Jerry’d yelped in surprise, but hadn’t let her take Roger back he’d held his son and petted him until the wee mannie fell asleep, only then laying him down in his basket and stripping off the stained shirt before coming to her. Hold his little boy-and have said little boy sick up milk all down the back of his shirt. “Even so.”Īt least he’d got to see Roger. “Even so,” she whispered, her mouth tightening, face raw from hours of stubbled kissing neither of them had been able to wait for him to shave. Perhaps there would be another baby-something he gave her, but something she gave him, as well. What else, what else? What more could she do for him? He’d left her with something of himself. She touched the corner of her mouth, but couldn’t feel the crease the mirror showed her-her mouth was swollen, tender, and the ball of her thumb ran across her lower lip, lightly, to and fro. Only twenty-two too young to have such lines in his face. She’d see his sleeping face in the light: the jackstraw hair, the fading bruise on his temple, the deep-set eyes, closed in innocence. When the light came, it would fall just so, across his pillow. It faded at once, of course, but that didn’t matter the charm would be there when the light came in, invisible but there, standing between her husband and the sky. Couldn’t see the mist, but felt the squeak of her fingertip on the glass as she quickly drew a small heart there, the letter J inside. She leaned close, breathing on the glass, and felt the moisture of her breath condense, cool near her face. London outside was equally dark she knew the curtains were open only because she felt the cold glass of the window through the narrow crack. It wouldn’t matter the inside of the little flat was dark as the inside of a coal-scuttle. Marjorie MacKenzie-Dolly to her husband-opened the blackout curtains.
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