The crop duster comes in low over the wheat, so low we can see the pilot’s face, the tilt of his head as he scans the rows for weeds or bugs or whatever he’s here to kill today. My grandson lets go of my hand, covering his ears to block the snarling engine.
“Are we getting bombed, Glamma?” He presses his tiny shoulder into my thigh.
“No, sweetie. He’s helping the plants grow.”
“Why can’t we watch it from your house?”
“Because, baby, the sky is bigger here.”
We stand at the edge of our neighbor’s wide-open field, watching the single-engine plane fly at low altitudes, weaving back and forth in tight, controlled passes just feet above the field, then slicing through the sky in a looping arc over our heads. The engine rumbles in my chest like a bomber from a long-ago war.
*****
In the hush of the bank’s lobby, I stand on tiptoes to see the rows of shiny bracelets lined up like metal soldiers. I can’t reach the counter, so Mama holds me up. My brother chooses the sucker, not the bracelet. I want both, but Mama says Pick one.
I run a finger over the smooth metal bands, each etched with a name.
“What does this one say?” I whisper.
She reads for me. “Sergeant Michael T. Harris. Missing in Action. Captured 1969.”
I look up at her. “What does captured mean?”
“It means they’re keeping him. He’s a prisoner of war,” she says, soft but hurried. She doesn’t want to explain. She wants me to choose.
“Forever? Will he come back?”
She hesitates. Counts out a handful of bills, pushes it across the counter. “We hope so. That’s why you wear the bracelet.”
I slip it onto my tiny wrist next to the bracelet that Grandma gave me. The silver heads of patron saints clink against Sargeant Harris’s name as I run back to the car. I hold it out the window the whole ride home, watch it catch the sun, watch the fields blur by.
Mama tells me he’s Someone’s son. Someone’s grandson. Someone gone.
Don’t worry, I tell Sergeant Harris. I’m sure it won’t be forever.
*****
The plane circles back for one last run.
The rapid-fire sound of my camera’s shutter is barely audible. “Why are you taking pictures?” Ezra shouts, his hands still covering his ears.
“Because. I want to capture it. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I’m speaking to the streaks of gold in the clouds, completely lost in the wonder of it. The plane dips and skims over red wheat, a trail of fertilizer in its wake.
“It’s scary,” Ezra shakes his head back and forth, his warm breath on my hip.
“Don’t worry. We’re okay.” I take his hand and we start walking away.
The whining crescendo becomes gut-thudding thunder as it makes another pass, followed by a ragged tapering silence as the wings tilt steeply, climbing again in a graceful looping ballet. The crunch of gravel under our feet gets louder as the plane makes a sharp turn toward home.
“Glamma, what is capture?” he asks as we reach our front door.
“Hmm,” I think of ways to answer him. “It means keeping, sort of.”
“Forever?”
I look at him—small, safe, for now. I want to tell him yes and no all at once. Ezra’s small hand tightens around my wrist, and I feel the ghost of the bracelet, the glint of sun and metal and a name I still carry in that empty space haunted by someone else’s son.
“Sometimes keeping is forever, but not always,” I say, kneeling to touch his face. But he ducks away zigging and zagging across the room, his arms outstretched like wings, his mouth a sputtering engine focused on dive-bombing the cat.
Tracie Adams, a retired educator and playwright, writes flash fiction and memoir from her farm in rural Virginia. She is the author of two essay collections, Our Lives in Pieces and Not Finished Yet. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, longlisted at Wigleaf Top 50, and published widely in literary magazines including Cleaver, Dishsoap Quarterly, SoFloPoJo, Fictive Dream, and more. Visit tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on X @1funnyfarmAdams.