What She Left Behind Read Online Free PDF

back the curtain and pretended to look out.
    Henry took the cigar from his mouth. “If this is about tomorrow night,” he said, “the conversation is over. The party is going on as planned.”
    Clara swallowed, her stomach churning. “Of course!” she said. “As well it should! You and Mother haven’t had an anniversary party in years!”
    With that, her mother spun away from the window. “You know very well why we’re having the party,” she said. “It’s for you! And James! It’s the first time I’ve wanted to celebrate anything in months!”
    Clara grit her teeth, forcing her lips into something she hoped resembled a smile. “I know, Mother,” she said. “And I appreciate all your efforts. Really I do, it’s just . . .”
    “Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have a man like James willing to marry you?” Ruth said.
    Willing, Clara thought. Because I have so many shortcomings and faults no one in their right mind would ever marry me. Then again, maybe you’re right, Mother. James is not in his right mind. He’s a low-down, abusive womanizer. But what do you care, as long as he takes me off your hands? As long as he keeps me away from Bruno? Clara stepped toward her father’s desk, her cheeks and eyes burning. “But Father,” she said. “I’m not ready to get married! Especially to James!”
    Henry stood and crushed his cigar out in the ashtray, his thick fingers turning red as he pressed down harder and harder. “Clara,” he said. “We’ve been over this before. Your mother and I have made it clear how we feel—”
    “But what about what I feel?” Clara said, her heart about to burst. “What about what I want?”
    “You’re too young to know what you want,” her father said.
    “No,” Clara said, looking him in the eye. “I’m not. I told you before. I want to go to college.” It was the only excuse she could think of to try to get them to call off the engagement. For now, at least. At one time she’d wanted to go to college to get away from her parents, to learn how to be a secretary, or maybe a nurse. She wanted to be able to stand on her own two feet. But now her dreams had changed. For the first time in her life, she knew what it felt like to be loved and cherished. There was nothing she wanted more than to share her life and make a family with Bruno. “Lillian is going to college,” she said, knowing it was a weak argument.
    “I don’t give a damn what your friends are doing!” her father said, his face turning red.
    “We’re not paying good, hard-earned money to send our daughter off under the guise of higher education so she can smoke, drink, and attend petting parties!” her mother said.
    Clara rolled her eyes, an incredulous chuckle escaping her lips. She knew her mother was thinking of the latest ditty that had been circulating: “She doesn’t drink, she doesn’t pet, she hasn’t been to college yet.” Of course her mother would think that way.
    “That’s not why girls go to college, Mother,” Clara said.
    “This is about that Bruno boy, isn’t it?” her mother said. “That immigrant you brought home for dinner a few weeks ago?”
    Clara felt heat rise in her cheeks. “I don’t know, Mother,” she said. “Is it? Is that why you want me to marry James? To keep me away from Bruno?”
    The memory of the dreadful night she brought Bruno home to meet her parents played out in Clara’s mind, the scenes flipping in her head like photos in the coin-operated machine at the penny arcade. Bruno at the door, smiling, his thick, dark hair slicked back from his chiseled face, his hands in the pockets of his borrowed dinner jacket. Clara thanked him for coming and kissed him once on the cheek, inhaling the clean scent of his soft skin, a pleasant mixture of Barbasol shaving cream and Lifebuoy soap. He had arrived fifteen minutes early, having been warned that Ruth despised late arrivals.
    Clara took Bruno’s hands from his pockets and straightened his