The bomber jacket, p.1
The Bomber Jacket, page 1
The Bomber Jacket
K.M. King
Wild Ink Publishing, LLC
A Wild Ink Publishing Publishing Original
wild-ink-publishing.com
Copyright © 2024 K.M. King
Edited by Ian Tan and Brittany McMunn
Cover design and layout by Abigail Wild
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ISBN: 978-1-958531-79-2 (Paperback)
978-1-958531-80-8 (ebook
Any references to events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names and characters are products of the author’s imagination.
Contents
1. Part 1: 1997
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Part 2: 1939-1944
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Part 3: Past and Present
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
About K.M. King
Acknowledgements for The Bomber Jacket
one
Part 1: 1997
“Three five six point six. Three five six point five. Three five six point four.” Beth mouthed the mileage markers as they blipped by the passenger window in a green blur, keeping time with her right foot on the floorboard of the car.
“Do you have your passport, Susie Q?”
“Yes, Grandpa,” Beth replied. “It’s right here, same place it’s been since we left the house.” She patted the thin, black passport purse hanging around her neck. “My ticket too.”
After three and a half years of attending college part-time, she had finally accumulated enough credits to be a junior, and more than enough funds in her bank account for this very ticket to Scotland. Her first choice had been England, the country of her literary heroes—William Shakespeare, Lord Byron, and Jane Austen among them. But she had gotten enough signs to encourage the switch and ignore her grandparents’ objections, particularly those unnerving dreams.
A slight smell of old leather had drifted up when she patted her purse. She sniffed appreciatively, never tiring of the scent or feel of her vintage RAF bomber jacket. Her grandfather Henry’s aftershave, with its hint of pine trees and burnt wood, also hung in the car’s confined space. A gift from a long-lost friend in 1941. Her bomber jacket had been a gift to herself. Her grandmother Naomi called it “an ugly thing from a war that everyone wants to forget.”
Henry’s thumbs kept beat with the steady kathunk, kathunk, kathunk of the tires on the road’s seams, driving eastward on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in his habitually careful way, five miles under the posted speed limit, oblivious to the glaring drivers who zoomed past.
“Now, what time is your flight again?”
“Grandpa, we’ve got plenty of time.” Beth’s boot kept tapping as she stared into the steel gray January afternoon, trying to focus on the mile signs instead of the anxiety his question raised. “My flight doesn’t leave until three fifty-five. We only need to be at the airport an hour before boarding. It’s just two-fifteen, and we’re nearly at the river.”
The car hit a bump, sending the taste of shellfish and lard into her throat. She’d requested only yogurt and granola, but Naomi had shamed her into having homemade crab cakes, French fries, and coleslaw.
“I’ve gone to all this trouble to make your favorite dinner, and you’re not even going to eat it?”
“You’ve never even flown…” Henry’s voice interrupted thoughts of Naomi’s shuttered face and stiff goodbye embrace. “…and you’ve got to change planes in New York…”
“Grandpa, I’ll be fine.” Beth put as much assurance as she could into her voice.
Henry nodded. “I don’t doubt you can take care of yourself, Pumpkin. You’ve had to do too much of that over the years. You’re even paying your own way through college. It’s not how I wanted it.”
“Oh, don’t go getting all sentimental on me now; you’ll turn me into a blubbering idiot,” she countered with a joke, needing her grandfather to be his usual calm, unruffled self.
“It’s just that there’s no one to meet you in London, Beth. You’ll have to get to your hotel and later the train station…”
“It’s okay, Grandpa, really. I got all the details I needed from school. I know the taxi fare to the hotel, which is already booked for my two-night stay. I’ve already bought the train ticket for Sunday’s trip to Edinburgh. It’s the Flying Scotsman. Isn’t that a cool name for a train?”
Her grandfather muttered, “I knew a flying Scotsman, once,” before he grew suddenly silent. Relieved by the quiet, Beth scanned the slate-colored, seamless clouds for precipitation. As they neared the Susquehanna River, the overhanging hills cast the car into a gloomy shadow. When Henry said several times that morning that “it smelled like snow,” Beth regretted turning down a friend’s offer for the forty-five-minute ride from Carlisle to the Harrisburg Airport. She knew her grandfather hated driving in bad weather.
At least he didn’t seem to mind the chill in only his cardigan sweater, but Beth was glad for her wool-lined leather coat.
“You can wear history, lovey!” The owner of the vintage clothing shop told her in October when she saw Beth admiring it. “World War II. Royal Air Force. It’s the real deal and a bargain for the price I’m asking. Try it on.”
At four-hundred and twenty-five dollars, it was no bargain, but the six-month temp job as a road crew flagger had bulked up her bank account.
“It looks great with your brunette ponytail,” the shop owner gushed. “And for a tall, lanky girl like you, finding the right coat must be hard. This one fits like it was custom-made.”
True enough, Beth instantly felt at home in the jacket. It was more than the right fit though. Something about it gave her a sense of presence.
