I waked early and got up immediately, knowing what awaited me. When I came downstairs he sat there at the kitchen table. He had made a pot of coffee and was drinking it, black and strong.
"You haven't been to bed," I said.
He blazed at me. "How could I sleep?"
I sat down and poured myself a cup of coffee. "Go on. Say whatever you want to say. Let's have it out."
My son was terrible to see. His face was pale and his eyes were burning black. His lips were parched and bitten.
"Yo went to her parents. You told them."
"Nothing but the truth !" I said quietly.
"You wouldn't wait until they knew me ! "
Oh, what bitterness in his voice. How hard, how hard to hear it !
"It is better to know the truth first," I said. "If she loves you enough to defy her parents, I will say nothing -----I swear I will not."
"At least you might have warned me," he cried.
I would not yield to him. "I had to see how they felt, and see it with my own eyes. What they feel cannot be overcome unless your love and hers are equal. I know --- I know ! "
"She does love me," he muttered. "She told me so."
"She loves you all she can, but it is not enough. It will never be enough, because she is small---small, I tell you I do not blame her. She cannot help what she is born. But you're born big---as big as the world."
"Damn you," he whispered.
I looked at him. "Now I'm glad your father is not here."
We stared a each other.
"Some day you will thank me , "I said, and wished I had not. It is the common speech of parents. My mother said it to me when she tried t keep me from marrying Gerald. But we had already loved each other, and nothing could knee is apart. I knew, and I defied my mother. "I shall never thank you if you keep us apart, "I told her.
And I was right, not she. Even though the letter is locked in my desk, and though I never see my Gerald's face again I was right and she was wrong.
I kept looking at my son's face and his gaze broke, he so young, so proud in such grief.
"Why did you ever give me birth?" he muttered, and then he sobbed once and leaped from the room.
