24 Hours

Will felt the old weight tighten across his chest. “This is once a year, Karen. I’m giving the keynote speech, and the whole thing is very political. You know that. With the new drug venture, I’ll have to spend hours with the Searle people—”

“You don’t have to explain,” she said with satisfaction. “Just don’t try to make me blow off my obligations when you won’t do the same.”

Will swung the Expedition into the general aviation area. Lines of single- and twin-engine planes waited on the concrete apron, tethered to rings set in the cement, their wheels chocked against the wind. Just seeing them lightened his heart.

“You’re the one who encouraged me to be more social,” Karen said in the strained voice she’d used earlier.

“I’m not joining the Junior League when I grow up,” Abby said from the backseat. “I’m going to be a pilot.”

“I thought you were going to be a doctor,” said Will.

“A flying doctor, silly!”

“Flying doctor sure beats housewife,” Karen said sotto voce.

Will took his wife’s hand as he braked beside his Beechcraft Baron 58. “She’s only five, babe. One day she’ll understand what you sacrificed.”

“She’s almost six. And sometimes I don’t understand it myself.”

He squeezed Karen’s hand and gave her an understanding look. Then he got out, unstrapped Abby from her child seat, and set her on the apron.

The Baron was ten years old, but she was as fine a piece of machinery as you could ask for, and Will owned her outright. From the twin Continental engines to the state-of-the-art avionics package, he had spared neither time nor expense to make her as safe and airworthy as any billionaire’s Gulfstream IV. She was white with blue stripes, and her tail read N-2WJ. The “WJ” was a touch of vanity, but Abby loved hearing the controllers call out November-Two-Whiskey-Juliet over the radio. When they were flying together, she sometimes made him call her Alpha Juliet.

As Abby ran toward the Baron, Will took a suit bag and a large leather sample case from the back of the Expedition and set them on the concrete. He had driven out during his lunch hour and checked the plane from nose to tail, and also loaded his golf clubs. When he reached back into the SUV for his laptop computer case, Karen picked up the sample case and suit bag and carried them to the plane. The Baron seated four passengers aft of the cockpit, so there was plenty of room. As they loaded the luggage, Karen said:

“You’re having pain today, aren’t you?”

“No,” he lied, closing the cabin door as though the fire in his hands did not exist. Under normal circumstances he would have canceled his flight and taken a car, but it was far too late now to reach the Gulf Coast except by air.

Karen looked into his eyes, started to say something, then decided against it. She walked the length of the wing and helped Abby untether it while Will did his preflight walkaround. As he checked the aircraft, he glanced over and watched Abby work. She was her mother’s daughter from the neck up, but she had Will’s lean musculature and length of bone. She loved helping with the plane, being part of things.

“What’s the flight time to the coast?” Karen asked, joining him behind the wing. “Fifty minutes?”

“Thirty-five minutes to the airport, if I push it.” Will was due to give his lecture at the Beau Rivage Casino Hotel in Biloxi at seven P.M., which would open the annual meeting of the Mississippi Medical Association. “I’m cutting it a little close,” he conceded. “That aneurysm ran way over. I’ll call you after my presentation.” He pointed to the beeper on his belt. “If you want me during the flight, use the SkyTel. It’s new. Digital. Hardly any dead spots.”

“Mr. High-Tech,” Karen said, making clear that she wasn’t impressed with what she considered boy toys. “I just type in the message at home and send it like e-mail?”

“Right. There’s a special Web page for it. But if you don’t want to fool with that, just call the answering service. They’ll get the message to me.”

Abby tugged at his hand. “Will you wiggle the wings after you take off?”

“You mean waggle the wings. Sure I will. Just for you. Now … who gets the first kiss?”

“Me! Me!” Abby cried.

As Will bent down, she turned aside his kiss and whispered in his ear. He nodded, rose, and walked to Karen. “She said Mommy needs the first kiss today.”

“I wish Daddy were as perceptive.”

He gently took her by the waist. “Thanks for giving me time last night to finish up the video segment. I’d have been laughed out of the conference.”

“You’ve never been laughed at in your life.” Her face softened. “How are your hands? I mean it, Will.”

“Stiff,” he admitted. “But not too bad.”

“You taking anything?”

“Just the methotrexate.” Methotrexate was a chemotherapeutic agent developed for use against cancer, but, in much smaller doses, was used against Will’s form of arthritis. Even small doses could damage the liver.

“Come on,” she pressed.

“Okay, four Advil. But that’s it. I’m fine. Good to go.” He slipped an arm around Karen’s shoulder. “Don’t forget to turn on the alarm system when you get home.”

She shook her head in a way that conveyed several emotions at once: concern, irritation, and somewhere in there, love. “I never forget. Say good-bye, Abby. Daddy’s late.”

Abby hugged his waist until at last he bent and picked her up. His sacroiliac joints protested, but he forced a smile.

“I’ll be back Sunday night,” he said, and kissed her on the forehead. “You take care of Mom. And don’t give her any trouble about your shots.”

“But it doesn’t hurt as much when you do it.”

“That’s a fib. Mom’s given a lot more shots than I have.”

He set her down with a muffled groan and gently pushed her toward her mother. Abby walked backward, her eyes locked on Will until Karen scooped her up.

“Oh!” Karen said. “I forgot to tell you. Microsoft is going to split again. It was up twelve points when I left the house.”

He smiled. “Forget Microsoft. Tonight starts the ball rolling on Restorase.” Restorase was the trade name of a new drug Will had helped develop, and the subject of his presentation tonight. “In thirty days, Abby will be set for Harvard, and you can start wearing haute couture.”

“I’m thinking Brown,” Karen said with a grudging laugh.

It was an old joke between them, started in the days when they had so little money that a trip to Wendy’s Hamburgers was a treat. Now they could actually afford those schools, but the joke took them back to what in some ways had been a happier time.

“I’ll see you both Sunday,” Will said. He climbed into the Baron, started the twin engines, and checked the wind conditions with ATIS on the radio. After contacting ground control, he waved through the plexiglass, and began his taxi toward the runway.

Outside, Karen backed toward the Expedition with Abby in her arms. “Come on, honey. It’s hot. We can watch him take off inside the truck.”

“But I want him to see me!”

Karen sighed. “All right.”

Inside the Baron, Will acknowledged final clearance from the tower, then released his brakes and roared up the sunny runway. The Baron lifted into the sky like a tethered hawk granted freedom. Instead of simply banking to his left to head south, he executed a teardrop turn, which brought him right over the black Expedition on the ground. He could see Karen and Abby standing beside it. As he passed over at six hundred feet, he waggled his wings like a fighter pilot signaling to friendly ground troops.

On the concrete below, Abby whooped with glee. “He did it, Mom! He did it!”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t go this time, honey,” Karen said, squeezing her shoulders.

“That’s okay,” Abby reached up and took her mother’s hands. “You know what?”