Fly Away

By Lynn Austin

Bestselling author Lynn Austin’s historical novels have entertained readers worldwide; now, rediscover her beloved contemporary debut.

Wilhelmina Brewster and Mike Dolan are two very different people—one is trying to figure out how to live, the other how to die.

Wilhelmina Brewster has been a college music professor for 41 years, never marrying, devoting her life to her career instead. After a forced retirement, however, she is mourning and searching for something to fill the empty hours. Widower Mike Dolan is a pilot and World War II veteran who has always lived life to the fullest. But when his cancer returns, he makes plans for a final flight in his airplane rather than become a burden to his family.

When their paths cross unexpectedly and Wilhelmina accidentally learns of Mike’s plans, she’s horrified, certain he’s making a mistake that she can correct. What she didn’t expect was how spectacularly she would fail, or how completely Mike would change her perspective on life, loss, and faith in the process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
• Release date: Nov 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781496437273

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1987

Mike Dolan was snoring when the telephone rang. He rolled over to focus on the bedside clock and was startled to discover that he had overslept by nearly an hour. He stumbled out to the kitchen to grab the wall phone, feeling every one of his sixty-five years, and nearly tripped over his canine roommates, Buster and Heinz, as they wove between his legs. He cleared the sleep out of his throat before answering. Hello?

Hey, Dad. We just got a last-minute request for a charter flight today. I’m already booked up with that fishing party, but do you want to do it?

Mike reached down to scratch Buster’s head. What time?

Right now. As soon as you can get to the airport. The guy says he needs to get to Springfield right away. But he wants you to wait for him there—says he’ll need an hour, maybe an hour and a half—then he wants you to fly him home again.

Did he say what it’s all about? Why the last-minute rush? Mike was stalling as he calculated the flight times in his head. He had a doctor’s appointment at four this afternoon that he didn’t want his son Steve to know about.

Not a clue. But you don’t have anything going on today, do you? There’s nothing on the schedule.

Right. Okay, tell him to meet me at the airport in an hour. Mike hung up again, knowing that the sooner he got his aging body moving, the better his chances of getting back by four o’clock. He opened the back door to let the dogs out while he quickly dressed. Maybe this unexpected charter flight was just what he needed, something to occupy his day and distract his thoughts from whatever the doctor might have to say.

Ninety minutes later, Mike had checked the weather conditions, filed a flight plan, run through all the preflight checks, and was helping Mr. Stanford Blake climb into one of Dolan Aviation’s charter planes. Blake was fortyish, stony faced, dressed in a pricey pin-striped suit, and cradling a briefcase. Heading to Springfield on business? Mike asked. He’d learned over the years that chatting with customers who were nervous flyers sometimes helped ease their fears.

It’s personal. Blake fastened his seat belt and opened his briefcase without even glancing at Mike. Judging by the way he began pulling out files and examining them, Mr. Blake wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

Well, it should be a nice, smooth flight, Mike said as he adjusted his own seat belt. And a gorgeous one, too. Leaves are just starting to turn. I never get tired of seeing them from the air, you know? He taxied and took off, not expecting a reply, not hearing one.

A hired car was waiting for Mr. Blake in Springfield, engine running. Okay if I leave my briefcase in the plane? Blake asked, spinning the little dial to lock it.

Sure. The plane and I will be right here.

Blake consulted his watch, and after informing Mike that he would be back in ninety minutes or less, rode off. For the first time since leaving home, Mike remembered his doctor’s appointment and his stomach squeezed. He adjusted his baseball cap and sauntered into the hangar to find someone to shoot the breeze with.

Ninety minutes later, almost to the second, Mr. Blake’s hired car skidded to a halt. Once again, Blake busied himself with work for the entire flight and never seemed to notice the soaring blue skies above them or the palette of fall colors painting the hills below. He didn’t speak at all until they were back on the ground again.

I may need to hire your services again at a moment’s notice, he said. I don’t know when. He looked at his watch. They say my father is going to die soon, and I’ll need to make another quick trip up and back for the funeral.

I’m so sorry, Mike said. Losing your father—that’s a real tough thing. He wanted to ask how long his father had been sick, and if the two of them had been close, and how he was handling the tragic news. He searched Blake’s face for signs of grief, prepared to listen if he needed to talk. What he saw instead was cold impatience.

