“You won’t think I’m preaching to you? I know I can’t understand how a young man looks at things, and I’m not questioning how you feel—but I just hope you’ll think about it. You’ve had a lot of hard things already; there may be more
ahead, and I’m afraid for you—not that I think you’d fail where any other man wouldn’t. I feel very safe about you in things that most mothers have to worry about—but it’s too hard for any one to hold out alone. You’ll think about it?”
Billy turned down the leaf by way of assurance. It was the best he had to offer.
A few days later she left them. The turn came suddenly. A nurse was brought down from the city, and with this professional help in charge Dan said good-bye awkwardly each morning and drove off; the strain of things at home made him nervous. It was Billy who stayed day and night within hearing of the room, whose awkward boyish care astonished the nurse with its gentleness and forethought, and it was Billy who steadied the spent, trembling soul in its last great weariness.
All day he had watched the tired eyes closing wearily, only to return with troubled anxiety to Jean, and he had always assured her that he would not forget her plans for the little sister. Then, as the mists began to come over, she looked up again, with an effort, searching for something.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“Where—is your father?”
It was the old, human cry of loneliness, and Billy realized as he had never done before what she had been starving for through all the years. Whatever Dan might be to anyone else, to her
he was the person she had lived for first; she wanted him now and no one knew where to find him. Unless by chance he returned in the next few minutes it would be too late. Even now, when he had not considered the hours precious enough to wait with her, she was anticipating his need of her, thinking ahead for him, with the pure maternal love that rises above personal considerations. Painfully she left her last request with Billy.
“You’ll try to forget ... to think of him as I do?”