Seed on the Wind

But all that was now, thank heaven, a memory; either her body had become reconciled to that sudden and violent deprivation, or, more likely, it was too busy with a new job which required all its resources and faculties. She thought of Pete many times a day; always at night when she wound the wristwatch, and often when she walked alone over routes they had taken together or when she saw newspaper headlines about the war, but the sharp edges of her loneliness had rubbed smooth. Sometimes on going to bed at night, after kicking off her slippers, all ready to crawl in, she would whisper to herself a line from a poem, an Indian poem translated by Byron, Pete had read to her once:

Oh my lonely, lonely, lonely pillow

But that was literature, and she knew it; within three minutes she would be sound asleep.

The Saturday before Christmas Cecelia went home for the holidays. This raised a difficult problem, how to account for Lora’s failure to go too, Cecelia offered to forego her own visit, but Lora wouldn’t hear of it; no, she said, it would look even queerer if neither of them went. She would write to her parents and tell them — well, tell them what? That she had decided to visit a friend somewhere. What friend, and where? Very well, she would merely tell them that Mr. Burchellini had said that her lessons and practice should not suffer any interruption; the present was a critical time in her development and she should not miss even a single day. But though she started the letter three times she found she could not write it. It was too barefaced a lie and involved too many details; she simply couldn’t make it sound right. In the end it was agreed that Cecelia should go on Saturday as planned, and on the evening of her arrival, without delay, should call on Mr. and Mrs. Winter and explain the situation to them; she could say that Mr. Burchellini had made his stern decision at the last minute. That would look more plausible, they agreed.

“Your father’s so goofy, if he suspects anything he might get on the first train and come up here,” Cecelia warned her.

She could take a room somewhere for the period of the holidays, but that might only make matters worse; if a letter or telegram arrived at the apartment she should be there to answer it at once. It would be better to stay.

“Promise you’ll be back sure the day after New Year’s,” Lora implored, the morning Cecelia left.

“You bet I will, I wouldn’t miss it for anything. If anything happens too soon don’t forget the doctor’s phone number is on the pad on the bureau, and send me a telegram and I’ll come at once. If you have it while I’m away I’ll never forgive you.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t if I can help it,” Lora promised. She let Cecelia go to the station alone, for Before the Baby Comes said that all rapid and violent movements should be avoided, and she didn’t want to risk the jolting of a taxicab.

The next day was Sunday, and she lay abed till late — a habit carried over from the switchboard days. The apartment seemed silent and very empty with Cecelia gone, and in spite of herself she was tormented by a vague feeling of restlessness and uneasiness. In the bath she did not as usual find a leisurely delight in letting the tepid water from the shower trickle over her smooth shoulders and arms and the round magnificent protrusion of her middle, turning into little rivulets down her legs; she was irritated by a baseless and unreasonable impulse to hurry through with it and get her clothes on. After breakfast she tried both sewing and reading, but couldn’t get settled to either one; a walk was out of the question, for outdoors the first real blizzard of the season was howling down the street and around the corners, with great gusts of snow and sleet, straight from the bleak northwest, serving notice on anyone who ventured to peek out that this was a day for those who had walls and roofs to use them and not try any funny business. Sometime after noon Lora was seated by a window surveying the turbulent scene with an idle and indifferent gaze, with a closed book in her lap, thinking that it was about time to prepare something for lunch, when the doorbell rang.

It rang objectively the way it always rang, whether for the iceman or for Stubby Mallinson or for Cecelia when she had forgotten her keys, but Lora was so startled that she jumped to her feet like a shot, letting the book fall to the floor. She stood there trembling all over. That was no iceman or Stubby Mallinson or Cecelia; she knew it.

It’s him, she said to herself. He caught the eight o’clock morning train, and that’s him. He bullied Cecelia, and she told him.