“That’s some flight. But then you always did have sand. More sand than anybody I ever met. Remember how you landed on Howland?”

“That was you,” she said. “You were the one who wouldn’t let me turn yellow.”

He finished his whiskey. “Why did I do that? I don’t know why I did that.”

Irene took his empty glass and hers and went to the liquor cabinet to refill them both. When she returned to the terrace, Sam had finished his omelet and lit a cigarette. The wind tufted his hair around the bandages. He looked a little bit like a bandit, and she told him so.

“A bandit? That’s funny.”

Irene said, “I heard about your wife.”

“You mean that she isn’t my wife? Years and years of refusing me a divorce, and then she splits for Reno with Pixie. Divorce papers arrive in the mail.”

“That must make it hard to see your daughter.”

“Irene,” he said, “Pixie hates me. Sends my letters back unopened. Not that I blame her. I was a chump. I wanted Bertha to hate me enough to kick me out, and I wound up hurting my own daughter instead.”

Irene thought of her father on his rocking chair. “You have to keep trying. You can’t give up.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think I’m done.”

“Done with what?”

He took a long drag on his cigarette.

“Have you ever wondered if maybe you got it all wrong from the beginning? That you somehow started off in the wrong direction, and everything you did since, every step, it was all the opposite way from where you meant to go?”

The stars blinked sleepily above them. Irene turned to Sam, whose throat worked and worked. Irene tried to speak too. Sam got there first.

“It’s been coming on for a while. Bit by bit, ever since I got back from Australia. Bertha was still in the hospital. I’ll never forget the expression on her face. Like she’d won some game of chess or something. Trapped me in a tiger pit. And there was nothing I could do to escape, because of Pixie. Because she was Pixie’s mother. Whatever move I made to grasp some straw of joy, she would counter it. I thought, I can’t do this. I just can’t go on.”

“But you kept going. You kept on flying.”

“It was the only thing I knew how to do, the only way I could support my daughter. So I flew, because I had to fly, but when I got into an airplane I didn’t care if I lived or died anymore. The only thing that kept me alive was Pixie, because she needed me.”

“Oh, Sam—”

“I just—I have nothing left, Irene. Nothing. Last weekend, in that air show, I went through my routine, you know, cut everything a little close. Gave them a good show for their money. About halfway through, I just knew. I was through. It was time to either break free or die. And I thought there was only one way to do it so I wouldn’t get the chance to back out.”

Irene put her face in her hands.

“Not to kill myself. Crash the ship, that was all, so I couldn’t go up again. I know how to crash, you know. Used to do it all the time for the movies. God knows the crowd loves it. That’s what they’re really there for, to watch somebody crack up. I did it right at the end, when I came in for the final landing.” He finished off the last ounce of whiskey and soda and made a motion with his hand. “Clipped the ground with my right wing, turned a nice cartwheel. Bang.”

Irene dropped her hands and stared at him. There was nothing to say, even if she could remember how to talk. Sam raised the cigarette to his mouth, and the end flared orange in the darkness.

“Irene,” he said, “it’s all right. I’m here, aren’t I?”

From the darkened beach came a scream of drunken laughter. Neither of them moved. Irene remembered her soda water. She lifted it to her lips and drank it all, and when she was finished she could speak again.

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going away for a while.”

“Where?”

“Maybe Europe. They could use me in Spain, I’m thinking.”

“Spain? You mean the war? What do you care about Spain?”

“You have to care about something. I don’t have anything left to care about anymore, nothing I love that’s not stolen away. I have to find something, or I swear I’ll die.”

“What about flying? You care about flying.”

He turned his head, and the light from the kitchen burned in his eyes. “You care about flying, Irene. I haven’t given a damn about it since I walked out of that sheep station eight years ago. Since then, I’ve just been making a living.”

“But you’re the best pilot I know.”

Sam finished the cigarette and stubbed it out. “You should go home.”

“You can’t just give up! Fly with me. We’re a team, remember? We could fly around the world together, like we said.”

“What I’m trying to tell you,” Sam said gently, “is that it doesn’t matter to me anymore. Flying does not matter. Setting some record, it’s pointless. You get yourself killed for no reason at all.”

“That’s not true.”

“If I’m going to get killed, I want to die for a reason. I want my daughter, if she ever gives a damn, to say that her father died for something. For a reason, for something that was bigger than his own ego.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t say it like you’re already dying.”

He lifted his empty glass and held it by the rim. “Irene, we’re all dying,” he said. “Some of us take longer than others, that’s all.”

After the dishes were done, Irene put a record on the old-fashioned phonograph in the living room and made cocoa. She helped Sam into the armchair in the living room and sat on the rug, leaning against his good knee while they listened to music. The first record was some sentimental Kalmar and Ruby, “Who’s Sorry Now” followed by “Thinking of You.” When that finished, and the needle scratched softly on the disc, Irene got up and flipped through the records until she found something without words, a Schubert piano concerto. She put that on and returned to Sam’s knee. This time he idled his hand in her hair.

“Remember when I cut it for you?” he said. “Little did I know we were creating a sensational new hairstyle. Copied by millions of women the world over.”

“Hardly millions.”

“But nobody wears it better than you.” He lifted a curl and ran it between his finger and thumb. “It’s getting late, Irene. You should be heading home.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Someone’s got to look after you.”

“Your husband might have something to say about that.”

“My husband’s in New York.”

“But he’ll be back. Sooner or later.”

Irene wrapped an arm around his leg and closed her eyes. “I’m not leaving you alone like this.”

The next morning, she drove back to Burbank to pick up some clothes and a toothbrush. Sandy greeted her at the door, making loud, accusing miaows. The housekeeper said that Mr. Morrow had been calling for her. He had reached New York last night and was staying at the Peninsula. Irene packed fresh clothes and a toothbrush into her kit bag and rang up the Peninsula. She asked for George Morrow’s room and they connected her right away.

“Where in God’s name have you been?” he asked.

“I’ve been at Sam’s house. He left the hospital and needs someone to look after him.”

The silence at the other end lasted so long, Irene thought they had been disconnected, except that the static still crackled in the background. Finally she asked if he was still there.

“I’m here,” George said. “Can’t he hire a nurse?”

“I’ve got nothing else to do. The mechanics are working on the airplane.”

The next silence didn’t last quite as long. Before Irene could break in a second time, he said, “All right. If that’s what you want. Just remember you’ve got the first lecture in Sacramento in ten days. And for God’s sake, don’t let some photographer catch you.”

When she returned to the cottage, she told Sam that she’d spoken to George.

“So what did he say?”

“He said to make sure I didn’t forget about the lecture tour. And not to answer the door to any photographers.”

“Jesus,” said Sam.

“Anyway, I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“What’s that?”

Irene reached back into the car and drew out a fluffy, bemused calico cat from the passenger seat.

Sam still had his old surfboard, and Irene liked to take it out in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to rise, while Sam watched anxiously from the terrace. He was worried because of her arm, but he didn’t say so. She would climb back up the path, carrying the heavy board on her shoulder, grinning and wet and shivering, and she would put the board away and straddle his lap and kiss him. He liked to taste the salt water on her skin, to nuzzle her dripping hair. He told her to be careful not to get his cast all wet, and she said she would be very careful.

But they never were.