From the Improvement Era, May 1957 –

Thought for the Morrow

By Deone R. Sutherland

Ann counted the money into the drawer. Fourteen dollars she was going to be able to add to the baby fund. She leaned her head against the dresser and then pushed the drawer shut. The fund grew so slowly, but she knew she was right. She opened the drawer again, took out the bankbook, and crossed to the neatly made bed. She folded back the gold satin spread and lay down with her feet carefully over the edge. They had almost four hundred dollars, counting the money given them as wedding presents. It took so long to save in a big city where food was expensive and rent high. And tuition had to be met every quarter. Two more years of school for David seemed an eternity, but, it would be sheer catastrophe to hope for a baby before those two years were over. “We ought to have at least a thousand dollars in the bank before a baby comes,” she had said once to David. “How could you finish school, David,” she whispered to herself, “if we had a baby now?”

She turned over and looked at the white window shade already streaked with gray. When they had moved into this apartment, they had taken down the green shades and put up white ones. Now she saw the reason for the dark green that didn’t show the dirt.

David would soon be here. She got home from her job at the bank about an hour before David, but she never seemed to be able to have dinner waiting for him when he came in. “You’re not supposed to,” David said. “You rest until I get home, and then we can get it together. ” He was the best husband in the world but the most impractical. He wanted a baby whether they had a nickel in the bank or not. He thought everything would just naturally turn out all right. What would happen to them if she weren’t working? She shuddered as she thought how much they would have to live on with only David’s three nights a week work at the hospital.

Then she heard his key in the lock. The hour had disappeared again. “Oh, David, I’m sorry.” She was struggling into her shoes.

“How’s my bride?” He kissed her hair behind her ear. “Oops, missed!” He was trying to look through the mail and greet her at the same time. She put her hand over the letter from his mother. “Here I am,” she said, so he kissed her properly.

They made hamburgers and Waldorf salad and cooked some frozen spinach. He chopped onion to go into the hamburgers and told her about Friday night. “Funniest thing, this fellow from the Project Housing turned out to be practically from my home town! We played his high school in basketball lots of times.”

“What’s his name,” Ann asked. She molded the onions inside the hamburger and salted and peppered them.

“Joel Anderson. He’s got a wife and three children up in the Project. They go out to West Lake Branch; that’s why we’ve never met them at Church. Bill Williams introduced me today.”

“That’s nice.” Ann slid the hamburgers sizzling into the frying pan. “They must be having quite a struggle,” she said carefully.

“Oh, same as everyone, I guess.” David measured the salt in the boiling water for the spinach. “He wants us to come down to a spaghetti supper Friday night with Bill and his wife and baby.”

Ann bit her lip. They’d be the only ones without children. “David, I hate to go. They’ll spend the whole evening talking about their children’s rashes and how smart they are. I can’t stand it.”

David looked at her. “Ann, you’re beginning to talk just like Louise or some of those girls you work with. They’re not really like us. For one thing they don’t belong to the same Church as we do — ”

Laura Bailey worked with Ann at the opposite desk. She’d been married five years, and she had no children. Sally Forest worked there, also. She’d been married seven years and had no children. Her husband thought she ought to go on working because he was only an instructor and didn’t make too much money yet. It had been fun to get together with these couples and others for an evening almost every week end. They had things in common. Ann stopped turning the meat and held the spatula in the air. “In common?” Did she want to have more in common with Laura and Sally? Well, for the present at least.

David blessed the food, and Ann opened her napkin. “Ann,” he said, “I’ve already told Joel we’d like to come.”

“Well, then, it’s settled, David. I guess we’ll have to make an evening of it if you insist.”

After dinner Ann rested on the couch. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, David was standing in the doorway watching her. “No, don’t get up,” he said. He came over and sat on the couch beside her. “There’s an article in the Church Section Mother sent that I’d like you to read — ”

“I know what it says already,” Ann interrupted, turning her head away. “About how important it is to have a family, and that children are our true blessings. Oh, David, don’t you think I want children as much as anyone? But we can’t afford to have them — ”

David put his hand across her lips gently, “We can’t afford not to have them — ”

She brushed his hand aside and struggled to her feet. “I thought you were happy; you are always saying you are. Why do you want to change security into insecurity?”

“I am happy, silly. But love grows with a family — ” She didn’t have time to talk it out. She had to get up early for work.

The alarm went off, and Ann watched David bound out of bed cheerfully. “How can he be so happy and good-natured all the time?” she thought.

In a few minutes she heard the shower and made herself get out of bed. She started the water for the three-minute cereal David liked. Then she took her turn in the bathroom while David dressed. She really didn’t need to go to work so early, but it was nice to ride up town with David and then window shop for half an hour or so before going in to work.

