Radio mirror (Jan-June 1948)

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EXTRA : Short success stories never before told about your Screen Favorites. r CORIMEL WILDE SAYS: "I found 'Best Face Forward full of concrete and truly helpful ideas. It is a book for everyone, especially women, because self improvement a great factor for success in every walk of life." R M 78 FORTHRIGHT CO. 220 W. 42nd St., New York 18, N. Y. Rush me Adrienne Ames' new book, "Best Face Forward," for $1.98 postpaid. I enclose Q Check D M.O. D Cash Name. Address City Zone State. Except for Jim Brent. He came once a day at least, sometimes twice, usually on his way to the Sanitarium in the morning, or on his way home at night. I came to look forward to his visits as much on Fay's account, and my own, as on Toby's. Brent seemed to realize that Fay and I needed help, too, and it was a rare morning when he was too rushed to chat with us for a few minutes, about Toby, of course, first of all, and then about the store, about happenings in the town. Because of Toby, he seemed closer to us, almost like one of us. Even Fay was most like herself — her old self — when he was at the house. She would seem almost animated; she took time out from nursing Toby to prepare little treats — a batch of hot doughnuts, sandwiches and coffee. Her faith in him seemed to be showing her the way back to normal living, once she had made up her mind to trust him. I began to have hopes that I dared not voice even to myself. When Toby got well — it had to be when; I never thought of it as ij — perhaps Fay would be well again, too. Perhaps the hurt and the bitterness that closed her off from the world — and from me — would be washed away. CTRANGE, how blind you can be about ^J those who are closest to you! The day came that I'd hoped for — the day that Brent said Toby was ready to be moved to the hospital. "There's nothing more to do for him here," he explained. "We've gone as far as we can with the injections. I think that now, with closer supervision and treatment — " I was listening to him, and watching Fay. Her face had clouded over. "He'll have the best of care at Wheelock," he went on, as if it were all settled that Toby was going. "Children are our first consideration there. Wheelock was named for a child, you know — And our first patient to be admitted was a child — " She began to look almost persuaded, until he began to talk about the other doctors and the nurses on the staff. Then she retreated again. "You mean," she said flatly, "that if he goes — to the Sanitarium, he won't be your patient any more." "Certainly, he'll be my patient,", said Brent. "He would be even if I hadn't been seeing him here. I specialized in neuro-psychology. The difference is that I'll have equipment to work with, and the benefit of other opinions — " "Then it's all right," said Fay, and her eyes had a shining, peaceful look, like those of a child blissfully reassured. "He can go." And she touched the doctor's hand, as if a pact had been made between them. It was then that I knew. Such little things — the look in her eyes, the brief touching of hands — but they told everything. Heaven knows, I didn't mean to confront Fay with what I knew. We'd been so far apart for so long that if I'd planned to speak, I wouldn't have been able to find words. It just happened. I found myself standing in the kitchen doorway, watching her slim, straight back as she moved from table to stove. I found myself saying in a flat, ordinary voice, "Fay — are you in love with Jim Brent?" She stopped. For a second the world stopped. For a wildly hopeful moment I thought, from her stillness, that I'd been wrong, that she was angry, amused — anything but that I'd hit upon the truth. Then she turned^ and I saw her eyes, bewildered, troubled — but with joy and freedom in them, too, as if just having it put into words had released something in her. "I — I suppose I am," she said. "I must be. I — " Her voice faltered as I stared at her, mute, sick, already wishing desperately that I hadn't asked. Then she said quickly, "It doesn't mean anything, Fred. It can't. He doesn't know. If he did, he'd only be embarrassed — " That was the end. Oh, no — it didn't mean anything — to anyone except me. But it was so long since she had thought of me at all, that she'd forgotten that I had feelings. I was the fellow who turned up at the table at mealtime, who slept in the room down the hall, a kind of superior boarder who took a special interest in Toby. I turned away, and her quick steps followed me. She put her hand on my arm; her voice was breathless, frightened. "I'm sorry, Fred. I can't explain it. It's just that he's — He's made me feel—" I couldn't bear to listen ■ to how she felt about Brent. My momentary anger was gone, and in its place there was only a kind of bleak despair. Not ^ once, in all the time since Bob's death, had I given up hope that Fay and I would be together again, some day. It hadn't been easy, loving her, wanting her — so much, sometimes, that a familiar little gesture, lifting her hands to her hair, or curling up on the couch with her feet tucked under her, littlegirl fashion — would leave me choked and speechless. I'd learned to take heart from small things — a quick, involuntary smile that was almost like her old smile, her instinctive drawing toward me when she was startled or frightened. Even in these last weeks, when she'd seemed more distant than ever, I'd simply believed that it was because she was preoccupied with Toby. And now — there just didn't seem to be anything left. TOBY went to the hospital the next day, lifted onto a stretcher and into an ambulance as carefully as if he were more fragile than the most delicate glass, with Brent and another doctor supervising the moving. After that, by unspoken agreement. Fay and I kept out of each other's way. She visited Toby in the mornings; I'd take an hour or two from the store to see him in the afternoons. The hospital didn't encourage evening visits to young children. Fay and I had dinner together, and that was all — a formality, an empty pretense that our home was still a home. And it didn't matter very much, those first few days. Nothing mattered but Toby. Brent had told us that we'd know soon whether Toby could be expected to have the use of his legs again, or — I couldn't force myself to think of the "or." I couldn't think of Toby facing years of bed and wheelchair. I ate and slept and went through the working hours with my mind pinned to just one hope — word from Brent that Toby had passed the turning point and would be on his way home. Beyond that, I didn't let myself think, because Toby would come home to a house divided. If Brent pulled him through, there'd be no hope that Fay and I would ever find each other again. Knowing Fay, knowing her fierce single-heartedness, I knew that if Brent made Toby well, he would have a place in her heart that no other man could ever hope to take. And then one day it came. I went to the hospital early that afternoon —