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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78780 ***
+
+
+   It should have been the happiest night of their lives—because of
+   Page’s new job and the baby Sunny was expecting. But then the
+   long distance phone call had come....
+
+   Sunny sat in tense silence, holding herself together by sheer
+   force of will. Page stood motionless, his back to her, his head
+   bowed.
+
+   “Page?” she whispered. “What is it, darling? Did your step-father
+   tell you who you really are?”
+
+   “He told me,” Page said bitterly. He turned to his wife and saw
+   the fear on her face. “He told me you and I are through, Sunny.
+   It’s the same as if we’d never been married at all.”
+
+   THAT WAS WHEN THE TERROR BEGAN—THE NIGHT THE WORLD FELL APART AND
+   TURNED TWO LOVERS INTO FRIGHTENED STRANGERS.
+
+
+   Other Original Gold Medal Books by Ann Bannon
+
+      ODD GIRL OUT
+      I AM A WOMAN
+      WOMEN IN THE SHADOWS
+      JOURNEY TO A WOMAN
+
+   The Gold Medal seal on this book means it is not a reprint. To
+   select an original book, look for the Gold Medal seal.
+
+
+
+
+                              The Marriage
+
+
+                      An Original Gold Medal Novel
+
+                             by ANN BANNON
+
+
+                            GOLD MEDAL BOOKS
+              Fawcett Publications, Inc., Greenwich, Conn.
+
+
+   Copyright © 1960 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.
+
+   First Printing, December 1960
+
+   All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book
+   or portions thereof.
+
+   All characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to
+   persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
+
+   Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+                                   1
+
+
+Jack Mann answered the phone with a yawn, as if he were expecting his
+mother-in-law. But it was simply contented, end-of-the-day fatigue.
+
+He picked up the receiver and smiled at his pretty young wife, Laura.
+She was combing their daughter’s hair, getting her ready for bed. Betsy
+was a lovely child, delicately blond and appealing, like her mother.
+
+It was a still, soft evening, early summer in Chicago, and pleasant
+weather.
+
+“Hello?” Jack said into the phone, coming down from the yawn with a
+comfortable sigh.
+
+“Hello? May I speak to Jack Mann, please?”
+
+“Speaking.”
+
+It was a male voice and unfamiliar to Jack.
+
+“Mr. Mann, my name is Winkler.” The voice was cultured, a little shy.
+“Some friends of yours asked me to call....”
+
+Oh God, Jack thought. He’s visiting town and wants a free sack. Or
+worse, a free girl.
+
+Laura Mann looked up to see her husband’s comical dismay. “Who is it?”
+she whispered.
+
+Jack shrugged. “What friends?” he asked.
+
+“The Pringles. Sunny and Page,” Winkler said.
+
+Jack Mann came to astonished attention. “Page Pringle?” he said, and
+Laura’s face, too, became tense with interest. She forgot Betsy’s hair
+and watched Jack.
+
+“Is he all right?” Jack asked. “Where is he?”
+
+“Yes, he’s fine,” said Winkler. “I talked with him just two days ago. He
+says you were roommates at the University of Illinois for a year.”
+
+“That’s right. He signed up for my math course, and when I passed him he
+offered me a bunk. We ended up good friends. But ...” Jack’s face
+wrinkled into a mass of worried lines. “I’m surprised to hear he
+mentioned me to you, after the set-to we had last time we met. My wife
+and I have been damn worried about him—and Sunny.”
+
+“They’re out in California, in Barstow. On a honeymoon, they said,”
+Winkler told him. “Should be back here in Chicago in a week.”
+
+Jack, listening to the strange voice, felt himself getting careful and
+suspicious. Who the hell was Winkler? Sunny and Page Pringle were Jack’s
+friends, arguments or no, and there was a lot about their lives and
+their marriage that a stranger would have been stunned speechless to
+learn.
+
+It was the most curious marriage in all Jack’s wide knowledge: shocking,
+illegal, passionately faithful, even wildly wonderful at times. Some
+miracle had held it together, but there was no way of telling for how
+much longer. It seemed to Jack, whenever he saw Page and Sunny, that the
+bonds of their love were about to snap and send them spinning apart for
+the rest of their lives.
+
+“Who are you, Mr. Winkler?” Jack asked frankly.
+
+But Winkler, like Jack, became wary in his turn. “I live here in
+Chicago,” he said. “I work here, and....”
+
+“And?” Jack prompted.
+
+“Mr. Mann, this is pretty forward of me, but I wonder if I could meet
+you? If you’d care to have dinner with me?”
+
+“Just a minute,” Jack said, covering the receiver. “Some guy who says he
+knows the Pringles and they told him to look us up,” he whispered to
+Laura.
+
+“Well, ask him to dinner with us tomorrow,” she said. Husband and wife
+gazed uncertainly at each other for a moment. Winkler could be a
+blackmailer, a detective or a guy with a grudge, as well as a friend. At
+last Laura made up her mind for both of them. “If it’s about Page and
+Sunny Pringle, I want to hear it,” she said.
+
+So Jack invited him.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Winkler’s cautious voice sounded almost relieved. “Thanks, Mr. Mann;
+I’ll be there,” he said.
+
+Jack hung up, giving Laura a wry grin. “Well, now we’ve done it,” he
+said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Who the hell could he be?” He
+walked toward Laura, catching Betsy on the way and hoisting her into his
+arms.
+
+“Didn’t he give you a clue?” Laura’s lips were parted with curiosity.
+
+“Just that he met the Pringles in Barstow, California.” He sat down and
+released his daughter, who scampered out of the room.
+
+“Damn it, honey, do you suppose those two kids worked it out?” Jack
+said. “Went back together in spite of everything?”
