Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

died, I was in a strange town and a strange life. No one needed me. I belonged nowhere. Then he had needed me, he had been impulsive and attractive, and maybe even the opposition from his mother had played its part. I had mistaken all that for love. Even from the first day of our marriage, I had been more mother to him than wife. There had never been the equality of sharing that there should have been. If Woodie had been well, I ' would have told him the truth — hard and bitter though it was. I would have asked him to let me renounce those vows, and it would have been for his sake as well as Don's and mine. This was no temporary infatuation, no unstable leaving of one man for another. This was everything. This encompassed all the kinds of love there were. This was a thing that comes seldom to anyone, and it clamored to be acknowledged. But how could we acknowledge it? If Woodie were well . . . The thought drew me, held me. When he was able to leave the hospital again and had had time to get readjusted, surely . . . surely. . . . It was on that note of wild and desperate hope that at last I fell asleep. The days that came after held a new kind of pain for me and a new kind of glory. Each one meant that I would see Don — even if it were only on the sales floor, across the office, at -the water cooler. Even though it meant impersonal greeting, studiedly casual. I had only to see him — those dark steady eyes, that sweet, slow smile — to know again the transfiguring love that was in our hearts. Each evening he came to my house. We were careful that no one should know. Whenever we went out to dinner together, we picked a place where we were least likely to run into anyone we knew. We could not bear the smear of gossip from those who would not, could not, understand. On the surface, the facts were ugly: I, the wife of a patient in a mental sanatorium, playing around with another man. We were not guilty within ourselves, we knew the truth. But who else would believe it or us? AND so it was as if we made a place ■^* of our own and barricaded it against all outsiders. There, we could pretend for a little while that no one else mattered, we could be ourselves, enjoying each other and this newfound wonder. But always and inevitably, there came the intruding, unwanted presence. It came when we kissed each other — and drew back, afraid of the intoxication of those kisses. It came when we talked of what 'we felt for one another, whenever the word "future" was mentioned. It came when we read the unspoken question in each other's eyes; What are we to do? It came because no matter how hard we tried, Woodie was there — stronger than we were. "We can't go on like this," Don said one night, and his voice was quick, and almost harsh. "It isn't fair to Woodie — or to us. How can I see you, be with you, and not want to take you in my arms for always? We've got to tell him!" 'T know, darling," I said miserably. "But how? When?" "We have to find a way. But it's got to be soon, Nancy! It's got to be soon." The first Sunday I went to the hospital, I went with mingled dread and hope. If he were better, then my day of liberation would be drawing near. And if he were a great deal better, if he were well — that possibility trembled in my heart and made me tremble too. But I found him depressed. It was the depression that always, in the cycle of his (Continued on page 67) 45