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That evening, when Dorothy had recounted her ride in the Jenny for the twelfth time and had eventually fallen asleep, exhausted by all the excitement, Emily invited Adelaide to sit with her a while on the porch as they had every evening since Adelaide’s arrival.

It was a perfectly still night. Hardly a breeze.

The heavy heat of the day lingered in the sticky evening air so that Emily’s dress clung to her skin and a light dew of perspiration settled at the back of her neck.

She could hardly remember what it felt like to be cold.

“It’s so quiet here,” Adelaide said as she sipped a glass of Henry’s corn whiskey. “I’m not sure I could get used to it! Makes a person think too much. All that sprawling emptiness.”

Emily smiled. “You adjust to the silence, and the thinking. Strange, isn’t it, how somewhere so vast can make a person feel so small.

But you do get used to it. Learn to adapt.

Besides, where you hear silence, I hear the prairie.

The howls of wolves and coyotes, and how close they are.

The difference between approaching thunderheads and a herd of wild mustang.

The soft cry of a golden eagle and the kac-kac-kac of a Cooper’s hawk.

The rattlers, the ’hoppers, the scratch of mice and centipedes in the walls.

It’s not so quiet when you know what you’re listening for. ”

Adelaide studied her as she spoke. “You’re really connected to this place, aren’t you.”

“I am now. It took a long time to figure it out, to feel like I belonged.”

“What brought you to Kansas?” Adelaide asked. “And don’t you dare say it was Henry! What brought you here?”

Emily had grown accustomed to Adelaide’s directness during the week she’d spent with her.

She saw a lot of Annie in her—the same confidence and devil-may-care attitude and three different shades of lipstick in her purse—and they’d struck up an easy friendship.

She talked about things with Adelaide that she wouldn’t have discussed with the other women in Liberal.

Laurie Miller had become a dear friend over the years, but she was older than Emily by some twenty years—more like a mother figure.

Ingrid was an intensely private woman, and although Emily had occasionally opened up to her, the connection she felt with Adelaide was different.

May was just May, great fun but not someone to confide in unless you wanted half of Kansas to know your business.

Perhaps it was Adelaide’s impermanence that made it easier for Emily to tell her things she didn’t feel comfortable telling anyone else.

Adelaide would take her confidences and secrets with her.

“A sense of adventure brought me here, I guess. A dream. A longing to do something different besides fold women’s lingerie.”

Adelaide laughed. “Sounds like you made a good decision if that was the alternative.”

Emily let out a long sigh. “It was a good decision, but I’ve doubted it these past months. We hoped for so much when we first came here, and it all seems to have crumbled around us. Sometimes I’m not sure we should be here at all.”

“Really? Would you consider leaving? “

It was a question Emily had circled around again and again since the dusters had started to blow. “If things don’t improve soon, maybe we won’t have a choice.”

“We always have a choice, Emily. It’s what we do with it that matters. Anyway, it sounds to me like I’d better go and find that Okie rainmaker and bring him back for you folks!”

Emily smiled thinly. She wished she had the same faith in this rain man that Henry and the others had. “When will you leave?”

“First light. Catch the sunrise. Best time of day to fly. You and Henry have been kind enough already.”

“Dorothy will miss you terribly,” Emily said. “She’s really brightened since you arrived.” They all had.

Over the last week, Dorothy had taken imaginary journeys in the Jenny, sitting at the controls in the cockpit as Adelaide told her which levers to pull as they pretended to take off.

Adelaide educated the child through entertaining her.

Emily’s approach was more like her mammy’s: stern instruction, pragmatism, common sense.

She’d observed Adelaide’s easy connection with Dorothy with a pang of envy.

Adelaide was the aunt that Emily wished she could be: fun and carefree, beautiful and a little mysterious.

“She’s a cute kid,” Adelaide said as she leaned back in the rocking chair.

“Must admit, I’ve grown awful fond of her.

And don’t worry. Dorothy will be fine. I explained that I would only be here a few days—that some friends are just passengers you travel with for a short while.

” She took a sip of her corn whiskey. “You’re good people, you and Henry.

It must have been tough, taking her in.”

“Anyone would do the same. Lots of folk have. You do what you have to and hope for the best.”

“Well, as far as I can see, you’re doing a great job. She’s lucky to have you both. Family is important. Makes me miss mine when I see you all together.”

Emily had been surprised to learn that Adelaide had been born in Australia and brought to Nebraska by her mother when she was a baby, after her father died in the war.

“Have you ever been back?” Emily asked

“To Aus? Nah. Too far away.”

Emily thought for a moment. “The banner you flew from the plane at the end of the show said ‘The Flying Watsons.’ But there’s only one of you.”

Adelaide took a moment before she replied. “Used to fly with my brother, but that’s in the past now. Maybe it’s time to get a new banner.” She stood up suddenly and stretched out her arms.

