biscuits for supper when you got home. Remember how you and your father used to eat two whole plates of biscuits at one meal?”
“Yes,” said Bill, and then he said, “It seems odd without Dad.”
“Yes,” said his mother. “It does.”
The light went out of her eyes, but she still smiled, a determined smile.
“I—I didn’t get your letter about the accident until six weeks after it happened,” Bill went on awkwardly. “We were behind enemy lines and weren’t getting any mail. I wrote as soon as I heard.”
“Yes, dear. I’m sure you did.”
“I guess maybe I didn’t sound like I wanted to. I don’t write very good letters.”
“It was all right, Bill,” his mother said. “I understood.”
Bill nodded gratefully, but he knew she had not understood, because he had not fully understood himself. There had been a stack of letters at one time, ten from his mother and sixteen from Mary. He had read Mary’s first—Dearest Bill—chitchat about college, the last football game, Arden and Mike going steady—I miss you so much. All my love, Mary. He had read slowly and pictured her as she wrote, her face flushed and pretty, her pen racing along the page as she spilled out her thoughts helter-skelter before they had time to get away. When he had finished, he started his mother’s letters—accounts of the Garden Club, Jerry’s toothache, a new paint job on the car—and finally, the accident.
The letter about the accident had been heart-breaking and brief.
Bill had read it carefully and laid it aside. He had thought, My father is dead, but he had not felt any great sorrow, only numbed disbelief.
That night he had dreamed about rows and rows of men, all dead, but none of them was like his father. They were young men with drawn yellow faces; and suddenly they weren’t dead at all, but twisting and turning and screaming in horrible fits of agony. The dream was so real that he awoke with a scream ringing in his ears.
He had lain very still in his blankets and thought, My father is dead. But he could not believe it was true. Death was something close and horrible and frantic, something his gentle, easygoing father could know nothing about.
He had groped for his flashlight and, when he had found it, he had read Mary’s letters again. I miss you so much. All my love, Mary.
When he had gone to sleep that time, he had not dreamed again.
Bill jumped as the cat wound itself around his leg.
“New cat, isn’t it?” he asked.
His mother said, “A female cat came along, and Tuffy went away with her. This is Pepper.”
Jerry leaned forward in his seat, a small, pale boy with glasses.
“Billy,” he said eagerly, “did you ever kill anybody?”
After a moment Bill said, “Yes.”
“With a gun?”
“No,” said Bill. “With a bayonet.”
His stomach contracted and the chicken tasted like meal.
His mother said, “Jerry, you may excuse yourself and go upstairs to your room. I’ll be up to talk to you in a few minutes.”
Bill felt the bayonet, warm and strong in his hands. He felt it pressed against him as he ran. He saw a man in front of him, and he watched the end of the bayonet, and he saw the man’s face when they met—
“Oh, Mother,” Jerry protested, “why? Why do I have to go up now? It’s not even half-past eight yet!”
Bill got up quickly.
“I have to go,” he said. “I’ve got a date.”
“But, Bill, you haven’t had your dessert yet!”
Bill said, “Save it for me and I’ll eat it later. When I talked to Mary on the phone I told her I’d be by at eight-thirty.”
He went outside. It was really dark now, and the fireflies were fairy lanterns across the lawn.
Bill stood in the darkness and breathed deeply and the sickness went away. Then he got into the car and drove to Mary’s.
Her father came to the door. He was much smaller than Bill remembered him.
“Well,” he exclaimed, “look who’s here! How are you, Bill?”
Bill said, “It’s good to see you.”
They shook hands. Mary’s mother came in from the kitchen with the two sisters, the one who played the piano and the little one with the braces, only she wasn’t little now and the braces were gone.
Mary came in.
She was plumper than Bill remembered, and her hair was cut short and fluffy around her face instead of long over her shoulders, but she was still Mary.
She said, “Hi, there, Bill.”
“Hello, Mary.”
Then in the car, she was close and warm beside him.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“There’s a party over at Angie’s. We might go there.” She hesitated. “Or we could go to a movie?”
Bill said, “Let’s skip the party. I’d kind of like to have you to myself this evening.”
Mary said, “All right. I think it will be a stupid party anyway, and the movie’s a good one.”
The movie was terrible. Bill sat stiffly in the cramped seat, conscious of Mary’s presence beside him. He could smell her perfume and feel the warmth of her shoulder pressed against his. Finally he stopped all pretense of watching the screen and shifted his full gaze to her and saw that she was crying because the woman in the movie could not make up her mind between the two men.
Bill felt embarrassed. He had forgotten how Mary cried in movies. Before he had always teased her about it and found it strangely touching. Now, suddenly, it was ridiculous.
“Come on, Mary,” he said, “let’s go.”
“This isn’t where we came in!”
“We’ll see it some other time.”
He got up and made his way between the sets to the exit. Mary followed him, pouting.
“Bill, I don’t understand what’s the matter with you.”
“I don’t know either,” he said apologetically. “I’m sorry. The movie was getting on my nerves, and I wanted to go somewhere quiet where I could just sit and talk to you for a while. I guess I can stand the rest of it, though, if you want to go back in.”
Mary
