Radio mirror (July-Dec 1943)

above my lips. It was — well, it was a daring outfit. The kind some girls get whistled at when they wear. And when Saturday came I dressed in it as carefully as I'd ever dressed in my life. I was icy calm now. My whole future happiness was staked on this one throw of the dice — and the dice were ready to be thrown. Usually on Saturdays, I went to the hospital right after lunch so we could have the whole long afternoon together. Today I was deliberately late — an hour late. And when I got to the room I paused for a moment, just inside the door, so that he would get the full effect of my outfit. He did. His eyes widened a little as his gaze swept over me. "Sorry I'm late, darling. But Sparky and I went dancing last night, and got in so late I slept till noon," I lied. "It was fun — dancing again with a tall, good-looking soldier boy. More fun than I've had in ages." JEFF regarded me soberly as I sat down in the chair facing him. "I'm glad," he said. "It's been pretty dull for you lately, I guess, without a beau." "I'm going again tonight — with a new pilot, one you haven't met yet. Sparky introduced him to me last night." "That's good," Jeff said. But I saw the beginning of hurt bewilderment on his face and for a moment I thought I couldn't go on. I wanted to rush over and cradle him in my arms as one would a child. Instead I chattered airily on. Oh, I didn't overdo it. I didn't make it obvious. But where before I had talked with Jeff only of himself, and of us, now I talked of the good time I'd had, the music, what a good dancer the new pilot was, and how attractive. Subtly, but definitely, I was making Jeff the outsider instead of the very center of my life. "Well, that's good," he said again. And then with an attempt to return to our old mood that almost broke my heart, he said. "How about a nice kiss for an old cripple, honey? You haven't greeted me yet." I went over to him slowly and sat on the edge of the bed. My lips brushed his briefly. Then I sat back with a little laugh. "Not much like the old ' days, Jeff. The way you kiss me now Continued from page 56 makes me think our wedding ring ought to read 'Less than yesterday, more than tomorrow.' " This time there was no doubt about his hurt bewilderment. His eyes went suddenly dark with it. "Don't say that! You know it isn't true. You know I'm lying here like a helpless invalid." "And that reminds me of another thing," I went on callously. "What about our wedding? We're not going to have to have it here, are we?" And I looked around the bare hospital room. "I thought a wheelchair — I mean, they could lift me into it and we could have the ceremony here at the hospital chapel. I think I could manage that all right — " "With me standing there, towering over you, with a bottle of smelling salts instead of a bouquet?" I forced the brutal words out, feeling each one cut me with the same stinging lash that Jeff was feeling. "Not me! I want a real ceremony and all the trimmings. I want to be carried over the threshold into the apartment, too!" "Betsy!" Pain edged his voice. "You know I can't!" "I want to be held in a real man's arms again," I rushed on. "Like any woman does. I want to be a wife when I'm married — not a nurse!" He was white to the lips. "Are you saying I'm no longer a real man just because I'm lying here?" I looked at him a moment. Then I turned my back and picked up my bag. "It doesn't look like it, does it?" I said carelessly. There was a brief, electric silence. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move. Suddenly Jeff's voice rang out, clear and forceful like it used to be. "Come here! I'll show you a real man's arms — " Peering into my small mirror I began applying fresh lipstick. No actress on the stage ever made a more deliberate gesture. "I can't. I've got an early date." "Betsy! Come — here!" "Really, Jeff, don't be unreasonable. I've got to go." I started backing toward the door. "I'll drop in tomor — " "I'll show you what you're going to do! You — you — " With one violent movement he swept the covers back and swung his legs toward the side of the bed. His face was white with anger. He grabbed the bedtable with one hand and pulled himself up. His feet were almost touching the floor. He leaned forward and grasped the foot of the bed. I stood paralyzed, nearly suffocating, for those few seconds that seemed to last an hour. One step — if he took one step toward me — His feet were on the floor. He was standing, half bent forward. "I'll show you," he said again. And then — and then he took it! I leaped forward and grabbed him in my arms. I pushed him gently back toward the bed. "Darling!" I was half babbling, half crying. "You did it, you did it! You walked of your own free will. You used your legs. Oh, darling — " He stared up at me. There was disbelief in his eyes, then a sort of dazed incredulity, like a man shocked suddenly back into reality, into having to believe the impossible. "I — I did it," he said slowly. "I — walked. I thought I couldn't. But I got so mad — I walked. You made me. . . ." I ran to the door and jerked it open. I cried hysterically to the nurse who was passing, "Get the doctor! Get everybody! He did it — he walked! Oh, he's well. . . ." We were married a month later, with Jeff standing straight and tall beside me, fitter than he'd ever been in his life. HE'S flying again, of course. He's still the best pilot in the Ferry Command. He still makes those lonely, dangerous flights and my heart is still wrenched when he leaves me and torn with fear while he's gone. But he never knows it. In a way, it's as if I sent him out on those missions, as if by helping make him well I'd sent him away from me. But I learned a lot during that half hour when I acted a part in that hospital room. Sparky was right. "No guy's going to do his best flying — or fighting or whatever he's doing — if he thinks the girl back home is crying her eyes out for fear of what might happen to him." We wives and mothers and sweethearts have to learn to act — all of us. And not just for a moment, but all the time. Because it's part of the victory, just like the fighting and the flying is. We have to act. We have to learn to smile when we kiss them goodbye. 58 spoke aloud, and I wasn't swearing — forgive me — " I knew then that Sally loved me. She loved me, and her love had in no way been like Carolyn's feeling for me. I'd been first a convenience to Carolyn, and then when I joined the Army, I'd perhaps taken on enough of a romantic aspect to let her feel sentimental about me to the point of accepting my ring. And it was Sally, who had loved me, since childhood, as those mementoes proved, devotedly, unselfishly, never asking anything for herself, never hoping, who had been as dear to me as a sister — it was Sally whom I had treated so brutally that morning, of whom I had asked what I would have asked of a very different sort of woman, had I had the stomach for it. I picked the letters, the flowers, the other souvenirs together, put them carefully back where I'd found them, A Wedding in June Continued from page 43 retied the string with unsteady fingers. All of the raw hurt and bitterness which had directed my actions that morning was gone; in its place was complete humiliation in the face of a devotion I did not deserve. NOR was I any longer at a loss as to what must be done. I had to find Sally quickly, before she suffered further from the role I'd forced her to play. I had to beg her forgiveness, and try to make some amends, if possible. I called the agency. They could not tell me where Miss Towne and Sally would be at the moment, they said, but they could give me a list of the shops they were to visit at some time during the day. I wrote the names down feverishly, impatient to be on my way. I must have been a comic figure — an over-large soldier in rough Army clothes, blundering into those over grown jewel boxes — the exclusive shops, softly lighted, deep carpeted, smelling faintly of perfume. I didn't feel comic, however; I even backed out of the elegant rose and blue salon, where Sally'd had her hair waved and her nails manicured, without the least embarrassment. All I felt was more and more desperation as the chase seemed fruitless. Some of the shopwomen had not seen Sally and didn't know when to expect her: some of them had waited upon her, but could give me no clue as to where she would go next. Finally one of them, a milliner, offered real hope. Miss Towne and Miss Shane had been in an hour ago, she said, and she believed that they were on their way to a gown shop. She named a place a few blocks up Fifth Avenue. The driver of the cab I'd commandeered for the search took one look at me Continued on page 60