OCR Text |
Show -3- Of course he did not sit down the day after the wedding and blurt it out, as one might confess some past infidelity; it came gradually, like a puzzle all in black, that she began to fit together in the interlocking pattern of their lives. He refused butter for margarine. He rarely ate eggs. He smoked few cigarettes. When he bought a life insurance policy, he chose one that required no further physical examinations. He bought a sphygmomanometer and wound the cuff around his arm, pumped up the bulb, and read his blood pressure once a month. "How old was your father?" she asked out of mere curiosity, not at first realizing there was any connection between her question and his apparatus. "Forty-six, almost forty-seven." "That is very young." "I should have told you sooner." "Is that why you keep checking your blood pressure?" "I should have told you sooner." "No," she said after a long while, "you should not have told me at all." They were both right. Had he told her before their marriage, she would have caught his love and treasured it, precious because it could not last long. Had he not told her at all, she would have been struck by cruel surprise but her grief would have been pure, and in time would have healed her. But he did not tell her until she was bound to him, and instead of saddened, she felt deceived: he had not told her he would die young. |