+
+“It doesn’t sound like Page,” Laura answered. “But still, the way he
+loves that girl is something. It seems to be a case of head against
+heart. Only I always thought Page was two-thirds head.”
+
+“He thought so too, till he fell for Sunny,” Jack said, lighting a
+cigarette. “I never saw a kid so much in love. And being married to her
+only made it better. Gosh, life is goofy. You’d have thought that was
+the world’s ideal marriage. Two handsome, intelligent people, madly in
+love, charming, ambitious, happy. They couldn’t miss.”
+
+“That just made it tougher for them when everything suddenly went to
+hell,” Laura said.
+
+“Yeah. They didn’t know about each other when they married. At least we
+knew about us, honey. We knew the worst. Maybe we figured we couldn’t
+last and when we did, it came as a wonderful surprise.” They smiled at
+each other.
+
+“Here we are, safe and comfortable and indecently happy,” Jack went on.
+“If I could just teach you to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom.”
+She laughed.
+
+“Couple of queers,” he said, speaking the word gently, without malice.
+“And we made it. The Pringles barely had seven months before the sky
+fell on them.”
+
+Laura shook her head with pity. “I still think they could make it work,”
+she said. “They have a tough thing to live with, but Sunny’s ready to
+try. If Page could only—”
+
+“Page is the problem child. He always was,” Jack said.
+
+“Problem? Or child?”
+
+“A little of both. And in a crisis, a lot of both,” he said.
+
+“Maybe this thing will force him to grow up,” Laura said.
+
+“Maybe. If he has the guts to go back and live with Sunny.”
+
+“Lord, she’s beautiful,” Laura remembered. “I don’t see how he can keep
+his hands off her.”
+
+“Hang on, doll,” Jack laughed. “Just because _you_ can’t—”
+
+“I never touched her!” she protested indignantly. But his doubtful grin
+made her add, “Well, not like you think, darling. I never made a pass at
+her. You know, the kind you make when you feel like bed.”
+
+“You never felt like bed with Sunny Pringle?” Jack teased. “Come on,
+honey, don’t put me on.”
+
+Laura pulled her poise around her like a shawl. “Sunny’s a wonderful
+girl,” she said. “She is also the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life.
+And to make it all perfect, she’s in love with her husband.” She spoke
+ruefully enough to make him chuckle again. He couldn’t help kidding this
+wife he treasured, but he did it with obvious love and she never
+resented it. Their relationship was odd, but satisfying to them.
+
+“I just held her,” Laura admitted. “I comforted her when she hit the
+dumps. I even kissed her hair. Like a sister. You show me a sister who
+could be any more proper than I was!”
+
+“I’ll show you a sister who’d have kissed more than her hair, that’s for
+damn sure,” he said.
+
+“Jack, you talk like a jealous husband.”
+
+“Which I am,” he said softly.
+
+She relented and went over to his chair, going behind to massage his
+shoulders. He relaxed with a sigh.
+
+“I know you are,” she said. “You’re never noisy about it, but it hurts
+you to see me with a woman. Jack darling, sometimes I think you ought to
+find somebody, too. Just for now and then, for a release. You wouldn’t
+feel so possessive about me, then. It’d make you happier.”
+
+“I’m as happy as I can stand to be,” he said, caressing her hands. “I
+have you and Betsy. And I’m through horsing around with pretty boys
+forever. When you hit forty you look too silly chasing the teen-agers.
+All I want now is my family.”
+
+She smiled down at the top of his brush cut.
+
+“And if I have to be a little jealous ... well, what the hell. It’s a
+small price.”
+
+She gave his head a fond shove, dislodging his heavy tortoise-shell
+glasses. “Okay, have it your way,” she said. “Just explain one thing to
+me. How come two inverts like us can make a marriage work, and two
+normal people like Page and Sunny can’t?”
+
+“If I could explain that, I’d write a book.”
+
+Laura was a lesbian. But like all lesbians, she couldn’t escape her
+femininity. She loved Jack Mann in every way but one, and she would
+never leave him. Her love had given her the courage to bear him their
+child. She admired his mind, enjoyed his company, and needed him. No
+other man would ever touch her.
+
+Jack gave her her head with the women she wanted, but she never abused
+his confidence, nor exposed him and Betsy to her occasional crushes.
+That part of her life was completely separate from her home.
+
+For Laura and Jack Mann, home, love, and marriage were inviolate. Their
+life together hadn’t been easy to build, and they were proud of it. It
+made the Pringles’ crack-up all the more sad and dramatic to them.
+
+“If you and I had found out about ourselves what Page and Sunny found
+out—so suddenly—_after_ they were married,” Jack mused. “Honey, I’m not
+so sure I could have taken it any better than Page did. It was that
+bad.” He ditched his cigarette in an ashtray by the chair.
+
+“Did you ever know anybody named Winkler?” she asked him.
+
+“I will tomorrow night,” he said.
+
+“What does he want to tell us? That Page and Sunny are going to stick it
+out?” Laura said.
+
+“Think it over,” Jack said. “If he can tell us that, he knows the whole
+damn crazy story.”
+
+“He couldn’t!” she cried. “Almost nobody knows.”
+
+“If he doesn’t, I’ll bet my last dollar he wants us to tell _him_,” Jack
+said. “And that gives me an idea.”
+
+“An idea who he is?” she said.
+
+But he only winked at her.
+
+
+
+
+                                   2
+
+
+Winkler, tall and reserved, inclined his silver head and listened,
+absorbed, while Jack talked. He was kind and friendly, almost
+ceremoniously polite.
+
+The Manns had greeted him earlier in the evening with misgivings. But he
+seemed more afraid of them than they of him, and it made them anxious to
+reassure him. Jack was naturally gregarious, Winkler naturally shy, so
+it was inevitable that Jack should take over the conversation. He spoke
+of Page and Sunny Pringle, answering Winkler’s questions about the safe,
+innocent side of their lives.
