My heartless mind will not allow my aching body the sleep it so desperately craves and I wander this near-empty house throughout the night. The winter wind has come a-calling and moans through cracks and crevices like so many ghosts visiting from hell, wailing and beckoning for me to join them. I surely may accept their morbid invitation and although seared by the flames of eternal damnation, I'll at least be free from the anguish and heartache of this abominable life.

My baby stirred within me today and were I not so bundled in winter garb the few times when I venture out, surely all the wagging tongues in town would know of my maternal state. Mrs. Cummings, I think, suspects, though low health now keeps her to her bed and back, except for bodily duties, and to sit up for soup and toast a time or two a day. She talks forward of the spring; seeing the flowers and the young people riding on these new wheels called bicycles, but I think to myself she'll not last the winter. I've grown to think kindly of her these last weeks as I've spent much time in her company, though mostly she sleeps and our talk is only of trifles. Perhaps I too will join her, before the lilacs and forsythia give color to this white and lonely landscape.

Joshua visited me last evening though he stayed just long enough. If it wasn't for the naiveté of his sex, he too would surely sense my secret, the secret I've still dared not divulge to this man I love. He continues to anguish with guilt and I fear in my heart the burden of his sins will soon cause him to flee in exile from these quarters he has arranged for us to share together. And then all threads of hope will finally vanish from the fabric of my life.

Dean slept fitfully, once he managed to count sufficient sheep to do so, with dreams and mind games interchanging so rapidly as to blur the borders more than a map of Africa. He heard Gladys' muffled alarm at least twice, and someone rummaging around the kitchen, all well before the light gave a hint of welcoming Sunday. In between, his sleep-movies starred Annie, huddled and pregnant as she walked the penstock trail in tears, and Shipton plunging down to the rocks and river below, amid scores of viewers clapping and cheering his bloody demise. The wind blew the entire night, creaking and groaning about the old building in a mournful dirge. Cynthia telephoned at two-thirty, fulfilling her promise to let Dean know when she'd safely arrived. Her voice told him she was as bone-weary as he from her exhausting trip. Mom was "resting comfortably," the only news a night volunteer at the hospital would convey. Cynthia was staying at her mother's apartment with plans to visit the hospital first thing in the morning where she could speak with the doctor and learn more of her mother's condition. He called her again as soon as he rose, but she had apparently left earlier as there was no answer.




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