David leaned in the doorway and whistled. “You should be going to a modeling job instead of to the bank. Of course, they need pretty girls in a bank, too.” He rumpled the back of her hair slightly. “You should feel pretty good with all that sleep you got last night.”

Ann smiled at him.

Ann slid into the car beside David for the ride up town. It was nice and early in the morning with the dew and the mist on everything. She snuggled against David’s shoulder. “I wish we had a new car,” she said.

“This one’s been pretty good to us. It isn’t the oldest car on the road, Ann, not by a long shot. Its motor sounds nice.”

Maybe they could get a new car for graduation, or at least the first year after David was out of school. She knew they could if she kept working. But three more years was a long time.

At work, Ann slid her purse into her desk and opened her typewriter. Laura’s desk was empty. It was after nine when Sally stopped by Ann’s desk. “Laura came in just a few minutes ago. She’s in talking to Mr. Westbrook. Something’s up, I guess.”

Ann wondered what had happened. She forced her attention back to the rows of figures on the papers before her.

Laura came in with Miss Maitland, the supervisor. Ann went over when Miss Maitland beckoned. “Laura has some wonderful news for us that’s going to come as a surprise to many of you, I’m sure. It surprised me, though of course Laura let Mr. Westbrook in on it, so to speak, six months ago.” Miss Maitland beamed at Laura.

“We’re adopting a little girl,” Laura said, smiling. “We’ve been trying to get one for six months, and they notified us yesterday. I told Mr. Westbrook that when the agency called us, I’d be able to give only a day or two notice because they expect us to be ready to receive the baby within a few days. He was very kind—”

“Have you seen her?” Sally asked.

“Oh, no, we’ll see her Thursday when we pick her up.”

“How old?” Miss Maitland asked.

“Nine months. A girl. General characteristics similar to my husband’s and mine. Blonde, blue eyes — they match the baby to us as closely as they can.” Laura slid into a chair. “I can hardly believe it’s possible — ”

The excitement in the room died down gradually. The girls had to get back to work. Ann helped Laura get her desk in order.

“Did John make you adopt a baby, Laura? I didn’t know you wanted children — ” Ann looked at her sharply.

Laura paused with her hands stretched before her. “Not want children — Make me adopt her? Why, Ann, we’ve wanted a baby ever since we got married. I’ve been working because I couldn’t stand our empty lonely apartment. We’ve waited so many years, and now a little girl of our own! It was just one of those things, the doctor said. Maybe sometime we’d have one, but the sometime just didn’t come.”

Ann looked away, “But, Laura, when the girls have come back after they’ve quit work to show us their babies, you’ve always said you couldn’t stand seeing them. You never did go over and make a fuss over the babies when they brought them to show them off. You didn’t even talk about a baby –”

Laura looked down at her hands. “No, it was too painful, Ann, to yearn over babies that weren’t mine — I thought you understood.” Laura looked at Ann anxiously. “Ann, this must be hard on you, too; I mean, your not having a child. Here I am, gloating over my own happiness and not even thinking of you.”

“We’d better get your desk finished,” Ann said dryly, “so you can go shopping with your husband. He’s over there now waiting —”

Everyone wished the radiant couple happiness and made them promise to bring in their new daughter as soon as she was adjusted to her new parents. “We have to wait until she’s secure with us,” Laura said, waving good-bye to everyone.

After they left, the day seemed suddenly flat to Ann. Sally wanted to talk about nothing except how wonderful this was for Laura. Ann could hardly stand it until it was time at last to go home. Usually she was eager to tell David the news about the girls, but not tonight. She was too mixed up.

On Friday she added thirty dollars to their savings account, including the fourteen from the dresser drawer. She shopped quickly during her lunch hour and got herself a new alligator bag to match her shoes. it was expensive, but all things of any quality were. After work she stopped in at Amy’s Beauty Salon and had her hair trimmed.

She was through showering by the time David got home. He was carrying packages in his left arm again, his brief case bulging over with books. he wore everything out on one side because he forgot to shift packages to the right. “Hi, Beautiful,” he smiled at her. “Where’d all the steam come from?”

She opened the window slowly. “What’s new?” David called. Nothing she felt like telling him. He put his books on his desk and came over and kissed her. “My, you have lots to talk about tonight.”

She moved away. “We’ve got to hurry, David. They won’t want to wait dinner for us, even if it is going to be a very simple affair.”

“Right,” said David, and within moments he was humming with the shower running full blast.

