The Corners in Time

Dr. and Mrs. Fielding and Malcolm were already on the playground with Grant’s thirty classmates and their teachers.  With one hand each child held tightly to the string of a brightly colored balloon while clutching in the other a small envelope containing a message each had dictated to a teacher.  The teachers were busily securing the envelopes to the strings.  When all was ready, one of the teachers said “Now!” and thirty balloons went soaring up into the sky.

“Bye, Grant.  Bye!  We’ll miss you!”

There was no wind, and the balloons went right straight up.  As they soared upward, the children fell silent and stood there watching their balloons go until they were out of sight.

Suddenly Compy couldn’t bear it.  She slid around to the back of the building and sat down on the steps, her head in her hands.  Memory of Dr. Fielding telling his students of the drowning of his small namesake, Paul, Jr., assailed her.  And now the only survivor of his four sons was blind.  It wasn’t right.  A man who gave so much of himself for others shouldn’t be so cheated of the happiness he deserved.  Even as the balloons had soared upward, his concern had been for his wife, holding her close to his side and offering her his handkerchief.  It wasn’t fair!

“Compy!”  It was Scott’s voice.  “I saw the balloons go up as I was coming down the street.  I hoped I’d find you here when you weren’t out front.  I won’t stay if you’d rather I didn’t.  May I sit beside you for a little while?”

Compy nodded.

“Sometimes it helps to know someone else cares.”

He didn’t tell her to buck up or say that Grant would never have been right if he had lived.  He just said, “The perfection of a life is not determined by its length,” which she found comforting.  Then they sat quietly side by side in a companionable silence.  After a while she blew her nose and thanked him.

“Probably it’s all wrong to say this now,” he said, “but I’d like to share a lot more than grief with you, Compy.  I love you….I never thought I’d say that to anyone again, but I love your little up-turned nose and your laughter when you’re happy, and your provoking, exasperating independent little soul.  I’m asking you to marry me, Compy.  Will you have me?”

If only he’d asked me a month ago, she thought, I would have flown happily into his arms then, but suppose that after we marry he’s as critical and dictatorial and…yes,…mean as he has been this last month.

“Don’t I deserve an answer?” he asked, his masculine ego clearly puzzled and a bit hurt,  “Dear heart, I didn’t mean to upset you.  It was only an idea I had.  I thought it might appeal to you.”

She answered him like a dutiful child.  “Thank you for wanting me.  It’s only”…She broke off.

“It’s only what?”  His voice was gentle and he kept his hands off her by brute force, wanting to take her in his arms and kiss away the tears brimming in her eyes so badly that it hurt.

‘It’s too soon,” she managed to get out.  “Let’s go back to the hospital.”

He helped her to her feet. “At least you didn’t turn me down flat.  You’ve given me a little hope.  Perhaps after you get used to the idea…”

“Don’t count on it.”  She picked up her jacket and started towards the hospital, very conscious of his male presence.

“I’d like to offer you a ride,” he said, “but I’m out of gas coupons.”  (Like clothing and butter and many other things in wartime, gas was severely rationed.)  “I drove to your father’s house last Monday and asked his permission to propose to you.”

She was surprised.  This was no spur of the moment proposal because he was sorry for her.  “What did he say?”

“He told me not to rush my fences.”

“Then don’t.”

They walked back to the hospital in an uncomfortable silence.  As they parted at the door to her office, he smiled.

“You might as well come quietly, Sweetheart, because now that I know that I can’t live without you, I mean to have you.”