Read Online Don't Talk to Me About the War by David A. Adler - Free Book Online Page A

book, and gets up.
    I reach the lobby floor, look at Beth a moment and then tell her, “The doctor said Mom’s just tired and maybe depressed.”
    “That’s all?”
    I nod.
    “No disease?”
    I shake my head.
    “Then that’s good news,” Beth says, and hugs me. “I’m so happy for you.”
    I hold on to her and we stand like that for a bit, and then Beth steps back. I see tears in her eyes as she gathers her books. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says.
    I wipe my eyes. They’re teary, too.
    Beth leaves the building and I notice the two old women. They’re still sitting in the lobby and they’re watching me. I smile at them and then go back upstairs.
    Mom is standing by the stove, stirring the noodles. Later, while I help her clean the chicken and make the salad, she describes the doctor and his office. When she and Dad left it, they went to a coffee shop for some ice cream.
    “Dad told the man we were celebrating and he brought us each a piece of chocolate cake. ‘No charge,’ he said.”
    It must be Goldman’s. Mom doesn’t know I meet Beth there every morning.
    “Dad thinks maybe I’m depressed,” Mom says as I squeeze a lemon over the salad, “because of my radio programs. He thinks maybe all Helen Trent’s troubles and Ma Perkins’s are upsetting me. Dad told me to listen to music instead, so that’s what I did this afternoon, but I miss Helen, Mary Noble, and Ma Perkins. It’s lonely all afternoon without them.”
    Lonely without some made-up radio people! Maybe Dad is right. Maybe Mom is too wrapped up in those stories. Maybe she should sit in the park with her friends.
    “The doctor was nice. He said in winter, with less sun and the cold weather, some people get depressed. He hopes with the coming of summer, I’ll be better. He said I shouldn’t worry, just get more rest.”
    We don’t talk much after that. Mom drains the water from the pot of noodles and when she sets it on the counter to cool, I notice her right hand still shakes. She goes back to the big chair and I go to my room and do homework.
    At dinner, Dad tells Mom everything she should and should not do. He’s determined that she not work so hard. He tells her to “think happy thoughts.”
    While we wash the dishes, Dad tells me, “You can’t imagine what I was thinking this morning. I sat in the waiting room with Mom and worried about all the terrible diseases she might have.”
    Of course, I can imagine that.
    After dinner, Dad tunes the radio to Stan Lomax and the sports news.
    “New York’s three baseball teams won twice today and lost once,” Lomax reports. “The Yankees and Dodgers won. The Giants lost.”
    Yeah!
    I look at Mom. She has a faraway look in her eyes, like she isn’t even listening. I don’t think she really cares if the Dodgers win or lose, which is too bad. They’re really doing great this year. This season, I don’t think any Dodgers fans are depressed.
    Dad tunes the radio to “old people” slow classical music. I hear enough of that in school, in Music Appreciation! I like swing, the new sound. Sometimes, when I listen to it on the radio, I tap to the beat and not because I want to. I just do. And I never tap to the old stuff my parents like. I go to my room and read some history, but at nine, I’m out again. I want to hear Lux Radio Theater.
    Each Monday night it takes a popular movie and makes it into an hour-long radio play, usually with some of the stars from the movie. It always begins with, “Greetings to you from Holly Woooood.” That’s how the producer of the show, Cecil B. DeMille, says it, like Holly and Wood are two separate words.
    After some talk about Lux Flakes, Mr. DeMille says, “And now the curtain goes up on act one of Vigil in the Night. ”
    The first scene is in a hospital. Two sisters are nurses and one of them makes a tragic mistake and a child dies. I look at Dad. This won’t help Mom have happy thoughts.
    “It’s late,” Dad says quickly. “I’m turning