+
+“Page was a good-looking boy,” Jack said. “Over six feet, blond,
+clean-cut. It’s a lucky thing, too, considering how he met Sunny.”
+
+Laura kicked him under the table, the way she did when he spoke too
+warmly of other men, and poured Winkler some more coffee to distract
+him.
+
+“He seemed very intelligent,” Winkler told Jack. “It’s hard for a
+stranger to judge, though, and I only talked with him for a little while
+in the restaurant where we met. He seemed to need somebody to talk to
+and I was there. Later he said he wanted you to know that the things you
+told him during your argument were beginning to make sense now. He said
+you’d know what he meant.”
+
+Jack nodded. “Where did you meet?” he asked.
+
+“It was a little hash house in Barstow. On Route 66. He was with the
+loveliest girl I ever saw. His wife?”
+
+“Sunny,” Laura said.
+
+“I’m surprised he asked you to come here,” Jack said. “I didn’t think he
+had much respect for me after that fight.” Laura gave him a warning
+frown, and he got up to get the Cointreau and liqueur glasses. While he
+poured, Winkler asked awkwardly, “Why was it a good thing Page was so
+handsome when he met Sunny? Didn’t she like a plain face?”
+
+“It wasn’t the face,” Jack said. “It was the rest of him. He was stark
+naked.”
+
+Winkler blanched a little. He had all the earmarks of a lawful upright
+man; a good man, but one with ordinary tastes and ordinary morals.
+
+“Could I hear the story?” he said. “I asked for it, and I won’t condemn
+it.”
+
+“It’s pretty rough, Mr. Winkler,” Jack said candidly. “And we don’t know
+you. I wouldn’t want the Pringles hurt.”
+
+“They never will be, not by me,” Winkler said with a strange intensity
+that impressed Jack and Laura. Laura tried to shoot her spouse a strong
+“no” look, but Winkler had already persuaded him. She saw it coming and
+she was right. Jack would tell him, even though he was a stranger.
+
+Or perhaps Jack, shrewd and intuitive with people, saw what Laura
+missed: that Winkler had known Page and Sunny somewhere before and that
+his feelings for them were warmer and deeper than he admitted.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The way Page met Sunny was simple and slightly shocking. She was a
+fair-haired, spirited girl with a lovely face. She was a college
+freshman and hadn’t learned to handle her emotions yet, but she had the
+willow-limbed grace and softness that men admire, and enormous charm.
+Her eyes were a double-take true green, and she had been “Sunny” ever
+since the first pubescent boy had noticed that kindling smile of hers.
+
+It was mid-October, an Indian summer afternoon, smoky and golden and
+warm enough to work up a sweat. Sunny was playing baseball at Lake o’
+the Woods with her sorority, fielding badly but enthusiastically.
+
+Toward the end of the game she plunged through the underbrush at the
+edge of the field, chasing the ball, and there was Page. He was standing
+on the strip of beach bordering the lake, laughing and drying himself
+roughly with his flannel shirt. He was bare as a winter tree and he saw
+Sunny at the same moment she saw him. There was a startled silence and
+then the friend with Page, who was Jack Mann, his roommate, said, “See
+you later, children. You won’t be wanting a chaperone.”
+
+Page threw his shirt on the ground and stared at Sunny. “Come on in,” he
+said softly. “The water’s fine.”
+
+Sunny threw him an enchanting smile. “I lost my ball,” she said,
+embarrassed but fascinated.
+
+Jack spotted it as he retreated from the scene and tossed it to Page.
+Page held it out, daring her to come and get it. And Sunny, with her
+heart beating hard and making her breathless, walked up to him and held
+out a bold hand. He dropped the ball into it, while she looked him up
+and down to show off her sophistication. But she discovered, with a
+bright blush, that she hadn’t any.
+
+He laughed and she turned and ran, clutching the ball. But at the bushes
+she looked back. “You’re beautiful,” she cried. He kept laughing,
+watching her until she disappeared through the bushes and back to her
+game.
+
+They met once again that day, when Page and Jack walked past her group
+on the way to Page’s ramshackle runabout. Jack climbed in while Page
+approached Sunny, who was cooking a wiener to death while she kept her
+eyes on him.
+
+“I’m Page Pringle,” he said.
+
+“How do you do?” Sunny answered solemnly. “I’m Sunny Rotheli.”
+
+They smiled at each other. “Your hot dog is burning up,” he remarked.
+
+She snatched her stick out of the fire and flipped the dog over her head
+into the leaves. “Oh!” she said.
+
+He touched her fair face with his hand. “I’ll call you, Rotheli,” he
+said.
+
+“You do that, Pringle,” she said, half irked and half infatuated.
+
+Page gave Jack a crazy ride back to town.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+They got off to such a fine start that it seemed like a pre-destined
+romance, if there are such things. They made a perfect couple, in a
+wonderful old-fashioned way, complementing each other. They even looked
+perfect: two blond heads, two pairs of green eyes, two quick smiles.
+
+“You look like an old married couple,” Jack commented.
+
+“What do you know about old married couples?” Page said.
+
+But Jack, who was a good bit older than his undergraduate friend,
+insisted it was true. Page and Sunny took to each other in a way that
+seemed almost chemical, adopting each other’s gestures and expressions
+with a sort of passionate admiration. For those first few months the
+affair was fast and thrilling, even slightly delirious.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Their first date was a careful game of hints and titillations and sudden
+sweet impressions. He liked her voice, the firm lines of her body, her
+warmth. They would both have preferred to sit and look at each other
+without speaking, but they felt the necessity to impress each other with
+talk and were afraid to be quiet—until late in the evening when silence
+unexplainably became possible ... and lovely, and intimate.
