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Show 3-4 I left my parents there when I climbed up to bed. I turned once at the top of the stairs and came down a few steps to take another look. Father waved. As I got into bed, I heard their voices. After a short time, I heard my father come up the stairs. He stopped a moment outside my door and I watched him against the light as he looked in at me. "Annie?" "Yes? I'm awake." "Are you grown too old for stories?" He pulled my old rocking chair to my bed and eased into it. He was way too big for it. I almost was too. He pulled the sheet close up under my chin. I murmured no, wanting him to stay. "Your mother says you had something to ask me. About the men at the station." I nodded, hoping he could see me in the darkness. "I don't know quite what to tell you, Annie. Those men were badly wounded in France." "Like Uncle Paul?" "Yes." "But he died." "Yes, they were luckier than Paul. They're the men I was taking eare of in New York." "But what happened to them? The one man, on the stretcher . . . He was so ugly, like his face had been smashed." "Lots of things happened to them. Most were burned, hit with phosphorous shells. We are trying to make them as well as we can. The worst is over for them. They aren't in pain any more." My father had never lied to me before. But I knew he was lying now. How could that face not hurt? The very breath seem to hurt, so mueh so that that |
