The Eagle and the Hawk

The plane stood majestically alone, its four bladed propeller tipped in the same bright yellow as the lettering on its cowl. There was no one else around at the moment and Jennifer’s heart skipped a beat when she read the name Susie Q just below the exhaust ports of the beautifully maintained aircraft. She reached up to touch the cool aluminum surface and the memories almost overwhelmed her. Turning she noted the small plaque mounted on a stand near the plane.

P-51D Mustang

Restored and donated to the Confederate

(commemorative) Air Force

1967 by Eddie Moreland, deceased, fighter pilot

with the 20th Fighter Group , 8th Air Force

Kings Cliffe Airfield, England 1943-45.   

 It is! she thought, it’s Eddie’s plane. After all this time!

She reached into her purse and withdrew the well worn, dog eared photo of a young couple standing on either side of an older man, all smiling broadly and standing in front of the same, then recently restored, plane. The center of her attention in the photo, as always, was the handsome young man with the boyish grin. Her fingers lightly touched the surface as if she could, once more, feel him, his warmth, his laughter, and the love they had shared those twenty years ago.

“Is this it? Is this the plane you told me about?” came Charlie’s soft voice.

So lost in her memories had she been, Jennifer had not noticed her husband approach, having left the kids in the care of “Uncle” Larry.

“I......yes. I never dreamed I’d ever see it again.”

“And the memories?” he asked gently, having shared his wife with a memory for their entire married life.

She felt ashamed, as she always did. It wasn’t fair and she knew it to subject this loving man, husband and father to competing with......no it wasn’t a competition, it had never been about that --- but Charlie had been forced to share her with a ghost, a man gone for those many years, yet whose memory still burned fiercely within her.

“I’m.....sorry.....I just......”

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice tired, resigned. “I’ll go get the kids.”

“No, please, Charlie. I know this has never been fair to you. It’s just that I never had a chance to say goodbye.”

“Maybe there’s a way,” he said quietly, but she hardly heard his voice, as for Jennifer, standing in front of the plane, photo in hand, it was a summer’s day in 1967 once again