"Diane, I just don't understand why you keep harping on it over and over," Don said irritably as they sat on the sofa after dinner. The news was on but he had turned the sound off and some nameless politician wiggled his lips and contorted his face silently on the television screen.
"I'm sorry… I really am, honey. But it just sounds so awful to me, that's all. I can't get used to the idea of leaving Evansboro."
He sat up and turned to face her. "But, Diane, we always talked about one day moving up to Raleigh and getting one of those nice houses with the fancy lawns and raising a couple of young'uns."
"Sure, but this isn't the same… It isn't Raleigh you're talking about. And there won't be any nice house with a lawn. Even if there is a… oh, skip it."
"Skip what? What're you getting at?" he demanded angrily. "There's something else bugging you, honey. Let's hear it… spit it out!"
"Nothing…" She lowered her face sulkingly. "C'mon… don't play games with me. What is it? What is it?"
Diane swallowed hard. "I'm… I might be pregnant."
Don had the pained, stopped-in-mid-air look of a man just kicked in the gut; all the color had drained from his face and it took a couple of seconds before he was back to normal again.
"Pregnant? You think you're pregnant!?" he gasped, his eyes widening and his cheeks puffed with angry disbelief.
"Don, I'm sorry. But you know I just had to stop taking the pill because it was messing me up something awful. It must have been that night you came home from bowling late and we played around without using anything… you can't blame me. It took two of us, you know."
They were passing the Stop-Over, a local beer joint and hangout that offered pool tables and pinball and too-friendly hostesses. Don had often frequented the place, but it wasn't something that he told his wife about.
"Stop here… stop the car!" he demanded. Diane wheeled up to the curb, her hands shaking as they tightly gripped the wheel. "W-what's wrong, honey? P-please, don't make a scene here, right in town!"
"I'm not going to make any scene I'm just gettin' out. Go on home, I just want to stop off for a beer or two."
"In that place? Don, please!"
"Go on, damn it! I don't need you motherin' me all the time. I'll see you later!" He got out and slammed the door without looking back and strode hurriedly into the painted-glass-front bar. Diane heard the high-pitched giggle of one of the hostesses as she called him familiarly by name.
She quickly wiped the tears from her eyes with the soft fabric of her sleeve and drove away before anyone saw her. But still, as she steered the car along familiar streets, around corners that she had rounded a million times, she felt very, very alone, as if she had somehow taken the wrong turn and was in some dreary, unfriendly city… a city like the one that she knew they would soon be moving to up north.
People in their cars or standing on their lawns were all strangers as she drove home alone. No one smiled or waved or tipped his hat.
Never in her short, happy life had she felt so alone… and so desperately in need… Oh, Don, why, why? Why do you blame me? It's not my fault about the job or even about the baby! Why!?
She had finally drifted off to sleep, reconciled at last to being alone on this night of all nights to be lonely. She had thought once of calling the sheriff's office, just in case something had happened to Don, but she decided against it. Everyone in Evansboro knew who he was – if he had been in an accident or something, the deputy would have recognized him right off.
But the alternatives that she had to face were almost as bad in their fashion… he must be with another woman, some hussy from the bar. Maybe they were in bed together right now, maybe he was kissing her… or worse! Maybe… Oh, Don, come home, come home!
Suddenly she awoke with a start, her head spinning from the jarring awakening and the sound of noise in the living room. But the voice that soon followed it was familiar enough… it was Don and he was dead drunk!
"Goddamn it, what's that footstool doing there!" he cursed loudly. "Son of a bitchin' broad never cleans up!"
She stood silently in the doorway to the bedroom, waiting for him to finish venting his booze-soaked rage against the furniture and against her. He weaved even as he stood still and when he finally saw her he waved her away with a limp toss of his arm.
"Go back to bed… I don't want'a talk to you."
"Why, Don? Why do you blame me?" she asked softly, careful not to raise her voice for fear that she would set him off on another rampage. He had never hurt her, never even laid a hand on her in anger… but there was always the first time.
"Aw, shut your face and go back to sleep," he muttered, his voice suddenly losing much of its incoherent drunkenness. "I'm all right just having a little fun, that's all."
"With a woman?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"Yeah! With a woman!" he shouted, waving his arm in the air, his fist clenched threateningly. "With three of 'em! I was fuckin' all three of 'em at once. What's it to 'ya? And not one of them got pregnant! Not one!"
She crossed the room to his side and put her arm around his waist and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He jerked away at first but she knew from years of marriage that he didn't mean it… he could have stayed away if he hadn't wanted to come home. Nobody forced him to come back to her.
"Let's go to bed, honey… you've got to go to work in five hours," she whispered softly in his ear. He let himself be led blindly into the darkened bedroom and just fell across the bed diagonally. Diane undressed him and folded his pants and shirt and managed to straighten him out on the bed so that she had enough room to crawl under the covers.
"I have to know, Don," she said softly when they were both in bed. "I have to know… is it the baby? Or is it the job? Would it be all right, the baby, I mean, if you had your job?"
He lifted his head with the last fading strength left in his liquor racked body; his eyes were only slits and his voice was weak but clear. "Of course it's the job, honey… You know I wanted a baby as much as you. But now… Goddamn it, I can't feed both of you without a job. I can't even take care of us. It's a rotten fuckin' deal, Diane! A rotten… fuckin…" His voice trailed off and his head sank onto the pillow again; almost immediately his breath began to come in snorting short gasps and he was asleep. Or passed out.
That faint glimmer of an idea, that spark that glowed in the recesses of her troubled thoughts, was growing now into a full fledged plan. Or at least the beginnings of one… she not only knew what she had to do, but she also knew when and maybe even how.
She turned onto her side, away from her sleeping husband, as if the lurid wantonness of what she planned made her unfit to touch him, even in their marital bed. It was a desperate plan and one that sickened her just to think of it… but she knew now that there was no other way.