“Lord, no. Hadn’t even thought about Pete and Amy for months, till I got their letter yesterday. Want me to stay a week.”
“You’ll be back in three days—maybe,” Sam had said. He wouldn’t explain, even when Richard did come back in three days. It sounded just too damn’ silly to say that he’d known how long Richard was going to be gone, because that was how long Uncle Geezenstack had been away.
Sam Walters began to watch his daughter, and to wonder. She, of course, was the one who made the Geezenstacks do whatever they did. Was it possible that Aubrey had some strange preternatural insight which caused her, unconsciously, to predict things that were going to happen to the Walters and to Richard?
He didn’t, of course, believe in clairvoyance. But was Aubrey clairvoyant?
“Mrs. Geezenstack’s going shopping today. She’s going to buy a new coat.”
That one almost sounded like a put-up job. Edith had smiled at Aubrey and then looked at Sam. “That reminds me, Sam. Tomorrow I’ll be downtown, and there’s a sale at—”
“But, Edith, these are war times. And you don’t need a coat.”
He’d argued so earnestly that he made himself late for work. Arguing uphill, because he really could afford the coat and she really hadn’t bought one for two years. But he couldn’t explain that the real reason he didn’t want her to buy one was that Mrs. Geezen— Why, it was too silly to say, even to himself.
Edith bought the coat.
Strange, Sam thought, that nobody else noticed those coincidences. But Richard wasn’t around all the time, and Edith—well, Edith had the knack of listening to Aubrey’s prattle without hearing nine-tenths of it.