Tomorrow Is Forever by Gwen Bristow Page B

an instant. She had time only to think, “Why, this is the first time I’ve noticed anything,” before the tiredness was back on her and she was saying to herself, “What difference does it make what I wear now?” Looking up at the store front, she remembered that she had bought many hats here in the past. One afternoon she had called Arthur and told him to pick her up here on his way home. He had come in while she was still hesitating, and had made the choice for her—“Here’s the one for you, Elizabeth, black with a red feather.” She caught her breath again, but this time it was to stifle a sob, and she hurried home as fast as she could.
    Once at home she sat down tensely, asking herself with a sense of desperation, “Can’t I ever get away from this?” Then, suddenly, she became aware that in asking the question she had unconsciously, by the words she was using, provided the answer. She had to get away.
    But though the answer had come, it was not clear. For a few moments this morning she had been exhilarated, until the hat with the feather had brought him back. What was it, she asked herself how, that had given her that brief bright sense of being alive again?
    It was something that had happened at the bank. She had said she did not want to be paid for losing Arthur. No wonder they had heard her with such surprise, for on the face of it that was a foolish thing to say. Nobody could believe a war widow lost her self-respect by receiving a government pension. But her words had given her the impression of shaking off a burden. As she thought of it she remembered what else she had said. “I can earn my own living. I’d rather.”
    Naturally they had been startled. She knew no more about earning her own living than a child. The idea of such a possibility had never occurred to her before. She had spoken without thinking, and yet she had somehow been thinking of something much more vital than the source of her income. She sought to recall it, more than once drawing back, for the operation was too painful to be continued without pause, but at last she found what she was looking for. “I was thinking of something, not about a pension or about my going to work. Just for a minute I got a flash of it and it was like being waked up with a dash of cold water—I know—I was realizing that I didn’t have to keep on being dependent on Arthur.”
    That hurt. She stood up and walked around, her whole spirit protesting against the hurt of it. “I want to be dependent on him! I was so happy when all day I was thinking of him. ‘I’ll tell Arthur about this, he’ll laugh and laugh.’ ‘I must ask how she makes that sponge-cake, Arthur would love it.’ ‘Do you really like my bracelet? Arthur gave it to me.’ Arthur, Arthur, all the time, never anything but Arthur. Stop it, Elizabeth! I don’t care how it hurts, stop it! Arthur is dead. Yes, say it and get used to it. He’s dead, and you’re burning yourself up like those Oriental women who lie down on their husbands’ funeral pyres. Arthur wouldn’t want this. He loved living and he wasn’t afraid of dying, but he’d hate this imitation death you’ve been slipping into. If you’re ever going to be anything better than a sick vegetable, you’ve got to learn to count on yourself. The only minute you’ve felt alive since you lost Arthur was the minute you said you didn’t have to depend on him any more.”
    But as she walked around the house, or looked out at the sidewalk and its familiar trees, she knew more and more certainly that as long as she stayed within sight of these things she would continue to lean on her memory of him. She would be, not an individual, but Arthur’s widow, a poor object standing around like something a traveler had forgotten to take with him on his journey. But if she turned down that pension and went