keep on going, Nan, not ever come back. And flying's in me, is me, in me - It's the only thing that makes sense, in a crazy way. It's the only thing I know I'm good at, the only thing I really know, the blue - that emptiness, that quiet. It's in me. It just ... just ..."

Then he grew still, Lachlan, and his voice dropped almost to nothing so's I felt I had to stop my heart to hear.

"Just ... scares me so much, scares me more than anything. Sometimes, when I'm up there, I lose track, lose my way, my bearings ... my ... Then I can't see anymore - only sky; don't hear anything, only wind. Just the way it was over ... over ... before. And then it's like, I don't know where I am, what I'm s'posed to do, who... And it's not just up there, sometimes it's down here - one minute I'm standing there and the next minute I'm - not ..."

Then I felt Lachlan's breath catch in his throat where it touched my shoulder, and the long muscles of his bare back began to lengthen. His voice leveled off.

"Then ... then I see you, down below ... across the yard, across the table ... and it's like ... nothing's changed, everything's allright. Nothing's changed, not ever. You're the same, still the same - no, not the same, but then I can be, I guess, the same; I guess I can be. I guess ... Nan ... Nan ... It's you. It's you."

Then a great sob shook him, rolled up from his belly to force his words out into the air - "You can't let it take me away, Nan, the wind - don't let it all blow me away!"

Then of course it was me holding him, rocking him, my voice in his ear seeking to soothe him, saying anything just so he'd hear the calm, and not my heart beating hammers.

"Hush, Love, hush, hush ... Nobody's going anywhere. Nobody's going anywhere." And I knew it was true. Knew neither of us was ever going anywhere again.

All my girlhood I'd spent waiting, looking up over my chores, hoping something new would be coming over the horizon and bring tomorrow with it. And even after I knew Lachlan had lost his I kept waiting, waiting for him to pull something out of his pocket could make everything all shiny and different for me. Now, here he was, asking for what I'd had all along and never wanted - every day to be just like the other. And it was me could give it to him.

So, I took him in. Just like we had at the farm and he'd always been in my heart I took him in; let him take the space inside me no one else ever had or ever would. I took him in.

And we fit, my God how we fit.

Epilogue: Future (Perfect)

After that day at the pool it was like something was set loose between us, made everything else alright. Oh, I know they whispered, in town; said I trapped him, took the chance from prettier girls and smarter but we knew the truth - I didn't trap him, I anchored him.

Most of the time we were careful, but sometimes it would just overtake us - in the barn, my kitchen, around the farm. Sometimes we'd make a nest in the crop at night and do it under the stars. After, we'd lie talking 'till dawn, Lachlan pointing to the sky he'd once made his home and naming all the stars for me. If Dad knew, he never said, but let us find our own way. It was just dumb luck our son arrived discreetly eleven months after the wedding, our only sorrow Dad didn't live to see it.

And he never has told me about the war, his part in it. Another woman might have pushed, needed to know everything but not me. I know his scars, inside and out, the buried places and that they're slowly healing. That's enough for me.

Sometimes I still find him just standing staring into nothing, or at our baby boy and I know he's caught somewhere in the past, thinking about our little Ezekiel's namesake or something else gone by. And I leave him to it. He always comes back to me and it's the past that makes him the Lachlan I love. The Lachlan who needs me.

And soon I'll give him something else to dream on. Curled deep inside my belly I'm carrying our future. And it's a girl this time, I'm sure of it.