After the lunch Mary cleared the table, throwing the remains of the meal and the plastiplates into the flash trash disposer. Her father had retreated to the library room and Helen was getting ready to attend a Citizen's Meeting. Mary heard her mother enter the room to say good-bye while she was wiping the dining table. She knew that Helen was standing, well-dressed and a little impatient, just behind her, but she pretended she did not know.
"Darling, I'm leaving now for the Citizen's Meeting."
"Oh ... yes."
"Be a good girl and don't be late for your shift. You only have an hour now." Helen's patrician face smiled.
"I won't be late."
"Don't pay any attention to the things Bill and I discussed this morning, will you?"
"No."
And she was gone. She did not say good-bye to Bill.
Mary was very conscious of her father in the house. He continued to sit in the library. She walked by the door and she could see him sitting in a chair, staring at the floor. Mary stood in the sun room for a long while. If he had risen from his chair, if he had rustled a page, if he had sighed, she would have heard him.
It grew closer and closer to the time she would have to leave if Susan Shorrs was to catch the first school hours of her shift. Why did children have to shift half a day before adults?