+
+They were sitting in Page’s car—“Bucephalus,” he called it, the rumbling
+warhorse. The cold autumn air touched them through a score of cracks in
+the doors and windows and made them pull closer together for warmth.
+Page put his arms around her and blessed the weather.
+
+“You feel so sweet,” he told her.
+
+“I’m not sweet,” she objected. “That’s for little girls.”
+
+“How old are you, little girl?”
+
+“Eighteen.”
+
+“That’s pretty old.”
+
+She sighed. “All right, seventeen, but only for six more weeks. And I
+know my way around, which I would have thought you’d notice. How old are
+you?”
+
+“Twenty-eight. I’m a vet. Korea.” He kissed her neck, rubbing a hand in
+her bright hair, and then pulled away slightly to see her face. She was
+serious about “sweetness” being for children. But she had it, and in
+spite of her best efforts it showed.
+
+Page could just begin to glimpse it as he held her in his arms and felt
+her pulsing against him in the dark. That was when the welcome silence
+fell, and neither of them worried about it. It was good to sit there and
+just hold each other, feeling each other’s breath or the tickle of a
+moving eyelash. So good that Page felt a curious sense of foreboding
+when Sunny’s closeness began to excite him. He almost wished it wouldn’t
+happen; not this fast, anyway. He held her tenderly, trying to control
+it, and wondered why in the name of reason he should feel a singing in
+his head over this pretty girl, superficially like so many other pretty
+girls he had known.
+
+I want her to be perfect, he thought. I’m afraid she’ll disappoint me.
+Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m afraid I’m not good enough for her, good
+enough at love to satisfy her. And having challenged himself on a very
+touchy point, he kissed her ardently.
+
+She reacted with a moan of pleasure that told him she had been
+restlessly waiting for it. It was almost too much. She went after his
+mouth like a bounty-hunter on a hot trail and he said, “Hey! Slow down,
+honey. Don’t rush it.”
+
+Her face had a familiar determination and he asked, “Sunny, are you a
+virgin?”
+
+“Heavens, no!” She was insulted. But she stopped pulling on his collar
+and trying to kiss him.
+
+He let her discomfiture build a moment and then lifted her face and
+said, “It’s all right. I don’t mind. It’s a nice change.”
+
+“You think I’m lying!” she exclaimed. “Page, I’m _not_ a virgin. Oh, I’m
+not trying to brag, I think that’s crude. But you have a right to know
+the truth.”
+
+“Then tell me the truth.” He said it gently, smiling, and offending her
+again with his fatherly attitude.
+
+But the feel of his big arms around her softened her up a little.
+“Well,” she said reluctantly. “I’ve done everything else _but_.” She
+could feel him laughing silently at her and with an angry jerk she
+started to get out of the car. But he pulled her back.
+
+“No, honey, don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to laugh.” But he was still
+laughing.
+
+She struggled for possession of her hands, to give him a good whack, but
+he wouldn’t give them up. And suddenly, to her dismay, she felt a strong
+erotic spasm in response to his superior strength. At once she
+stiffened. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of exciting her, not
+when he didn’t play fair. In a small voice she asked, “How did you know
+I’m a virgin?”
+
+“You laid it on too thick, Sunny.”
+
+“Laid what on?”
+
+“The sophistication bit.”
+
+For a moment she thought she might cry with humiliation. And then
+laughter spilled over in her and saved her. “I must look like an idiot,”
+she said, embracing him again.
+
+“There’s so much about you I don’t know,” Page said. “I want to know
+everything.”
+
+“I’m not at all exciting,” she said naïvely.
+
+“The hell you aren’t.” She could tell from the way he was breathing that
+she had said the wrong thing again.
+
+“Well, my _life_ isn’t exciting,” she corrected herself.
+
+“It is now,” he said and she felt his firm, cool hand slip under her
+sweater. Beneath his strong fingers she felt a melting delight and
+suddenly the famous riddle of life seemed dazzlingly clear.
+
+She yielded to him just to see what it was all about. And the brief
+surrender became permanent, a lifetime commitment.
+
+He pushed her head back on the car seat, kissing her, catching her hands
+again and making them do strange things in strange places. She gave up
+trying to stop him then, from that night forward. The feel of his hard
+male body moving against her brought her to life all over and made her
+need him terribly; need things she had never even tried before.
+
+It was Page who restrained her; Page who made her hands do what her body
+was aching to do instead until she began to cry with frustration. It had
+been an electric shock to her that she could feel like this about a man;
+about _this_ man; and she couldn’t be content with going only halfway.
+
+“Page, please,” she begged, but they had petted too ardently; it was too
+late. He collapsed beside her, answering her with sleepy kisses. When he
+came to himself somewhat, he wiped her wet cheeks with his fingers.
+
+“Sunny?” he whispered, surprised. “Did I hurt you?”
+
+“I wish you _had_,” she said.
+
+“Darling, I couldn’t. Not like this. When it happens I want it to be
+right: a beautiful thing in a beautiful place. You deserve that. I’m no
+animal.”
+
+“It should have been tonight,” she said, quivering.
+
+“No.” He amazed himself. With any other girl he would have demanded it,
+but he didn’t want it that way with Sunny.
+
+“You think I’m a born whore, don’t you?” she said tearfully.
+
+“A born angel is more like it,” he said, holding her tightly. They both
+felt reckless and strange, loath to leave each other but faced with a
+curfew. Almost strangers and almost lovers, they looked at each other by
+the light of the street lamp outside, and said simultaneously, “I love
+you.” The coincidence of it startled them.
+
+Page buried his face in her shoulder. “And I don’t even know you,” he
+marveled.
