Radio Mirror: The Magazine of Radio Romances (Jan-June 1943)

"But I haven't any money! Just enough to get along on — " "Now, Alma," he said reproachfully. His voice never left that easy conversational tone. "I know the set-up around here. A hick town, a jerkwater college, and everybody pious as a Sunday School picnic. How'd you like these good, proper folks to know you'd been married all this time — and passing yourself off as a widow? I'll bet the Dean would be so shocked at the scandal, he'd kick you right out on your pretty little ear. Also — " his eyes watched me shrewdly — "I'll bet your boyfriend doesn't know. I noticed you didn't correctr that 'cousin' crack." I was silent. It was all true. This was nothing short of black-mail but I knew Jed Clinton well enough to know he'd carry out his threats. My hard won peace and security would go and — worse Helen Irwin Dowdey's "No More to Fear" was sug gested by an original radio drama written by Cameron Hawley for the Armstrong Theater of the Air, heard Saturdays, 12 noon, on CBS. — I couldn't bear for Andy to hear the truth until I told him. "And then," Jed went on, "there's Julian." My heart did stop beating then. My brother Julian! I couldn't . . . "If I give you all I've got, will you go away? Will you promise to go away now and never come back?" "How much is it?" I crossed over to the mantel. With unsteady hands I lifted down the Mexican pottery piggy-bank that had stood there so proudly. I turned it over in my hands, thinking of the quarters and dimes it contained. "About seventy dollars. Julian and I were — saving it for a war bond." Jed laughed. "You always were a sucker, Alma. War bonds! Well — it's chickenfeed, but it'll have to do. Open it up." I looked down at the pig's idiotic smirk. I thought of that pathetic little treasure trOve — Julian's savings from his paper route, my cheap lunches, both of us giving up movies. All those small sacrifices that meant so much more than the money . . . "Come on, come on," Jed said impatiently, and sent me out to the kitchen for a heavy screwdriver. And then he opened it the H only way you can open a piggybank. He smashed it. Dimes and quarters and tightly folded bills showered over the table. Jed began gathering them up. "The hotel clerk'll think I'm nuts when I pay my bill tomorrow. Still — better than nothing." He put the last one in his pocket and looked across the table at me. "You seem mighty anxious to get rid of me." "That's right, Jed," I said evenly. "That's all I want." "What a greeting for a husband after four — or is it five — years! Not a kind word, not a little kiss, not anything. You know, you're a damned attractive woman, Alma. Prettier even than you used to be. Maybe I made a mistake, letting you run out on me like that. Maybe—" "Get out!" I said in a low voice. "Get out!" He put on his hat and overcoat, and gave me his easy smile. "Well — be seeing you." Not if I can help it, I thought as I closed and locked the door. Not ever again. As soon as the school term was over I would do what I should have done long ago, leave the state for a while and get a divorce. I sank down wearily on the couch. You can't ever really bury the past. You think it's gone — but always you carry some part of it with you, some part that can reach out and hurt you when you least expect it. I'd met Jed Clinton when I was eighteen. Julian and I had been left alone and penniless by the death of our parents within a week of each other, a year before. I was working as a stenographer in a real estate office, struggling to support us. Struggling, too, to keep Julian from being taken from me and put in a children's home somewhere. Julian was eleven — not innately bad, but an unstable, hot-tempered child who needed a firmer hand than I could wield. He was always in trouble at school, fighting with other boys, playing hookey, staying on the streets. The authorities had already threatened once to take him from (Continued on page 80) 43