should I?” he snapped at her one evening when she tried to discuss it with him. “Where
the fuck were all those fat cats when I was up there getting my ass shot at?”
A few times Catherine broached the subject of what Larry was going to do with his
future. She had thought that he would want to remain in the Air Corps, but almost the first
thing Larry did when he returned home was to resign his commission.
“The Service is for suckers. There’s nowhere to go but down,” he had said.
It was almost like a parody of the first conversation Catherine had had with him in
Hollywood. Only then, he had been joking.
Catherine had to discuss the problem with someone and she finally decided to talk to
Bill Fraser. She told him what was troubling her, leaving out the more personal things.
“If it’s any consolation to you,” Fraser said sympathetically, “there are millions of
women all over the world going through what you’re going through now. It’s really very
simple, Catherine. You’re married to a stranger.”
Catherine looked at him, saying nothing.
Fraser stopped to fill his pipe and light it. “You can’t really expect to pick up where
you left off when Larry went away four years ago, can you? That place in time doesn’t
exist any more. You’ve moved past it, and so has Larry. Part of what makes a marriage
work is that a husband and wife have common experiences. They grow together and their
marriage grows. You’re going to have to find a common meeting ground again.”
“I feel disloyal even discussing it, Bill.”
Fraser smiled. “I knew you first,” he reminded her. “Remember?”
“I remember.”
“I’m sure that Larry’s feeling his way, too,” Fraser continued. “He’s been living with
a thousand men for four years and now he has to get used to living with a girl.”
She smiled. “You’re right about everything you said. I suppose I just had to hear
someone say it.”
“Everyone’s full of helpful advice about how to handle the wounded,” Fraser
remarked, “but there are some wounds that don’t show. Sometimes they go deep.” He saw
the look on Catherine’s face. “I don’t mean anything serious,” he added quickly. “I’m just
talking about the horrors that any combat soldier sees. Unless a man is a complete fool,
it’s bound to have an enormous effect on his outlook. You see what I mean?”
Catherine nodded. “Yes.” The question was: What effect had it had?
When Catherine finally went back to work, the men at the agency were overjoyed to
see her. For the first three days she did almost nothing but go over campaigns and layouts
for new accounts and catch up on old accounts. She worked from early in the morning
until late in the evening, trying to make up for the time she had lost, badgering
copywriters and sketch artists and reassuring nervous clients. She was very good at her job
and she loved it.