+
+“You will,” she promised happily. “After we’re married.”
+
+
+
+
+                                   3
+
+
+“I don’t know what made me say it,” Page said, crushing his cigarette in
+an ashtray and walking nervously around his room. “We said it together.
+‘I love you.’ It was the damnedest thing.” He clapped his hands against
+his sides and let himself fall on the couch next to Jack Mann. “Help me
+out, Jackson,” he said. “I don’t want a passionate romance with a
+freshman virgin.”
+
+“You have something against freshmen?” Jack said.
+
+“Well, I’m not in love with her, for one thing. I just said I was. You
+know, the moon and the rest of it. She smelled so nice.”
+
+“I never saw you in such a hurry to back out of an affair before. No
+matter _how_ she smelled.”
+
+“I never worried about an affair before.”
+
+“It’s obvious you’re nuts about the girl,” Jack said.
+
+“The hell!” Page snapped. “She wants to get married.”
+
+“Good for her.”
+
+“You louse!”
+
+“Hang on to her, boy,” Jack advised. “She’s a rare one.”
+
+Page got up and paced around again. “Well, what do you do if you’re in
+love with a girl but you don’t want to marry her?” he asked.
+
+Jack shrugged. “Live with her?”
+
+Page grimaced and gave up.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+But if Page complained, he was also intrigued with the idea of letting
+himself get hooked. He didn’t want to be married, it was true. But he
+didn’t want to be in love either, and that was already a lost cause.
+
+Jack was not fooled. He was a sharp student of humanity. He had to be:
+it was part of his self-defense. Any man who feels for other men what
+Jack Mann felt has to guard himself carefully. He watches his tongue,
+which might slip; his hands, which might wander; his wisecracks and
+lies, and guards his feelings with a tough sense of humor.
+
+The virtue of Jack’s abnormality was that he understood people
+instinctively. He knew Page, and nothing Page could say would hide from
+Jack his love for Sunny.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the following spring, Sunny Rotheli was no longer a virgin. But it
+had all been accomplished in a beautiful place at a beautiful time: a
+starry evening, a rich, perfumed hotel room, a dime-store diamond. Sunny
+had felt a wistful nostalgia for the drafty auto and the cold October
+moon, but it couldn’t be helped. She had enough sense to realize she was
+special to him and that he would not take her there where he had made
+love to so many other girls.
+
+Their infatuation did not abate, although Page kept hoping the thing
+would burn itself out from sheer overheating.
+
+As for Sunny, all that mattered now was to get Page to propose. She
+tried everything: teasing, threats, even subversion. She complained to
+Jack and tried to promote sabotage from behind the lines.
+
+But while Page would admit to any poetic excess of passion, he wouldn’t
+propose marriage.
+
+“Live with me, then,” Sunny said mournfully.
+
+“I can’t ask you to do that,” he protested.
+
+“You aren’t asking me, you worm!” she said. “I’m asking you.”
+
+“Somebody has to protect you from yourself,” he said. But the truth was
+he had promised himself a year or two of travel after college. He had
+seen Korea in the Marines and it wasn’t his idea of a pleasure cruise.
+Now he dreamed of Europe.
+
+He had a little money and a lot of wanderlust saved up. He was sure he
+could write, and he was going to prove it in a Paris garret, find a rich
+older woman to keep him, become noticed and influential, and come home
+to claim Sunny in triumph.
+
+Actually, beyond the daydreams, he didn’t know what he wanted to do,
+except give himself a champagne playtime before he settled down to the
+beans-and-gravy of earning a living. He meant to earn the living with
+his typewriter, with words. And he might even take Sunny at her word:
+make her his mistress and dispense with the marriage bit.
+
+But as Jack kept telling him, Sunny was the kind of girl you marry and
+consider yourself damn lucky to have caught. She would make a poor and
+moody mistress but a sensual and loving wife. She needed security with
+one man. After that she’d be all loving and giving, like Sunday’s child.
+
+“What do you know about women?” Page would blow off at Jack when they
+discussed it.
+
+“I like ’em,” Jack said with a cynical amusement he couldn’t share with
+Page. Loneliness was the abiding condition of Jack’s life. It was the
+reason a close friendship like the one with Page meant so much to him.
+
+“I like them too. But that doesn’t mean I understand them!” Page said.
+
+“Hell, you don’t like them. You just love them.”
+
+“I like Sunny,” Page restored.
+
+“Oh, Sunny. She’s the one you’re going to marry. That’s the one woman a
+man has got to like as well as love,” Jack said.
+
+“Thanks, Dorothy Dix. Why don’t you write a column on the subject? You’d
+make a mint.”
+
+“Damn right I would,” Jack said. “I’d have every old maid in the country
+sending me sachets.”
+
+“Including Sunny Rotheli,” Page said.
+
+“She won’t be an old maid. If you turn her down like the ass you are,
+somebody else will grab her fast.”
+
+“I’ll be through school in June, and by God, I’m taking off,” Page said,
+gazing out the window. “I’ve planned it for two years. Once you’re
+married, you’re stuck with furniture and drooling babies and a jealous
+wife. And eight hours of brown-nosing a day to support the whole ugly
+mess. No thanks, man. Not for me.”
+
+“Not even with Sunny?”
+
+“Not for a while.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“He meant it, too,” Jack told Winkler. “Came June that year and he
+promised Sunny he’d be around all summer. She lived in one of the
+Chicago suburbs, Hillsburg—west, on the Burlington line.”
+
+Winkler was motionless listening to this story that had started out like
+so many classic college romances and had turned slowly into something so
+frighteningly different. He was fascinated and repelled at the same time
+by the brilliant little man talking to him. Jack was too calmly frank
+about himself; so frank he confounded Winkler, who found that he had
+become the helpless audience of a sort of modern ancient mariner.
