Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1959)

the hardest thing of all she thought. If you do, she won’t understand. But the frown deepened on Carrie’s round face. She rubbed her hand on her forehead. And all of a sudden Debbie knew that her daughter was struggling with her child’s mind against some problem bigger than red-or-blue, something much too big to solve alone. She almost ran to Carrie. She caught her up in her, arms. “What is it, baby? What’s wrong? Tell Mamma.” And into her hair, her face hidden, Carrie whispered, “Mamma, is Daddy going to be with us all the time? Isn’t he going to be with us any more?” For a moment, Debbie stood quietly, breathlessly still. So it had come at last, the question she had been dreading more than anything else since the night Eddie left home. It had come at last and it had to be answered because Carrie needed to know. But how? What was she to say? “Someday she’ll grow up and read it in the papers, won’t she?” a friend had said to Debbie. “She might as well know right now that her Daddy has left her.” “No,” Debbie had cried. But afterwards she began to wonder. Mightn’t it save anguish later if Carrie’s heart belonged all to her? She could be mother and father to her children if she tried. But still, even if she were to tell Carrie the truth, what was the truth? How could she put into red-blue terms things she herself didn’t understand? Carefully, she carried Carrie back toward the sofa. “That’s a hard question to answer,” she began. “You see — your Daddy . . .” Her voice trailed away. Carrie lifted her head and looked at her mother. But Debbie’s eyes were not on her child. They were fixed somewhere else, somewhere far away. And what they saw was not the present but a moment out of the past. ( Continued on page 61) “My Daddy loves me,” Carrie thought. Debbie always told her that and sohad Eddie, on that lovely, too-short visit.