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Show 3-5 man would stop breathing if he could. And the men walking. Every step was slow as if the pavement sent stabs to what lay under all those bandages. Their slow parade passed again in front of me. "OK." "Please believe me, Annie. I know it looked bad. But they are home now, with their families. Just as I am. And they're happy." I couldn't look at my father's face in the shadows. He would see even in the darkness that I did not believe him. And he seemed to want me to believe the lies he was saying. "I've toldyour mother already that I'm leaving County Hospital. I'm going to work for a time at St. John's, where these men will come for treatment. I have experience in treating their wounds. I'll do what I can for them." Father patted my cheek. "I almost wish you hadn't seen them. But we'll have to live with them around us. So you just got an early taste of what we all have to face." Now I looked at Father. His voice had changed. He seem to have trouble speaking and I know now he was speaking the truth. For one moment, as I watched him, he covered his eyes as if he too were seeing that slow parade. I sat up in bed and put my arms around his neck. "It's all right, Daddy. I see now. Don't worry." There in the darkness, we comforted each other. Father had come to assure and he assured and this much I could give him. The lies he had told me I would pretend to believe, if that was what he wanted. I would live with my own knowledge of the pain those men were carrying. That I shared the pain would be my secret. "Goodnight, my love. It is so good to be home." He bent to kiss me, his breath warming my face. I murmured a reply, turned in my bed and he left me alone. |