+
+“So Page went back on his promise, and didn’t see Sunny?” Winkler asked
+when Jack paused for a drink.
+
+“He took off for Europe,” Jack said. “He was afraid if he saw her once
+more he wouldn’t go. It was then or never. But the poor guy outfoxed
+himself. He was even unhappier over there than Sunny was back here.”
+
+“What did Sunny do?” Winkler said.
+
+“What could she do? Went back to school for two more years. She didn’t
+see him again until the summer before her last year in college. I had
+gone to New York by that time, but they told me about it later. Page had
+just started to work for the Chicago _Tribune_. Decided to use his
+writing ability in journalism.”
+
+“Was Sunny still in love with him?” Winkler asked.
+
+“Yes. Oh, she got engaged to some hometown guy, and she might have
+married him. It shook Page up to find that ring on her finger. He
+proposed to her on the spot ... gave her such a rush she couldn’t turn
+him down. But when she said yes, neither of them suspected their
+marriage would end up the horrifying mistake it did.”
+
+
+
+
+                                   4
+
+
+It was Sunny who noticed Page’s car first, parked in her family’s back
+yard. Nobody but Page would drive a crumbling runabout like that one.
+
+“Page Pringle!” she exclaimed.
+
+“Who’s that?” her father asked, pulling his car in beside Page’s heap.
+
+“The _grande passion_ of two years ago,” said his wife.
+
+They found him in the kitchen. The thermostat in the refrigerator had
+gone haywire and, finding all the food frozen, Page had started out to
+fix it. Sunny’s little brother, Chuckie, gave him admiring help. Page
+had gotten sidetracked and carved six bloody half moons out of an icy
+tomato for Chuckie when Sunny and her parents caught him.
+
+The motor in the refrigerator droned on in the background. He had
+forgotten to turn it off and it was working gamely to chill the whole
+kitchen. Page and Sunny looked at each other, afraid and relieved,
+intensely affected by the sight of each other.
+
+“I was just fixing the ice box,” Page said clumsily. It was a
+declaration of love. He hated his shuffling embarrassment, but she
+caught his hands and saved him.
+
+“Thanks,” she said.
+
+“Cripes,” said Chuckie with the traditional disgust of the young for
+romance. “Show me about the tomato, Page.”
+
+“Meet my family,” Sunny said, and introduced them. He turned willingly
+to shake hands, welcoming the chore he used to think of as the first
+step down the aisle.
+
+Because this time he was sure; this time it was for keeps. He had been
+around the world now, and the world had only one Sunny. He was certain,
+with the confidence of his youth and their mutual passion, that she was
+still his. He had the pressure of her hands and the look in her eyes to
+prove it.
+
+Lord, he thought, I want her right now. He stared overlong until Ben
+Rotheli, her father, cleared his throat and offered him a beer. They
+went into the living room with Chuckie trailing behind, his hands full
+of melting tomato chunks.
+
+Page couldn’t keep still. “Sunny, you look wonderful. Just great,” he
+said impulsively and interrupted Ben’s description of a double play.
+Rotheli laughed and so did Sunny.
+
+“I’m not very subtle, am I?” Page grinned, turning red.
+
+“Everything in the refrigerator is ruined,” June Rotheli announced,
+coming in from the kitchen.
+
+“Oh, my God, it’s all my fault.” Page got up.
+
+They brushed it off good-naturedly but he insisted on taking them out to
+dinner. “Let me get back in your good graces,” he said eagerly, and they
+smiled at him and liked him. Page could hear echoes of Sunny’s laugh in
+her mother’s and it made him like June Rotheli immensely.
+
+Chuckie got a good start on a case of hero-worship that night. Anybody
+who could saw a frozen tomato apart and spoil all the food in the
+refrigerator and take the whole family out to dinner in one day was a
+very superior man.
+
+They went home to Hillsburg after dinner and sat on the front porch for
+a while. Page had been prepared to tolerate his future in-laws. Instead,
+he liked them.
+
+He put his arm around Sunny, coasting on the porch swing, and fed her
+peanuts. Chuckie sat at his feet, infatuated as small boys often are.
+Page noticed how fond of his son Ben Rotheli seemed. Not that a man
+doesn’t take special pride in a son, but this was a relationship close
+and warm beyond the usual. Often, as he talked, Ben’s hand came in touch
+with his son’s shoulder as if to say: “This is my boy, my brains, my
+bones, my immortality.” It wasn’t the easiest attitude for a small son
+to bear, though Chuckie took it pretty well in stride.
+
+When the phone rang Chuckie jumped up to get it. But it was for Sunny.
+He came back to the porch to call her and his face wore an impish grin.
+“It’s Ralph,” he said.
+
+“Bed for you, mister,” Ben Rotheli told him as Sunny went in.
+
+“I’ll be over tomorrow, Chuckie,” Page said.
+
+“We’ll have to go somewhere else,” Chuckie said. “Ralph will be here.
+Maybe we could go fishing.”
+
+“Maybe we could throw Ralph in the lake,” Page said.
+
+Chuckie laughed and Ben and June shooed him in the house, following him
+in a tactful move that left the porch to Page.
+
+When Sunny came back, they were alone with the fireflies and the sounds
+of a summer night. Alone with two years of love to catch up on.
+
+“I like your family, honey. I didn’t think I would,” he said. “Your dad
+is awfully fond of Chuckie, isn’t he?”
+
+“Yes.” Sunny plucked at a loose thread on her skirt and Page admired her
+passionately in silence, his hands moving carefully on her arms. “We’re
+a mixed-up family,” she added.
+
+“Does it make you jealous? Girls are supposed to be jealous of their
+fathers.”
