Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

Eagerly, lovingly, Nancy fashioned a home to welcome her husband into warmth and happiness. She made it a beautiful place. But she forgot to look at it through her husband's eyes I PLUMPED up the sofa cushions, my fingers cold, niy mind spinning. Always before, in this room, to do any .little task of house -wifery thrilled me. But not now. I looked around, as though I were in a strange house. The pictures were still there — the pictures I'd chosen myself. The rug was still lovely underfoot, glowing rose and green. The wing chair by the window, the small tables, the brightly-shaded lamps. This room breathed ease and beauty. Just what I'd wanted, everything I'd dreamed of. And worked for, and saved for, and bought piece by piece, after so much planning and shopping and careful, careful thinking. Every night, coming home from the plant, this beauty warmed the weariness from me. This room was like a symbol, a prophecy. Balm and peace, and a sort of atonement for the loneliness that walked with me, because Kel was overseas. When Kel and I were married, three years ago, who'd ever have dared to dream a home of ours could be like this? That's what I'd written him, proudly, the day I bought the first chair. "It's wonderful, darling. After the fighting, it'll seem like heaven to you! Oh, I can't wait for the long, peaceful evenings, for the time together here at home!" You see, when Kel and I were married, we had nothing but our love. We were so young! My mother said uneasily, "Can't you wait, Nancy?" She knew I loved Kel — she guessed by my starry eyes, the blood coming and going in my face when he was near, how it was with me. And Kel with his dark red curls, his big shoulders, the tiny, teasing smile that could widen, as he touched me, into a steady, worshipping expression— who could doubt that Kel loved me as wonderfully as I loved him? "But you're only eighteen, Nancy," Mother said worriedly. "And Kel's in the Army — " We'd known each other all our lives. But somehow, maybe because Kel worked in the radio station after school and didn't take girls to the movies Saturdays, we hadn't' been especially friendly. Then, when he came home on his first furlough from the camp in Florida, we ran into each other on Main Street. I was trying to buy needles for Mother, and it was almost six, and the five-and-ten was out, and there was only the artand-knitting shop left. I was hurrying along — and someone's big hand closed over my elbow. "Nan!" a voice boomed. "Forgotten me — or don't you recognize soldiers?" "Why, Kel Dwight!" My voice sounded high. I laughed a little. "Kel, you look — " He looked marvelous! Newly brown, so strong! There was a stronger set to his lean jaw, a new confidence in his eyes. I remembered then that Kel had always been a little shy. As though, because he worked so much harder than other boys, because his father was the railroad watchman at the gate, and didn't make enough money for a too-big family, he didn't feel sure of himself. That was all changed now! Being with other men, getting out of the narrowness of Cloverdale had done something to Kel. I stared up at him, and even my wrists were pulsihg now "Kel, you — golly, it's nice seeing you!" "Nice enough to forget whatever you Were hurrying for and come and have a cup of coffee with me? Come on!" He steered me inside, and across the table his brown eyes — leafy brown, with red lights — looked at me in this new, different way. "You might have dropped the draftee a card," he said. "I kept thinking about you. Funny." I hadn't thought about him. I'd hardly even noticed he was gone. I said quickly, "Well, I didn't know — " And he finished, laughing, but somehow sober underneath, "You didn't know I was going to get some steel in my spine — and start reaching out for what I've always wanted!" He told me about the camp, and the men he served with. He even told me he'd be sent over, soon. "That's why this furlough," he explained. "And my dad — I guess you heard?" Ashamed, I admitted I'd heard vaguely that his father had been ill. Harshly, Kel said, "He died. That's what I was doing on Main Street, at supper time." He finished, "But it was three months ago — he was old, and tired. He was always swell to me, I'll never forget him. But I figure this way he won't be worrying about me when I'm — overseas." His eyes changed. He reached across the table and grabbed my hands so hard they hurt. "Listen, Nancy! I won't get hurt. I'm coming back." Kel asked me to marry him a week later. Against all the rules, I whispered, "Oh, darling, you didn't have to ask!" It was everything we had ever dreamed about, to be close, like this. To see the moon red in the trees as we stood on the porch, to feel the wind on our faces, Kel's arms -around me, the deep, ecstatic silence as I lifted my lips. (Continued on page 73) 27