Dream When You're Feeling Blue Read Online Free PDF Page A

their mother came into the kitchen and announced that, as she was tired, it was time for all of them to go to bed.
    After the sisters were in bed, the lights out, Kitty whispered, “Hey? You know Mrs. O’Brien, that young woman whose husband’s been gone since Pearl Harbor? The real pretty one? Well, she had the grocery delivery boy inside her house for
half an hour
the other day! Mrs. Sullivan told me—she lives right next door. I’ll bet she got an eyeful!”
    When her sisters didn’t respond, she thought at first they were ignoring such unkind gossip. But when she leaned up on her elbow and looked at them, she saw that they were sound asleep, Tish with her mouth open, Louise with covers flung off, a dark lock of hair loose from the rag roller. Kitty had a thought to fix it but didn’t want to wake her.
    They were home, she and her sisters. They were safe, three in a bed, but it was a comfortable bed. High above them, the sky was full of drifting clouds and stars. But across both oceans, boys not much older than her own brothers slept in the dirt, and the skies above them exploded regularly. It comforted Kitty to think that the letters she and her sisters wrote would soon be in their hands. But it was a small comfort, and mostly inside herself she felt the hollowness of fear. Her mouth grew dry; she wanted water. A trip to the kitchen? No. She would wait until morning. What luxury, the choice.
    R IGHT AWAY ON MONDAY MORNING, Kitty knew something was wrong. Rather than the usual loud and cheerful banter of the women at her office, there was silence. A knot of women was gathered around the desk of Maddy Pearson, and she had her hands to her face and was crying.
    Kitty swallowed against the sudden tightness of her throat, lay her jacket and purse on her desk chair, and moved over to the group. “What happened?’” she whispered, and Polly Dunn whispered back, “Her brother Walter was killed. His plane was shot down. He parachuted out, but then the Jerrys got him on the ground. The family just found out on Saturday.”
    Tears started up in Kitty’s eyes, and she blinked them away, then moved forward so that she could kneel at her friend’s side. “Maddy?” she whispered.
    Maddy turned toward her and took Kitty’s hands into her own. She squeezed them so tightly, Kitty had to draw in a breath and clench her teeth to keep from crying out. Maddy spoke between hiccuping sobs. “I thought I was better off coming to work but, golly…” She shook her head. “I guess it wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
    “Want to come outside for a minute?” Kitty asked, and Maddy nodded.
    They rose together, and the other women parted silently to make way for them. As she and Maddy left the room, Kitty could hear the women start to talk again in the low tones of sorrow.
    “Now I’m the one,” Maddy said. “I’m the one they’re all talking about because my brother is gone.”
    Kitty linked arms with her. “Shhhhh,” she said. “Let’s go outside. We’ll sit for a while.” She smiled. “It’s real nice out.” As soon as she said the words, she regretted them—how callous to turn the conversation to the weather! But her friend only tried to smile back.
    Down the block and across the street was a small park, and Kitty led Maddy to a bench there. “He’d been dead for well over a week before we found out,” Maddy said. “Can you imagine? We’re all just going on like normal, and he’s…” She looked at Kitty. “I’d just written him a letter the day before we got the telegram, and I told him all these things he never…he never got to read. I guess that letter’ll just come back. And it will seem so silly, won’t it? All I said?” She put her hand over her heart. “Oh, boy. It hurts. It’s real pain. Right here.”
    “I know,” Kitty said.
    They sat in silence for some time, and above them the birds chirped and hopped busily from one branch to another. Maddy sighed heavily. She looked up and