More Than Allies by Sandra Scofield Page A

the page of a comic book—all his comics starred great hulking powerful men and dastardly villains capable of shocking crimes—and not wanting to be disturbed. Maggie sat quietly.
    Mo’s boyhood room, where she had lived for three years, had been changed a couple of times since then. As Mo’s father grew more and more ill with lung cancer, Polly stripped the room of its girlish frills, bought new green sheets, and installed him there to die. Maggie couldn’t help thinking of her suspicions about the room that day of her arrival. More recently, she and Gretchen had painted the room a pleasant peach color and hung posters of art by Matisse, Balthus and Gauguin. Little by little, Jay had deposited various toys and books in the room. He slept there often, times his mother stayed late talking with Polly or watching TV, or because he wanted to be in a room of his own. He knew it had been his father’s room. “Did Dad have his bed like this?” he’d asked more than once. “Where did Granny put all of Dad’s toys?” he asked another time. (The answer: the garage. Most of them, however, had been hauled out for Jay himself as a smaller boy.)
    â€œWould you like to skip school tomorrow?” Maggie asked.
    He glanced up, surprised, then tamped down his pleasure. “Whatever.”
    â€œI thought you could sleep in. I want to keep an eye on your eye.” She smiled. It did sound funny. He didn’t get it, though. He didn’t so much as blink. “And if you want, we could go for a hike or a ride or something. How does that sound?”
    She could see he wanted to be enthusiastic but wouldn’t allow her the pleasure.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œHoney, is there something you want to say?”
    The sadness of his expression made her throat constrict. Then he tossed his comic book to the end of the bed and crawled down under the covers.
    â€œWould you like to call Dad tomorrow?”
    He flopped over, his back to her. “What for?” he said, his words muffled by the covers.
    â€œSleep tight,” she said. She didn’t know what else to say.
    Polly was watching a movie starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. “Silly, aren’t they?” she said, but it was clear she was enjoying it. Maggie kissed her goodnight and went to Gretchen’s room. The big bed was piled with pillows and stuffed animals, quilts and magazines, shed clothing and brochures from wilderness travel agencies. Maggie fluffed pillows, folded the clothes, arranged the magazines on the bedside stand, and crawled in to wait for Gretchen. The theatre was dark tonight, and Maggie assumed she’d gone to Blake’s for what must be very close to the last night they would have before their ninety-day love affair came to a halt.
    Poor Gretchen, she thought, making herself comfortable against the pillows. She should have stuck with the river guide last summer, the one who ate gorp and built his own sweat lodge.
    She got back up and fetched a tattered copy of The Golden Notebook from Gretchen’s bookshelf. How she had struggled to read it for her book group last year! The discussion had been a volley between Nora and Rachel (politics and sex), until Lynn said she found Lessing humorless, and could they move on to something contemporary, please? Through it all, Maggie was thrilled to be there. She still thought it was amazing to have been asked to join such a clever group.
    As she was mulling over these things, weariness overcame her and she fell asleep with the light on. She was still lying like that when Gretchen came home around midnight.
    â€œDoris Lessing!” Gretchen picked up the book and waved it over Maggie’s face. “No wonder you were sleeping deeply.” She laughed and tossed the book to a corner of the room. Maggie didn’t think the laugh sounded merry.
    â€œYou know what one of the actors said to me at the lounge last night?” she asked Maggie as