Not her suffering, though. That had just begun. All that winter and
through the spring she lived in a misery without relief or solace. She
could think of nothing in all the universe but her own torment. She was
ashamed to go out, in spite of her mother’s account of her as a married
daughter with a husband gone to war, in spite of the wedding-ring the
poor embarrassed woman had bought for her at the ten-cent store. She
felt that she had in no way the appearance of a young wife. She felt
herself to be obviously and flagrantly an outcast.
She was ill, too, and so hopeless, so profoundly dejected, that she saw
no sense in getting up. She lay on her cot in the bedroom, dark as the
former one, day after day. Now and then a bit of sewing was brought to
her to do, and then she would drag herself into the kitchen and sit by
the window, where there was a little more light, until the work was
done. Otherwise she simply lay there, her black hair uncombed, an old
shawl about her shoulders, in fathomless despair.
Life was too ghastly to contemplate. She could see nothing before her
worth living for. Vincent was gone, and with him love and youth; Eddie
was gone, and with him security and hope. Whether the baby lived or
died, she was disgraced. She could never, never forget that she had been
cast aside.
They were bitterly poor, and seldom had enough to eat. There was nothing
to relieve their monotonous pain and anxiety; not a neighbour to
exchange a word with, not a bit of gossip to amuse them--nothing,
nothing, nothing, from morning till night but their own sad faces, their
own listless voices, their own leaden hearts, their own undying
apprehension.
"It’ll all seem different, deary, when you’re well again," Mrs. Kennedy
told her child. "Then you’ll go to work again, and we won’t be so
pinched. You’ll go back to the factory and see your friends, and go out,
like you used to, to the movies, and dances."
"I won’t. There’ll be a child to look after and feed. Just to work in a
factory till I’m too old, and then--I don’t know--die in the poorhouse,
I guess!"
"There’s lots of things might happen, Angie. Maybe you’ll marry. There’s
men that would be willing to over-look----”
"Well, I don’t want ’em. I’m through with men."
"Then maybe you’ll get on fine in some kind of business."
"No chance of that! I haven’t any education. I’m too ignorant. Don’t try
to make up things to comfort me; I know how it’ll be."
But still she didn’t, she couldn’t, want to die. No matter how terrible
her future looked, her strong spirit clung to life, even the most
repulsive life. It wasn’t that she feared death, but she resented it. It
was the complete defeat, the final outrage.
As her time drew near, she began greatly to dread dying. She would lie
by the hour, thinking of death, in a sort of silent fury.