When she got home that Saturday afternoon to the faded Victorian house on Pitt Street where she had been raised by her grandparents, Naomi was in the huge kitchen, doing her Saturday baking. She had just pulled a pumpkin pie from the oven when Beth walked in.
“Hi, Grandma.”
Catching the sight of Beth in her vintage coat, Naomi gasped, the pie tumbling from her hands to land with a crack of splintered glass and orange splatter on the spotless, washed-out linoleum floor. Her deeply wrinkled face was as white as her starched apron.
After a moment of shocked silence, Beth took several hurried steps toward her grandmother, “Nana! Nana, are you…”
“No, absolutely not!” Naomi thrust one trembling hand forward as if to ward off an attacker. “Where did you get that… thing? Henry said he… I told you a thousand times to stay out of the garage attic.”
“I never go up there! It’s locked, anyway!”
Naomi pulled a ladder-back chair away from the huge farmhouse table, and sat down, shaking, taking shallow breaths. “Answer me. Where’d you. Get. That. Thing.”
Beth tried to keep the alarm from her voice. “Wear It Again, Sam—the vintage clothing shop on High Street,” she said, stepping closer.
“Why in the hell did you buy such an ugly thing?” Naomi’s voice was still shaky.
Beth decided to avoid yet another endless, useless match of wills and simply said, “I’ve always wanted one.”
“You’ll take it back this very minute!”
As usual, her grandfather tried to intervene, but his “Now Naomi, it’s only a jacket,” had sent her grandmother stomping out. But her grandmother’s over-the-top reaction wasn’t the most unsettling occurrence of the day, for that night she had the first of many intense dreams that slowly changed everything.
“Only a couple minutes now.”
Her grandfather’s voice interrupted Beth’s reverie once again, and she realized they were crossing the Susquehanna River where massive chunks of ice floated by in silent elegance.
Beth had a sudden image of her grandparents’ life without her: Henry sitting alone in the cozy TV room, flipping between the History Channel and Turner Classic Movies. Naomi was in the spotless kitchen concocting some high-cholesterol dinner that her grandfather wasn’t supposed to eat.
Her stomach suddenly clenched. “Grandpa, you’ll remember to take your heart medicine, won’t you?”
After a moment, Henry said in a stern voice, “History’s important you know, Beth. There’s lots of history where you’re going.”
Beth tried to follow his train of thought. “Yes, I’ve been reading lots of Scottish history ever since I changed my study-abroad destination.”
“I’m not talking about ancient history,” Henry replied. “Though I guess at your age, any history seems ancient.”
Beth laughed. She had grown up watching Henry’s favorite television shows and movies, many of them focused on World War II.
“You’re going to places that are important to your history.” He said it so softly, Beth barely heard him. She had been pointing to the exit for the airport.
“My history? You mean your history. Your war years and all.” Not that she ever pressed her grandfather about his war experiences. Even when she was younger, she understood this was something too painful for a casual chat.
“Goddammit, it’s snowing!”
Her grandfather’s rare profanity was a sure sign of his unspoken worry. She could see several light flakes.
“Grandpa, just drop me at the terminal. At the unloading point. I don’t want you to get caught on the highway in a storm.”
“Goddammit!” Henry muttered again, as he pulled up to the luggage drop-off point. Beth’s heart lurched at the sadness on her grandfather’s face. It took all her willpower to hold back tears as she unbuckled her seatbelt and grabbed the backpack at her feet. “Pull the trunk release, Grandpa.”
She had already hoisted the two huge suitcases onto the sidewalk by the time her grandfather walked to the back of the car.
A man behind her said, “Skycap? Ma’am? Can I take your bags?”
Henry nodded to the uniformed baggage handler. After pressing a bill into the man’s hand, he slammed the trunk lid with undue force. At an alarming speed, the flurries became thick, heavy flakes landing on Beth’s hair, kissing her cheeks as they fluttered by.
“You should have a hat on, Beth.” Her grandfather’s voice was as gritty as sandpaper. “Come on, let’s get you out of the weather.”
“Please, Grandpa, you’ll just make it harder for me if you come in and wait. Plus, you can’t park the car here. I’ll worry about you driving home if the snow gets worse.” Beth felt her voice shaking. In her twenty-two years, she’d rarely been away overnight from her grandparents. Perhaps she had sensed her grandfather was terrified he’d lose her as he’d lost her mother; or maybe she had dreaded asking her cold, forbidding grandmother for permission to do ordinary things girls her age did.
Henry clenched and unclenched his hands. “What if your flight is canceled?”
“I’m sure it won’t be. And if it is, I’ll call. I promise.”
When had he gotten so frail-looking?
“It’s not right to let you go off across the ocean without someone to wave goodbye.”
“Oh, Grandpa, I’ll be fine. Really.” Beth threw her arms around him, all the joy of the journey draining away with unexpected worry. He returned her embrace with a rib-cracking bear hug. She heard his breath catch as he stepped away, moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes. Reaching into his shirt pocket, he took out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to her.