+
+“No.” She laughed. “I understand why, you see. Dad and Mom lost a baby:
+their first. A son. He would have been quite a bit older than me. So
+when Chuckie came, years later, he seemed like a second chance.”
+
+“Did the first one die at birth?” Page kissed her neck.
+
+“He lived a little while, but they lost him at about three weeks.”
+
+“How did he die?” Page didn’t care especially about it but he was afraid
+to blurt violently, “Darling, marry me!” the way he wanted to. It might
+scare her off.
+
+“I never knew how it happened,” she said of her lost brother. “They
+never come out and say he died; it’s as if the words would hurt too
+much. So I’ve gotten the habit of saying they _lost_ him.
+
+“Mother can’t talk about it at all. She was sick before he came, and,
+afterwards she had a nervous breakdown. Cracked up completely. She
+couldn’t even leave the hospital for almost a year, and it was ten years
+before the doctor let her try again. She got me.”
+
+“Must have been rough,” Page said. “Darling, you smell like roses.”
+
+“It was. They named him Roger. It’s too bad they gave him a name—makes
+him seem too much like a real person.”
+
+“Were they sorry you were a girl? What kind of perfume is that?”
+
+“No. Mother came back to life and nearly spoiled me ... Chanel Number
+Five.”
+
+“Why didn’t they name Chuckie ‘Roger’? Does Chanel smell like roses?”
+
+“Because Mother was afraid of the name. No, you nut, it’s an aldehyde
+scent. Strictly chemical. Your smeller’s confused.”
+
+“Honey, I don’t care what it is, you smell like roses.” He turned her
+head and kissed her forehead reverently, and then her cheeks and nose,
+and then his lips parted over hers and he touched her soul with his
+tongue. Her response was as hot and knowing and loving as he had
+remembered, and he held on to her urgently.
+
+“Sunny, Sunny,” he murmured. “You’re my whole life. I knew it back in
+school but I wouldn’t admit it. Darling Sunny, thank God it’s not too
+late. You haven’t changed. I was so afraid—”
+
+“You!” she cried suddenly, giving him a hard shove. “You worm!”
+
+He leaned back, startled, unwilling to release her. “I know I’ve been
+gone a while—”
+
+“Two whole years! And I was just getting over you, damn you!” she said,
+throwing her arms up across her breasts and glaring at him.
+
+“Tell me what an ass I am if it’ll help,” he said.
+
+“What an ass _you_ are?” she said dismally. “_I’m_ the ass. Sitting here
+like Heaven’s own fool and letting you—”
+
+“Letting me what?”
+
+She pushed his groping hands away again.
+
+“Tell me; let me hold you. Oh God, Sunny ... Sunny....”
+
+“I have a date with Ralph tomorrow,” she said curtly.
+
+“I’ll drown him for you. Chuckie and I are going fishing. I’ll drown the
+bastard.”
+
+It made her laugh and the laughter took her over the line to tears. Not
+too far from a mild hysteria, she held out her left hand to him. He
+caught it gratefully and kissed it and his lips met full on a cold hard
+stone. Surprised, he lifted his head and saw for the first time the grim
+flash of a diamond. He looked at her.
+
+“Ralph’s?” he said.
+
+Sunny nodded. “And he’s such a nice guy,” she said tearfully. “Such a
+good-natured, dependable, rich....” Her voice climbed.
+
+“Okay, skip the torture treatment,” he said, still gripping her hand as
+if it were keeping him from a fall over a cliff. “Somehow I thought—”
+
+“I’d sit around on that fine little duff of mine you admire so much and
+wait for you? Oh, Page, _did_ you?”
+
+“I guess so.” He grasped her other hand to crush with the left one.
+“Sunny, marry me. Marry me!” he said.
+
+“Ask me, don’t tell me.”
+
+He looked at her, hope dawning all over his face. She wasn’t shocked.
+She wasn’t even surprised. If she hadn’t loved him so deeply she would
+have laughed at him.
+
+“Will you marry me?” he asked, softly and obediently.
+
+“Not yet.”
+
+It took Page several seconds to realize that she had said “Yes.”
+Qualified, but still “Yes.” When he did, he yanked frantically on the
+diamond ring, muttering, “Damn, damn, damn!”
+
+“Are you trying to break my finger?” she said.
+
+“No, just the ring. Sweetheart ...” he stopped long enough to ask ...
+“when? Next week?”
+
+“No, Page—”
+
+“But my mind’s made up. I can’t wait any more.”
+
+She listened open-mouthed, too overcome by his brazen love to throw her
+two long years of lonely waiting at him. “I’m a fool to marry you at
+all,” she said.
+
+“You said yes, didn’t you?” he asked.
+
+She looked away and he saw her tears then, shiny trails on her faultless
+cheeks.
+
+“Do you love me?” he asked.
+
+“Would I say yes if I didn’t?” She spoke with shame. She had meant to
+punish him when he came back—_if_ he came back. And here he was,
+providentially dumped at her feet; hers to tease and torture till he
+knew exactly what she had been through. And what was she doing? Falling
+into his greedy arms like a good-hearted little whore.
+
+“I just want to hear you say it,” Page said.
+
+“I love you. That’ll be two bits,” she said bitterly. And suddenly, in
+her words, he recognized what grief she had spent on him, what dragging
+hours of regret.
+
+“I can’t make it up to you, can I?” he asked, pulling her head down on
+his shoulder to cry. “Darling, can you believe I’m as sorry about that
+damn trip as you are? It didn’t prove a thing—except that I can’t live
+without you, and maybe that makes it worth something. Please, baby,
+please—tell me you love me.”
+
+“Haven’t you humiliated me enough for one night?”
+
+“I’m not trying to humiliate you, you lovely, lovely girl. I’m trying to
+make you understand ... forgive me ... take me back.”
