Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

THE STORY 1INNA FABRY hadn't been unhappy while Lance Jordan was overseas. -* She filled her days with little things that passed the time and that prepared for the future she and Lance had nlanned together. The love there was between her and Lance was, to her, so real and vivid a thing that it had an identity all its own; it was like a presence beside her, which kept her from being lonely. And in all of Lance's letters she found the same feeling, as though part of her were there in England beside him. Then came D-Day and the terrifying knowledge that, somewhere, Lance was in the midst of that horror. Linna's heart stopped that day, and didn't start nKain until she tore open his next letter — the letter that told her he was safe. But it told her something else, as well. "Linna . . ." it said, "I have fallen in love. Her name is Angela Temple . . . we're going to be married." Somehow, Linna picked up again and went on. But now the days were waiting, waiting— she hardly knew for what. She learned that Lance, wounded, was on his way home, and she knew that somehow things would be made right for the two of them, once hr had come and explained to her what had happened; that was what she waited for. And Lance did come to her; he watched her home, waited for her to come out so that he could speak to her alone; and when they had done looking at one another, he said, "Linna . . . I've brought my baby back to you ... I had to. Linna." f'VE brought the baby back to you. That couldn't have been what Lance said. I couldn't have heard him correctly. "To— me?" I whispered. "But what of Angela? What of the baby's mother?" The words hurt. "Angela is in England. She's— going to stay there." Then he burst out almost desperately. "For God's sake, Linna, don't look like that. Let me tell you — " "No! I can't understand. I don't want to hear." The baby had been the thing— the living, breathing instrument that had finally broken my faith in our oneness, had severed the tie between us Lance looked around the hostile, waiting room. It wasn't easy for him. forever. "Just go away. I don't want to see you, hear you, anything—" "Linna, not for my sake — I don't deserve anything from you — and not for the baby's sake, either — but for the love we shared, for what we had that was so rich and living, let me talk to you. Oh, I know what you're feeling. You feel I killed that love because I denied it. But there are some things too strong to kill — I've found that out. Some things that just don't die, no matter what fools like me do to them. You've got to accept that, believe that. You've got to 'give me a chance to tell you, Linna." "I can't think now. It's too much I — Oh, I've got to be alone." "Tomorrow, then," he persisted. "Let me come to the house tomorrow." I felt like an animal harried into a corner. "All right," I cried. "Tomorrow. Anything. Only leave me alone." Driven beyond endurance, I turned away, half running from him. It was as if I were drowning, and I found I was fighting for air, struggling to quiet the roaring in my ears. I walked and walked, until the effort to breathe hurt my chest and forced me ,to stop. Why did things like this happen to people? I'd never, knowingly or willingly, hurt anyone. Why then must I suffer for something I hadn't done, had had nothing to do with? The pain of his marriage I'd been able to take, sustained somehow by blind and instinctive belief that some day I would know the story then unknown, be told the answer then unsolved. And now when he was ready to offer it, it came in such a way I could no longer receive it. In the very trying to give it to me, he had taken it away forever. Angela was in England. . . . Lance was here, having brought his child to me . tomorrow ho would come and tell me why. . . . Slowly, those facts separated themselves and rose to the surface of my mind. I could refuse. 1 could shut myself away from him And yet. in a numb sort of fatalistic way, I knew that tomorrow I would let him come and I would listen. I would let him because I was compelled to. Just as I had been caught up in something I'd had no part in setting in motion, now I was just as much caught up in following it out to the end. Once things start, they have to go on and on until they finish, and sometimes you have to play your part in them like a puppet whose strings are pulled by hands that cannot be withstood. Mother and Dad were sitting on the porch. I knew they were waiting for me. They tried to greet me naturally as I came up, just as if nothing were wrong, as if I'd gone out to take an ordinary walk on an ordinary evening. "Well, dear — " mother began. "I've seen Lance," I said, and my voice sounded as I felt — at a dead calm. "He's coming here tomorrow. I told him he could." "Linna!" They both spoke at once, with anger, protest, condemnation. They began to argue against it. to forbid it. Dad even said he would kick Lance out of the house if he dared to show his face there. "If I can't see him here, I'll see him somewhere else," I said. "I don't want to but I have to. Don't you understand, I have to? It's like something I have no control over, that I can't help." At last they gave in. Grudgingly and because they felt that as long as I was determined to see him, in my headstrong, foolish, weak way, it was better A PROBLEM FROM JOHN J. ANTHONY'S GOOD WILL HOUR Now, at last, there, is an end to waiting, an end to despair. Now Linna can see blindingly clear the truth that will be a part of her life, forever 38 M