This couldn’t have come at a worse time, he grumbled. There’s so much going on at work right now. As it is, I had to miss an important meeting this morning.

Mike was about to say that death was rarely convenient for anyone, but he swallowed the comment. I guess your work must be real important, he said instead.

It is. Blake turned and strode to his car without a word of thanks.

The sun disappeared behind a cloud as Mike went inside the office he shared with his son. He and Steve ran Dolan Aviation together, a comfortable little business that Mike hoped to pass along to his grandchildren someday. He was sorry not to find Steve sitting behind their cluttered desk or tinkering beneath an engine on one of their planes. He needed Steve’s solid warmth and vitality after his icy encounter with Mr. Blake. But Steve was busy with work too, flying a fishing charter.

Mike sank into the desk chair, suddenly tired. He would need to leave in a little while for his doctor’s appointment. But for now he closed his eyes, wondering if Mr. Stanford Blake’s father had been cheered by his son’s hasty visit, grateful for it. Mike hoped with all his heart that the dying man hadn’t been aware of the inconvenience his death was causing his son.

*   *   *   *   *

Wilhelmina Brewster was in her bathrobe and pajamas when her grandmother’s antique mantel clock rang the hour. She counted twelve chimes. Noon. And Wilhelmina wasn’t even dressed. She had remained in her pajamas all day yesterday, too. Illness had been the only acceptable excuse for such slothful behavior when she was growing up, yet she wasn’t ill. If asked for a reason, Wilhelmina would have huffed and replied, Why get dressed when there’s no place to go and nothing to do?

She stared out her living room window at the maple tree that was just beginning to change color. Fall had always been a fulfilling time for Wilhelmina: preparing lectures, planning recitals, advising students, hearing auditions, and rushing to complete her much-too-busy schedule. But not this year. After forty-one years as professor of music at Faith College, she had turned sixty-five last spring, the age of mandatory retirement.

She returned to the book she’d been reading, her mind not on the words but six miles away on the Faith College campus. As her thoughts drifted to her former office, wondering who was now practicing études on her baby grand piano, Wilhelmina realized with a start that she did have somewhere to go today and a very good reason to get dressed. She had agreed weeks ago to give an informal piano recital this afternoon at the Cancer Center. The music she had chosen to perform lay neatly stacked on the table beside her piano bench. Wilhelmina rose from her chair, pushing her malaise aside along with her book, and hurried upstairs to bathe and change into her dark-brown suit.

Of course she arrived at the Cancer Center in plenty of time—a half hour early, in fact—and felt her good spirits slide back into the doldrums as she surveyed the timeworn room, the handful of lounge chairs and folding chairs her audience would fill, the secondhand piano that faced a windowless wall. She would have to perform with her back to her audience, and who knew how well the sound would carry. Or if the pedals even worked. The bench was not adjustable—and Wilhelmina was taller than the average woman. Nevertheless, she silently vowed to perform at her very best.

How many concerts and recitals and performances had she given over the years? Wilhelmina almost smiled when she recalled how much joy they had brought her. Perhaps today’s recital would bring her joy, too. Then her smile faded as she thought of her brothers. They would tell her that performing in a place like this shabby outpatient lounge was beneath her. What’s next? they would ask. Sitting in some dingy barroom with a tip cup on the piano?

Wilhelmina sat down on the wobbly bench and was placing her music on the stand when the Cancer Center’s director hurried into the room. Professor Brewster! Thanks so much for coming to play for us today. I know you must be very busy with your work at the college, but I’m sure everyone will enjoy hearing you.

Wilhelmina could only nod, biting her lip to hold back the tears that stung her eyes.

*   *   *   *   *

By four o’clock, Mike Dolan was sitting in the examining room, kneading his baseball cap in his sweating hands. Any minute now the doctor would enter and Mike would learn his fate. He shifted in his seat, wishing he could move around and walk off some of his anxiety, but the room was too cramped. He had flown in cockpits that were bigger. He’d already studied all the diplomas on the office walls, but they hadn’t distracted him from his fears for very long. He could scarcely make heads or tails of them, with their fancy foreign words and swirly script.

