OCR Text |
Show 23-5 Then one afternoon, I found her perched on the edge of a chair watching two men play chess. All three of them were silent, watching the game progress. I don't think she ever went in the wards where I was not allowed. She stayed out in the halls and sitting rooms, talking with those men who could, playing the piano occasionally, writing a few letters. She wasn't there every day, or ever for long. But the men noticed, seemed to like it, and a few even asked me when my mother was coming next. We never talked about this at home; I never asked her why she was there and I never heard Father mention it. I think we all knew. Where once she could not accept the idea of the war that took away her friends and her brother, now she could not accept the idea that these men should live and die alone, forgotten by the world that was caught up in its peaceful business outside the walls of St. John's. And by not accepting, she found an end for the anger and pain that had lived with us that summer. |