“Do you want to talk about him?” Emily offered.

“Not especially.” Adelaide’s eyes softened into a smile. “Anyway, I’m beat. Think I’ll turn in. I’ve a good day’s flying ahead of me tomorrow.” She thought for a moment. “Say, how about I take you up for a spin before I go? Try those big beautiful Kansas skies on for size.”

“In the plane?”

“Yes, in the plane! Unless you’ve a pair of wings you’re hiding beneath that dress?”

Emily felt a leap in her heart. “I couldn’t, Adelaide.”

“Why not?”

There it was again: Why not?

“Well, for a start I’ve never been in a plane before. And I’m not good with heights.”

“Afraid?”

Emily nodded.

“Me, too. Every time.”

“Really?”

“Yes!” Adelaide grabbed Emily’s hand. “That’s what makes it exciting—the fear, the uncertainty.

But you know what scares me even more? Forgetting how to live.

Not taking the risk. Never saying yes. That scares the heck out of me.

” She looked at Emily, her eyes dancing with adventure.

“Fear is a temporary thing, Em. Face it, and it doesn’t exist anymore.

Turn away from it and it’ll haunt you forever. ”

Emily didn’t know what to say.

Adelaide took her silence as an acceptance. “I’ll see you at first light. And dress warm. It’s pretty cold up there.”

“I didn’t say I was coming.”

Adelaide laughed as she walked down the porch steps. “You’ll come!”

—

Emily crept outside just before dawn, careful not to wake Henry or Dorothy.

Adelaide was already at the plane, ready to go. “See! I knew you’d come! What changed your mind?”

“ You did. What you said last night, about forgetting how to live.”

“Well then, no better time to start remembering. It’s a beautiful morning for flying!” She threw Emily a pair of goggles and a flying jacket. “You’ll need these.”

As Emily put them on, Adelaide fired up the propeller and climbed into the cockpit. “Come on up!”

Emily felt like a giddy schoolgirl as she clambered up into the seat behind Adelaide. Her heart hammered in her chest and her skin prickled as Adelaide guided the Jenny out to the landing strip they’d cleared during the week.

“You won’t do any of those loops, will you?” Emily shouted as Adelaide pulled back on the throttle and they began to race down the strip, the plane bumping and juddering over the baked earth beneath them.

Adelaide turned to Emily. “What? Can’t hear you!” She pulled back on a lever and Emily felt her stomach turn cartwheels. “Off we go!”

With a rush of air and a sickening heave, the Jenny lifted from the ground.

Emily screamed. Adelaide said something but Emily couldn’t hear her beneath the thrum of the propeller and the roar of the wind in her ears.

She clung tight to the iron struts in front of her and closed her eyes as the ground seemed to give way beneath them and they sank and rose in terrifying lurching gulps.

Eventually, the plane straightened out.

Emily allowed herself to open one eye, then another.

It was astonishing. Terrifying. Exhilarating.

They were surrounded by beautiful peach-colored skies, as far as she could see.

Below, the prairie stretched impossibly far, a patchwork of flat dry land, punctuated here and there by a white homestead, a distant railroad, a meandering riverbed, devoid of any water.

From up here, the effects of the drought and dust were even more stark.

“Beautiful up here, isn’t it!” Adelaide called.

“It’s incredible!”

There was something so freeing about being untethered from life in every sense.

Emily instantly understood the addiction of the aerialists and barnstormers, the seductive appeal of this life in the sky.

She thought about how Annie would have loved it up here.

So often during these past months, Emily had looked up to the sky, imagining Annie there, looking back at her.

She imagined her now, her bright smile and infectious laughter.

She tentatively reached out a hand, grasping at the air as if she might touch her.

Tears streamed from her face, summoned from the wind or from her heart, she didn’t know.

Whatever it was, she knew this was a safe place to come undone.

She would give herself this moment, these dipping soaring minutes, to let go of everything she’d held inside for so long.

Slowly, she released her grip on the struts and held her arms out at her sides as she closed her eyes and felt as if she were floating.

She was alive in a way she’d never been before.

As she adjusted to the sensation, she began to let go of her fear and embrace the moment, because suddenly the most terrifying feeling of all wasn’t the sudden pitch and roll of the Jenny, but the heave in her heart as she thought about going back down and having to confront everything she’d temporarily left behind.

“You doing okay back there?”

“Yes!” she gasped, the wind snatching her breath and her words away. “Yes!”

Adelaide pointed up and pushed the plane into another steep climb.

Emily screamed, but it was a release of pure exhilaration, not fear. “Keep going,” she shouted. “Climb higher! Go faster!”

She’d forgotten what it felt like to let go, to be wild and reckless.

She wanted to keep flying. She wanted to chase the sunrise forever.