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Back The Fall of Valor Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Introduction by Michael Bronski
  2. BEGINNING
  3. II
  4. III
  5. IV
  6. V
  7. VI
  8. VII
  9. VIII
  10. IX
  11. X
  12. XI
  13. XII
  14. XIII
  15. MIDDLE
  16. II
  17. III
  18. IV
  19. V
  20. VI
  21. VII
  22. VIII
  23. IX
  24. X
  25. XI
  26. XII
  27. XIII
  28. XIV
  29. XV
  30. XVI
  31. XVII
  32. XVIII
  33. XIX
  34. XX
  35. END
  36. II
  37. III
  38. IV
  39. V
  40. VI
  41. VII
  42. VIII
  43. IX
  44. X
  45. XI
  46. XII
  47. XIII
  48. XIV
  49. XV
  50. XVI
  51. About the Author

Mr. Howard leaned forward. “Any idea how late they serve dinner at Dune House?”

“The folder said eight-­thirty.”

“Hear that, Mama? We’ll just get in under the wire.”

“Maybe,” she said.

It was getting too dark for them to form any clear impression of Nantucket village; they’d have to wait till another visit, in the daytime—and no doubt they’d be making several trips into town before their holiday was over. As the bus bumbled out upon the rising highway leading to Sconset the night air began to thicken, and not merely with the rapidly descending dark. A white fog moved over the moors; they passed in and out of it as through horizontal layers of transparent veils.

“Look, Bill—fog,” Mrs. Howard said.

“Nice!”

“Nice hell. We didn’t come here to spend our vacation in a fog.”

“Now Mama, maybe it’s only tonight.”

“We hope. I want to see that full moon this week.”

The ride across the island was like a kind of long gently sloping roller-­coaster, up and down sudden little hills and valleys. The straining bus seemed to travel at reckless speed. Finally it rolled down a slope and came to an explosive stop in front of a drugstore. From the front seat, the driver yelled:

“Si-­as-­conset!”

XI

XI

The room was perfect. It was a large corner room with a good bath, fronting the sea and also facing south over the dark moors toward Tom Nevershead. But wide strips of black tape had been fastened securely around the shades, and the shades themselves were pulled down to the sash.

“The blackout,” Ethel said.

“I’d forgotten.”

“I’d like to get into something different.”

“No time, Ethel. I told the desk we’d be right down. It’s late.”

“You go hold the table, I’ll only be a minute.”

Left to herself, she stood staring into the mirror of the bureau, though this was no time to be dallying. But she dreaded going downstairs, dreaded what might happen later. She did not see herself in the glass and she was not thinking of herself. She was thinking of her husband.

It wasn’t fair to spoil his vacation. He had needed it for so long, the rest and change; and perhaps that’s all he did need—perhaps, even, everything might be different from now on, from right now, beginning tonight. And yet—how long could she sustain herself on expectation alone?