Joel Anderson opened the door and let them in. He was friendly and intelligent-looking, but Ann could tell that he looked drawn and tired from trying to go to school and support a wife and three children besides. The apartment was attractive, Ann had to admit to herself, and it was surely neat and clean. The children were already in their pajamas. Joel laughed, “We’re carrying the last toy back to its box before the last one in bed is a frog in the mud.” The children squealed around him, clinging to his legs.

The other couple, Bill Williams and his wife Beth, was here, too. Their baby was home with a baby sitter. Beth kept wondering if she should phone home to make sure everything was all right. “My word,” said Bill, “you left Joel’s phone number with her in case she needed anything.”

“But suppose the baby didn’t go to sleep?” Beth asked. She smiled apologetically at Ann. “We don’t leave her very often.”

I can tell that, Ann thought to herself. But we’d be concerned ourselves, I know, Ann made herself admit.

“Everything’s all right,” said Bill, but Ann noticed that while she and Beth were setting the table in the kitchen, he slipped into the living room and called home. He came in the kitchen a few minutes later. “See,” he said triumphantly, “she’s asleep already. Nothing to worry about, Beth. You know, she’s the cutest — ”

“That’s enough,” Beth said smiling. “Let’s not bore Ann and David to death.”

“You’re not boring me,” David insisted. “Talk about her all you like. I think she’s a darling.” David was carrying the next to the youngest Anderson baby off to bed on his shoulder. Children always loved David, Ann thought.

Joel came in with his hair all touseled from the good night kisses. He left the bedroom door open for the children. “Don’t let David kid you,” Joel said. “He’s not eager for the responsibility of a family.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind,” David said easily, not looking at Ann. “Of course I’ve got a lot of school left, and some of us aren’t as good at coining money as you fellows — ”

Ann stared at him. David didn’t even look at her. Did he assume the responsibility of waiting to have a family to all his friends? He needn’t bother. She went to say something sharply, and then bit her lip. What could she say? That David loved children, and she loved money and security more?

Joel’s wife put French bread, buttered and flavored with garlic, on the table. “That’s enough, Joel. Joel always feels it’s important to let everybody know how poor but happy we are.”

“You mean how rich we are,” Joel laughed. He put the two big steaming bowls on the mats on the table. “Listen to her. No, things take care of themselves. Something always turns up.”

Beth passed Ann the tossed salad. The dressing was delicious. She’d have to get the recipe from Joel’s wife. “I’ll write it out for you,” Joel’s wife said. “Unless you can call. Call in the afternoon during nap time. I take the children to the sandbox or the park every morning.”

They played Scrabble after the dishes were done, although the Andersons tried to persuade them to let the dishes go. The evening was a lot of fun, Ann decided to herself. She hated to see it come to an end. “I’m homesick,” Bill said, “Got to get home to our family of one.”

Beth laughed, “He scolds me for admiring our baby so, but I think he’s worse — ”

“We’re all like that,” Joel said, “except at the two o’clock feeding — ”

“We’ll have to get together again soon,” David said at the doorway,

“Surely,” Ann said. “Next Friday or Saturday night at our place? Anyone who wants to bring babies may. We’ve a wonderful big chair in our bedroom, besides our bed — ”

Joel’s wife said, “We’d love to come, but we don’t have to bring the children. The couple across the hall takes turns with us at baby sitting. Saves us money, and we can get out once in awhile.”

“Sounds great,” Bill said. “But maybe we’ll bring our little gal in her car bed and put her in your bedroom — ”

They all said goodnight, and Ann and David got in their car. “That was very sweet of you, Ann, to arrange about next Saturday night,” David said.

Ann smiled at him. “I asked them because I must admit we had a wonderful time tonight. It reminded me of being home. They seem so genuine; they seem to have so much fun.”

David glanced at her, “They enjoy life now; they’re not postponing living.”

Ann felt the old fear for a moment in her chest. She deliberately made it subside. Postponing life, David called it. “Am I doing that, David?” she asked quietly. David said nothing, and the night closed in around them. They were returning to an empty apartment. Now she knew why she was always eager for other couples to be there every week end. For a moment she glimpsed what she and David had been missing. She moved across the seat until her shoulder touched his. “David,” she said, “I don’t want to rob us of the riches that you talk about. Will you help me, David, to learn to live now and have faith in the future?”

David stopped at a red light. He glanced at her profile for a moment. “Ann, you have to find that confidence for yourself. I believe in you, Ann. You have to learn to believe in me and the future — ”

David started the car again. Ann leaned her head against his shoulder. “I will,” she said softly, and it was as if her spirit took wing. Then she said half to herself but with conviction and determination, “I do, David.”