How ironic, she thought while bringing the Mayfair down for a landing at the airfield near Vienna. Chet had died because of stepping on a Nazi bomb whose detonator he may have been responsible for selling to Albert Speer, Hitler's armament and munitions mastermind.
She did not regret Chet's death. Not only because of how he had mistreated her, and for the fires he had set to her airport that had taken the innocent life of one of God's beautiful creatures she had dearly loved. She did not regret it because of all the victims of the bombs the Nazis had dropped; both those that exploded on impact and those UXBs that later took more lives and did more damage, to homes, hospitals, churches.
Chet had been among those who profited from war, and the old Biblical phrase came back to remind her, "He who lives by the sword, perishes by the sword."
Then, starting finally to feel free of Chet, Barbara could not help herself and chuckled as she thought of his come-uppance in a lighter way. An avid reader of comic strips, she remembered The Captain and the Kids. In it, a handsome but spoiled rich boy, Rollo, was always getting the Captain's two little ragamuffin boys into trouble. But he would finally be found out as the cause of the mischief and told, "You only brought it on yourself, Rollo."
Barbara finally began to feel she could forget Chet when she told herself, I'm sorry, but you only brought it on yourself.
Someone else was then able to take his place in her mind; someone who had it seemed always been in her heart: Stephen Collier.
What about us?, she wondered as she brought the Mayfair down to the runway as smoothly as if landing the old Piper Cub at her airport in Mohave. Your wife's death has freed you. But are you now ready to commit yourself to someone else? To me?
Do you still love your wife, or the memory of her as the woman you first loved and married? Was I merely someone you found to ease your loneliness? Now you are free to love and marry again, will your feelings for me have changed?
Have mine for you changed?
She knew the answer to that.
I'll tell it to you, if only you are alive.
Please, God, make him one of the survivors of this terrible war.
Where are you, Stephen?, she asked as she taxied the bomber to a stop at the airport in Vienna. Where are you?