On the decks of the Normandie coatless passengers lazed and walked in the warm sunlight of the benign May morning. Lying back in her steamer chair, Vee was acquainting herself with peace again. It was good to be on this great sea, calm and well once more, headed toward the Paris and London she knew and loved; it was good to have survived all the darkness and hatred and pain and be looking forward once again. “I’m a survivor,” she thought, and smiled a little. “I guess I survive things.” This trip was a sudden decision, at least on the surface. When she had left the hospital in middle March, she had lived at Ann’s house for a week, and met new people and gone to the theater. When Ann and Fred pressed her to go to the Coast with them, some instinct told her that she must not accept. “I’m on my own again. If I go somewhere, I’ll go alone.” When the week was up, she had gone home, to begin the business of re-establishing her life again. It was hard at first, every room in her apartment, every table and chair, had associations with Jas; the tenacity of pain startled and dismayed her.
