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UIRER, CINCINNATI ,SUNDAY, JANUARY 19 1936
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OVED YOU"---By Hazel Livingston
Copyright, 1936 King Features Syndicate, Inc.

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[[image: line drawing illustration of man carrying suitcase, looking at another suitcase, a woman looks at him imploringly.]]
[[caption]]through," Bennie said, through clenched teeth. "I'm going out of this house and I'm never coming back--"[[/caption]]

she almost hated her for asking only one, and putting the responsibility up to her. 
It was too much to ask a mother to choose between her children. And why had Francesca put it off this long? Why couldn't she have sent the invitation last year, before Dorathea met Bennie--while life was still ahead of her--
In spite of her worry over it, she felt important and happy. She could do something big for the girls again. Something big.
She ran over to the grocer's to buy an avocado for dinner, because it was something Dorathea liked, and it might tempt her to eat, and put her in a good mood for the news. And then she thought, what kind of a mother am I? Favoring Dorathea! So she walked all the long blocks down the steep hill to Fisherman's wharf to buy abalone--because Jan liked it so well.
She set the table with a lace cloth, decorated it with nasturtiums from the garden, and got down the best plates. 
  "Party?" Jan asked.
  "Just us," Evelyn answered, feeling warm and good, because she had dinner all ready to serve, and had a momentous surprise besides.
Dorathea, looking wan and tired, emerged from her room, where she had shut herself all day.
  "Avocado!" Evelyn said, pointing. Dorathea smiled faintly.
  "And abalone -- because Jan likes it!"
  "You like it, too, don't you mother? And avocado?" Dorathea was ashamed of herself before she'd uttered the words. She didn't want to be nasty. Mother was trying to be extra nice to them, for some reason or other. But she just couldn't help it. She felt so mean, she had to hurt someone.
  Evelyn's face flushed, but she didn't answer. They ate in silence. Presently she couldn't wait any longer. She said: 
  "There was a letter today, from Francesca. It's an invitation!"
She spread the double sheet of blue gray paper, scrawled with Francesca's careless, fluent writing, on the table before them. They read it together. 
 Nobody spoke.
  "I thought," Evelyn said, "I thought it would be best--" But after all, she couldn't say it.
  "Of course, Dorathea will go," Jan said, It's only right."
Evelyn's tense features relaxed. Dear Jan. Saving her. Making it easy for her. Dear, good little Jan.
Dorathea looked at Jan out of her deeply circled, tragic eyes. She said scornfully, "Why Dorathea? Why not Jan?"
  "You're the logical one to go. I've got a job and--" She almost said Lowell! It had almost slipped out. Of course they had their own ideas about Lowell, but she'd never said anything really. She'd never tell until Lowell was ready for her to announce it.
  "Yes," Evelyn said, "Jan's sort of settled, and you--"
  "I'm the problem. I can't get a job, and my husband's left me. Maybe if I'm shipped off to the Philippines to Aunt Francesca she'll find another husband for me. I'm pretty, girls are scarce there--some man will be fool enough to take me!"
  "Dorathea--how can you talk like that! How can you say--"
  "Yes, out in the Philippines nobody will know I've had a scandalous affair with a marrie dman and got him away from his wife, but couldn't keep him.
  "I'll be just a young divorcee, like any other young divorcee. And Aunt Francesca can say I'm a Failey--out there they won't know anything about us--she can say anything and get away with it! And I'll be far away where you won't have to see 

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me cry for Bennie--and you can forget you ever had any trouble with me and boast about your daughter Dorathea who's visiting in the Orient. I'll marry somebody rich and old--and Jan will marry Lowell Kramer, and then you can put on the airs again, and be one of those pretty, young-looking mothers--"
It was pretty bad. Dorathea cried so hard she was sick. Evelyn wasup half the night bringing aspirin and cold compresses when she was feverish, and hot waterbags and hot drinks when she shook with nervous chills.
As she waited for the water to boil, standing by the stove in the old lavender bathrobe that had been her mother's, hugging herself to keep warm, Evelyn thought, we're giving up the trip to her, when it would mean so much to Jan or me, and she doesn't want it. She really doesn't want it. All she wants is Bennie, and Bennie only wants his children and Helen.
Tears of defeat, of disappointment, stood in her eyes. She felt old and cold and unwanted.
She poured hot water from the teakettle into the bag. She stood for a while
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[[last column]]of something. Give life a chance"
Give life a chance... But that's what I'm doing, she thought. That's just what I'm doing!
Only things were so slow. Time passed quickly enough. The days and the weeks rolled by. Things happened to other people, but for her, life was just waiting for the postman. 
She hardly saw Ardis any more. Ardis's interests were turning slowly but surely from socialism to the sorority. She didn't talk revolution so much any more, and permitted Caroline, languidly at first, then with a faint enthusiasm, to enlarge her wardrobe. She came home less and less often on weekends. 
  Caroline--indolent Caroline, who had never done a stroke of work in her life, found a tenant for her Sea Cliff house, and then a new, attractive apartment for herself. Before very long she was finding homes and apartments for other people, and tenants for the homes and apartments of the list of Shott and Claire, realtors. 
  With her flair for style, her long list of aquaintances, she was ideally suited for the work. The profits, small at first, grew increasingly larger. Evelyn, driven to distraction by the tenants who complained that there wasn't enough steam, the tenants who said the hot water wasn't hot enough, and the tenants who wanted the bathroom and kitchen painted, was sick with jealousy. Why should she be stuck with Peter's tumble-down old place, while Caroline rode gayly, profitably, all over town in her smart little car, made commissions, made a success?
  "Why don't you quit! Give up this place, and look for something better. We could get along," Jan coaxed. 
  "Well, I will. It'll serve Peter right," Evelyn promised. 
  A DOZEN times she went downtown with the avowed intention of telling Peter she was sick of his old house and was going to move out. A dozen times she postponed it.
  Always she came home with gossip, half pleased, half regretful, about Peter and his Miss Dunne. Still working for him! Wouldn't you think he'd do something for her, living with her as he was, instead of making her go on working and pretending that that was all there was to it. 
  And the airs the woman put on! You'd think she was Mrs. Peter Bolling Failey already, to see her strutting around the office. A lot of good it would do her. He was tired of her, already, you could see that. But of course she'd be the last to know it. [[end of clipping]]

Transcription Notes:
Probably the back of the clipping on page 37.