He stood up, kicked off his work boots, then stepped onto the doctor’s scale, fiddling with the shiny weights, sliding them back and forth until they balanced. One hundred and sixty-three pounds. Not good. He had lost more weight. He considered playing with the sliding height bar, but he already knew what that would tell him. He stood exactly five feet, seven and three-quarter inches in his stocking feet. Fortysome years ago his muscular build had turned a lot of gals’ heads, especially when he wore his US Air Force pilot’s uniform. He glanced in the mirror over the sink and smoothed down his receding ring of white hair. Every Christmas his grandkids tried to convince him to pad his belly, grow a white beard, and play Santa Claus down at the mall. You’d be perfect, Grandpa, they insisted. He studied his reflection, stroking his smooth chin. Resembling Santa Claus wasn’t all that bad, he decided. Mike sat down again with a weary groan and bent to retie his shoes.

He looked at his watch. Ever since the nurse had parked him in this windowless cell twelve minutes ago, he had been forced to listen to a piano playing classical music somewhere in the distance. Now it was starting to get on his nerves. Mike was no musician, but even he could tell that the blasted thing was out of tune. It seemed like a bad omen. Piano music in a medical complex? Where could the sound be coming from? It didn’t tinkle from a speaker like the usual canned office music but drifted, soft and muffled, from behind the thin wall of the room next door. Mike pondered the mystery for a while before remembering that the Cancer Center had a lounge for outpatients in this building. He thought he remembered seeing a piano in the lounge when he visited the center after his first cancer surgery a few years ago. That must be it.

With the mystery solved, once again Mike had nothing to do. He leaned forward to study the wife-and-family snapshots on the doctor’s desk, while the piano hammered away like a hailstorm on a hangar roof. He didn’t care much for that fancy, highbrow music. Made him restless.

The doctor’s outer waiting room had been crowded with people, and Mike wondered how many of them had come for their test results as he had. It occurred to him that this little drama must take place dozens of times a day in offices like this one, all over the country, maybe all over the world. Some folks got good news and went home to their families breathing easy and smiling again. Others got bad news. He wondered how most people handled that kind of news. He’d had plenty of time to think about it in the week or so since taking the tests, and Mr. Blake’s last-minute charter flight this morning had solidified Mike’s decision. He knew exactly what he was going to do.

Now it sounded as if the pianist next door was trying to do loops and dives and barrel rolls on a keyboard. As soon as his appointment ended, no matter what the outcome, Mike decided he would drive back to the airport and take one of his planes up for a few loops and dives and barrel rolls of his own. He shifted impatiently in the chair, anxious to grab some sky.

Finally he heard footsteps and Dr. Bennett’s mumbling voice outside in the hallway. He perched his cap on his head for a moment and wiped his palms on his thighs. He couldn’t greet the doctor with a clammy handshake. Mike could picture the doctor removing his chart from the plastic holder on the door and studying it: Michael G. Dolan, Male Caucasian, Age 65, Cancer: colon [C2] right hemicolectomy 1984, suspected recurrence.

Mike waited, unconsciously holding his breath. He remembered the last time; the ugly helplessness of lying flat on his back in the hospital, the pitying looks everyone gave him, their forced smiles and the hushed tone of their voices. No matter what, he wouldn’t go through that again. Nor would he get fogged in with a lot of self-pity if the cancer had returned. He had lived a long, happy life, full of fun and adventure, and if this was the end for him, well, he shouldn’t complain. He didn’t know much about the hereafter, but he figured it would probably be the greatest flight of his life—like flying without the plane.

Next door, the music soared in altitude to the top of the scale, then crashed with a resounding finale. Mike shook his head. That untuned piano made for a pretty rough landing.

Finally the door opened and Dr. Bennett entered with a folder. The doctor was in his fifties, tall and angular, with unruly black hair and dark circles under his eyes. His grim expression made Mike’s heart race. They shook hands.

How are you, Mike?

Well, I guess you should know.

Pardon?

Fine, Doc. I’m fine. Why did people always say fine whether they were or not?

The doctor’s chair squeaked as he dropped into it. He took his time studying the test results, tapping his bony fingers on the desk, pursing his lips. He looked down at the papers, not meeting Mike’s eyes. A bad sign.

