The Lonely by Paul Gallico Page B

for he thought the battle won, that his arguments had prevailed, as he had known they would. But he was too wise to press his advantage before he was certain. He was deeply moved by Jerry’s trouble, for it brought back things he was quite certain had been long forgotten, and they seemed to vibrate again with Jerry’s hurt.
    He said: “Take it easy, son. It’s never really as bad as it seems . . .”
    Then he said quietly: “Look here, Jerry. You haven’t thought it out to the end yet. You can’t accomplish anything in a rush this way. Go upstairs and take a rest. Don’t try to see Catharine tonight. Nobody knows you’ve been here. Nobody need know. Go back to England and finish your tour of duty. Don’t do anything foolish. I know you won’t. Then come home to us and see how you feel. How about it? I’ll drive you to the airport tonight, and nobody will be any the wiser.” Then he added: “I know it would make your mother very happy.”
    The old rebellion surged in Jerry again. Make his mother happy. Make Catharine happy . . . Make everybody happy but Patches and himself . . . And yet the strands of his old life, the Jerry he had been, were beginning to enmesh him, binding him, pulling at him, attaching their tenuous threads to his mind.
    Of one thing he was certain. He could not go through with going over to Catharine then and there and breaking the engagement. It was too black a thing to do to add to the burdens of his mind and the weight upon his spirit. But he did want desperately to be alone, to try to think, to regain his sense of values.
    He said: “Okay, Dad. I . . . I can’t see Cat now. I’ll go upstairs for a while.” He added: “Do you think I ought to go see Mother?”
    “If you think you’re ready to tell her that you’re going to go back and wait until—”
    Jerry said: “I’ll see her later . . .” He got up and went out of the room, and Harman heard his slow, heavy footsteps going up the stairs, followed by the scrabbling of Skipper going up with him, stairs his father remembered Jerry never used to go up less than two at a time, and his heart was heavy for him. He was a man who above all wanted to do what was right for those he loved, and there was no doubt in his mind as to what was right.
    Things like that happened to kids, and they had to go through them and get over them in their own way—there was nothing you could really do to help, and they hurt like hell while they were going on. But he knew that in the years to come, when Jerry and Catharine would be married and have a home and children of their own, his son would be happy and grateful, and if he remembered the girl in England at all, it would be with the dim recollection of something wonderful that had happened to him when he was young, and not to be regretted.
    Harman Wright went to the side table and poured himself a drink, and was startled to find with what clarity of detail he was suddenly thinking of Adrienne and the gay, high-ceilinged, rococo room in the hotel at Mentone, the bald-headed waiter who looked like a gnome, the moon on the sea, the old-fashioned brocaded bell-pull, Adrienne’s laugh.
    She was so ridiculously gay and sunny, her eyes crinkled at the corners, the ends of her mouth turned up even when her face was in repose. She . . . Harman set his glass down untouched, arose, and went upstairs swiftly to his wife’s room to see how she was and bring her encouragement.
    Familiar things surrounded Jerry again. His room was exactly as he had left it, the purple-and-white Williams blanket neatly folded over the foot of the bed, the West Point and Westbury High School pennants on the wall next to the framed picture of the championship Westbury football team, taken in his senior year, and on his bureau stood the large framed portrait photograph of Catharine, picking him up with her eyes as it always did when he came into the room, eyes that even in the picture showed the sweetness and clarity of spirit behind