ah Winter wondered why she
did not feel more concern. Joan's throats had always thrown her into a
greater panic than she had ever felt at her own children's illnesses.
To-day she felt apathetic, indifferent.

She helped tuck the rebellious Joan in bed. Joan was spluttering about
some plan for to-morrow. And Marcia was saying, "But you can't go
to-morrow, Joan. You know you can't, with that throat. Mother will have
to stay home with you, too, and give up her plans to go to the country
club with Daddy, and it's the last chance she'll have, too, for a long,
long time. So you're not the only one to suffer." Hannah Winter said
nothing.

They went in to dinner at 6.30. It was a good dinner. Hannah Winter ate
little, said little. Inside Hannah Winter a voice--a great, strong
voice, shaking with its own earnestness and force--was shouting in
rebellion. And over and over it said, to the woman in the mirror at the
north end of Peacock Alley: "Three score--and ten to go. That's what it
says--'and ten.' And I haven't done a thing I've wanted to do. I'm
afraid to do the things I want to do. We all are, because of our sons
and daughters. Ten years. I don't want to spend those ten years taking
care of my daughter's children. I've taken care of my own. A good job,
too. No one helped me. No one helped me. What's the matter with these
modern mothers, with their newfangled methods and their efficiency and
all? Maybe I'm an unnatural grandmother, but I'm going to tell Marcia
the truth. Yes, I am. If she asks me to stay home with Joan and Peter
to-morrow, while she and Ed go off to the country club, I'm going to
say, 'No!' I'm going to say, 'Listen to me, Ed and Marcia. I don't
intend to spend the rest of my life toddling children to the park and
playing second assistant nursemaid. I'm too old--or too young. I've only
got ten years to go, according to the Bible, and I want to have my fun.
I've sown. I want to reap. My teeth are pretty good, and so is my
stomach. They're better than yours will be at my age, for all your smart
new dentists. So are my heart and my arteries and my liver and my
nerves. Well. I don't want luxury. What I want is leisure. I want to do
the things I've wanted to do for forty years, and couldn't. I want, if I
feel like it, to start to learn French and read Jane Austen and stay in
bed till noon. I never could stay in bed till noon, and I know I can't
learn now, but I'm going to do it once, if it kills me. I'm too old