Mike, according to these lab reports it appears there are liver metastases.

Mike felt his stomach flop over, as if he’d suddenly hit an updraft. What does that mean?

It means the cancer has spread to your liver.

Are you sure?

I’m afraid so.

Mike thought he’d prepared himself for this, but a surge of panic rushed through him, the same gut-twisting fear a novice pilot feels when his engine suddenly cuts out on him during flight. If Mike were sitting in a cockpit, he would know from years of experience what to do. But he wasn’t in a cockpit now. He was in uncharted territory. And he was flying blind. A surge of emotions pulled him steadily down against his will, and he fought with the desperate instincts of a pilot in a fatal flat spin to regain control. As if on cue, the piano next door began to play a slow, sad song in sympathy, just like in the movies.

I’d like to schedule you for some tests to determine if you’re a candidate for resection, Dr. Bennett continued. Mike barely heard him. It wasn’t true. They’d made a mistake. His thoughts whirled dizzily, out of control.

Suddenly he thought of Helen, and the memory of his wife’s courage as she’d faced death quieted his racing heart unexpectedly. He was in command again, his emotions responding to his control, his will determining his course. With a faint smile and a barely perceptible nod, he affirmed his calm acceptance of the truth. Don’t play any sad songs for me, he wanted to tell the pianist. Let me go out with a jig.

. . . and if the tests show you are a candidate for resection, I’d like to schedule you for further surgery, Dr. Bennett said.

Hold on, Doc. What’s the bottom line here? I’m probably going to die anyway, right? He smiled, hoping it would assure the doctor that he could handle the truth. Dr. Bennett closed the file and folded his hands on top of it.

The cancer has spread. There’s probably no way to stop it or remove all the malignant cells.

Then why operate again?

The longevity rate is about 15 percent in successful candidates for resection, and—

No. If it’s just a matter of time, I’d rather not prolong it. Mike had thought through this scene, and he recited his lines in response to the doctor’s cues like a well-rehearsed play.

Well, in some cases, surgery and chemotherapy can offer patients a little more time. Make them more comfortable—

That stuff’s not for me.

Listen, Mike—

There’s really no point, you know what I mean? If surgery can’t cure me, then why bother with it? I don’t want to go back in the hospital and put my family through that mess again.

Well, just let me outline the course of treatment I would like to advise.

Mike smiled. No thanks. Just tell me how long I’ve got.

The doctor picked up a thin gold pen from his desk and began to toy with it. It’s hard to say for sure.

Take an educated guess. I won’t sue you if you’re wrong.

Dr. Bennett looked away. Unless you consent to surgery and chemotherapy . . . maybe three months. Six at the most.

Mike repeated the words to himself, but he barely comprehended them. He had three months to live. Six at the most.

In the room next door the piano wrung out sympathy like a cleaning lady wrings out a floor mop, but the out-of-tune notes made it sound as comical as an old silent movie. Mike imagined all the blue-haired ladies who volunteered at the Cancer Center reaching for their hankies. He smiled to himself.

Thanks, Doc. I appreciate you giving it to me straight.

Now that Mike knew the truth, he wanted to get as far away from this tiny office as he could and get on with what remained of his life. Smell the fall air. Soar the blue skies. He stood and edged toward the door. The doctor’s chair groaned as he swiveled to face him.

Please think about it some more, Mike. Talk it over with your family, at least. And if you change your mind, I can fit you in the schedule right away. Mike nodded vaguely and opened the door. May I give the Cancer Center your name? the doctor asked. They provide a lot of helpful services.

Sure. Whatever. Halfway out the door Mike paused and turned back. By the way, how often do they play that awful piano next door? He motioned toward the wall with his thumb.

You mean at the Cancer Center? I don’t know . . . maybe once or twice a month. Mostly for fund-raisers and social events, I guess.

Then I’d buy some earplugs if I were you. See you later, Doc.

He waved his cap in salute, then pulled it over his bald spot and strolled through the waiting room and into the lobby. The tall front doors framed a magnificent view of rolling green hills, interrupted here and there with the first colors of fall: fiery copper, bronze, and gold. Mike froze, staring at the beautiful sight. He loved autumn, loved flying his plane over the familiar Connecticut countryside as he had this morning.

In three months