“What is it?” She took the paper, confused.
“Put it away someplace safe. It’s a list of places to go see in Scotland. Places you need to see, Susanna Elizabeth.”
She was unnerved by his intensity, by his fervor. What was that he had said earlier about places important to her history? She tucked the strange words away. No time now. “Sure, Grandpa, sure,” she said, thrusting the list into her jeans pocket, out of the dampness of the falling snow.
The skycap cleared his throat. “Which airline, ma’am?”
“American Airlines,” Henry answered for her.
Beth kissed her grandfather’s wrinkled cheek. “I love you, PopPop.” She whispered the childhood endearment in his ear. “Please take good care of yourself while I’m gone.”
Her grandfather surprised her by gripping her shoulders and looking her straight in the eye. “No matter what you learn, remember I thought I was doing the right thing. For everyone. Don’t forget that, Pumpkin. Please don’t forget that.”
“What, forget what?” Beth replied, startled and confused.
“Coming, ma’am?” the skycap interjected, distracting Beth.
“Bye, Grandpa,” she said, fighting to keep her composure as she followed the baggage handler out of the biting cold into the terminal. Once inside, Beth turned to wave. Her grandfather stared at her forlornly. When he blew her a kiss, Beth managed to blow one in return, then hurried after the skycap, her eyes blurry.
With her bags checked through, Beth was free to roam JFK airport during her three-hour layover. But the distraction of shops and people-watching soon wore off. She found a quiet corner to sip a cup of Earl Grey and examine her grandfather’s list near a neon sign displaying today’s date and time: January 2, 7:09 p.m.
The items seemed to be in no particular order: Edinburgh. Drem Aerodrome. Traprain Law. Holyrood.
She knew Edinburgh was the capital of Scotland. After all, she was going to the University of Edinburgh. Holyrood was a palace in Edinburgh. Skye was an island to the west on the must-see list in her tour book. Stirling was the site of a famous castle and the Wallace Monument. The others she hadn’t heard of.
Thinking of her ultimate destination, she recalled the first Sunday of November, the day she’d made her impulsive decision to switch schools and countries for her semester abroad. And what a day it was. First, a minister from the Church of Scotland preached at their Presbyterian Church. She was enthralled by the soft burr of his accent and the smattering of Scottish words that slipped into his sermon—wee lassies, aye, kirk, burn.
That afternoon, curled up with the Sunday paper, she came across an article encouraging tourists to visit Scotland year-round, not just during the famous Edinburgh Arts Festival in August which culminated in a massed performance of hundreds of bagpipers. How strange to encounter Scotland twice in one day.
That evening she joined her grandfather halfway through a television show about Mary, Queen of Scots. When pictures of Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh appeared on the screen, a sudden, uncontrollable shiver ran through her body.
She must have made some kind of noise, because Henry looked at her oddly and said, “Ducky, are you okay? Are you cold? You’re shivering!” He draped her grandmother’s crocheted, striped afghan over her shoulders.
“Thanks, Grandpa, thanks. I’m not cold, but this feels good, though. It’s just… well, weird. Today we had that Scottish preacher from Edinburgh. Boy, I loved his accent, didn’t you? And then this afternoon I came across an article about Edinburgh and now this show…”
An idea was percolating in Beth’s mind. “Maybe it’s a sign.”
“A sign?” Her grandfather stared at her. “What kind of… sign?”
“Well, three things, in one day, about Edinburgh. And when I was investigating opportunities for study abroad, the University of Edinburgh was an option, but I brushed it off ‘cause I’m a British Literature major and wanted to go to England, but maybe…”
“But maybe what, Pumpkin?”
Beth stood, suddenly excited. “Yeah, that’s what I’ll do! Tomorrow I’ll ask my counselor if there’s a way to change schools.”
“It’s not like you to be impulsive.” Her grandfather frowned at her in the oddest way.
“No, it’s not,” she agreed, wondering at his look. “But it’s fun to do something on a whim, and Scottish universities have a great reputation. I can still visit England, in the summer before I come home. Cool! I’m really excited now. I’m going to go make some notes about what I’ll need to ask the counselor.”
“Will they let you change so late in the game?” Her grandfather took a sip from his cup of tea. He liked something warm in the evening.
Beth put her hands on her hips and grinned. “I’ll come up with this story that I’ve just discovered I have Scottish ancestors and I want to do some family research.”
Her grandfather began coughing violently, the teacup in his hand rattling. She grabbed the cup and saucer and put them on the end table. “Are you all right?” she said in alarm, patting him firmly on the back.
“Yes… yes… I’m… I’m… fine,” he said between coughs that rattled his whole body.
“Here, stand up and walk around. That might help.” She pulled him to his feet. “Let’s go out to the kitchen,” she said, leading him toward the back of the house. She tried not to panic, knowing his history of heart attacks.