+
+“The last time I saw you, you were driving away in that crazy car of
+yours, shouting, ‘Next weekend, honey. Look for me.’ Well, I looked, all
+right. That was a long weekend, Page. It lasted two years.”
+
+“Do you hate me, Sunny?”
+
+“Of course I hate you!... Darling ... darling....” She was crying still.
+“I hated you enough to think I could marry Ralph. I _had_ to hate you.
+It was either that or keep on loving you, and hating didn’t hurt as
+much.” She sighed and blew her nose on a tissue. “Now my family wants me
+to marry Ralph. They like him; they know him. But who is Page Pringle?
+Just a guy who broke their daughter’s heart.”
+
+“I thought they liked me. They were so nice to me tonight.”
+
+“What else could they do?” she said and worried him.
+
+“They’re wonderful people,” he said. “I want them on my side.”
+
+“What about _your_ parents?” Sunny asked. “How do they feel about this?”
+
+“They don’t know about it yet.”
+
+“And I don’t know about _them_,” she said. “I get the feeling you don’t
+want me to. I don’t think you even have a family. You just sprang full
+blown out of a beer bottle one day, with a full head of foam. Tell me
+about them.”
+
+“When you tell me you love me.”
+
+“I’ll tell you when I’m good and damn ready!” she flared, and he bent
+her firmly against him and kissed her.
+
+“You’ll tell me now,” he said. “Say it! Please say it.”
+
+When she heard the pleading in his voice her self-righteousness
+dissolved and she whispered, “I love you.”
+
+“I love you, _Page_,” he told her.
+
+“I love you, I—I—oh, God, Page, I _do_. Isn’t it awful?” She felt her
+tears rush up again and cried impatiently, “What’s your mother like? A
+fishwife with marcelled hair?”
+
+He was kissing her, but she struggled free and clamped her arms over her
+breasts again, turning her back to him.
+
+“Come on,” she said, trembling. “Make with the family history. If I have
+to return Ralph’s ring and take you instead, I want to know what I’m
+getting.”
+
+“You mean heredity and all that? I’m not an epileptic,” he groaned. “Or
+a bleeder. Or a compulsive criminal.”
+
+She was trying to zip her skirt shut while he talked and he was trying
+to stop her. He won. She felt too undignified wrestling with him and
+covered her bosom again instead. “Come on, darling. Job? Money?” she
+said.
+
+Exasperated, he sighed, “I’m writing. For the Trib. I’ll be the best
+damn journalist in this country in a few years, and you’re going to be
+my wife. And you’ll be glad I made you marry me. And you have the most
+beautiful goddamn neck and you smell like roses and oh, honey, honey, I
+can’t talk, don’t make me talk, all I want is—”
+
+“Page Pringle, if you touch me there again I’ll put on a chastity belt
+and give the key to Ralph!”
+
+“Oh, that bloody bastard!”
+
+“Page!” She turned to look at him with angry reproof, but burst out
+laughing instead. Her arms loosened and he caught her up with an almost
+bone-cracking strength that left her breathless for a moment.
+
+She kept begging for information about his family, tormenting him by
+talking in and over and around his kisses, but he had said his stubborn
+last word on that or any other subject until one-thirty in the morning.
+
+He was holding her then, protecting her from the cool air and treasuring
+the closeness of her; bothered only by one question: the sort that dogs
+a man in love.
+
+“Sunny?” he said, too casually. “Did you ever—I mean—do this with
+anybody else? I mean—it’s okay, you were engaged to Ralph, after all....
+Not that I expected you to be faithful to me all this time while I was
+roaming around.... But, well, I mean—_did_ you?”
+
+She let him work his way through this painful speech and then she kissed
+him gently and intimately and whispered, “You’ll never know, my own
+darling worm. Never. Suffer, Page.” It was a time-honored female tactic
+and it worked. He did suffer, and he never knew the truth.
+
+
+
+
+                                   5
+
+
+Ralph was informed abruptly of his new status when he came for Sunny the
+next day and found Page glaring at him over an afternoon beer like a
+caveman.
+
+Ben and June Rotheli were deeply concerned, but it was Sunny’s decision
+and they stayed out of the fracas. Even so, had they guessed how fast
+the wedding was coming up, they would have objected sooner.
+
+They had to be grateful, at least, that Sunny had informed them of the
+time and place. “I suppose that’s really something, these days,” Ben
+said.
+
+“And I’ve always dreamed of a white wedding for her,” June lamented.
+
+Sunny tried to reassure them through several long nights of family
+argument. “Dad’s been telling all my boyfriends for the last three years
+he’d pay them a thousand bucks to elope with me,” she smiled. “So he
+wouldn’t have to finance a big wedding.”
+
+But not even Sunny wanted it done quite so fast. They were to be married
+in Wheaton, the DuPage county seat, just as soon as the blood tests were
+dry and the license legal. She was too much in love to resist, but she
+was too sensible not to worry. It amazed her when her father, Ben,
+unexpectedly announced to his wife, “What the hell, June. We got married
+in a hurry, too. And it worked out.” Sunny threw her arms around him
+gratefully while June raised martyred eyes to the ceiling.
+
+Ben sounded confident, but he was wondering at himself. In the few short
+days he had known Page he had begun to like him, respect him far more
+than the run of Sunny’s beaux. Why? Because he loved Sunny so
+whole-heartedly? Because he got along with Chuckie? Because he was
+friendly and honest? Sure, all that. But something else, Ben thought.
+Maybe he reminds me a little of myself at that age. Maybe that’s it.
+There’s a bit of egotist in all of us. We can’t help liking the people
+who like us, who are interested in the same things, who might even
+resemble us.
+
+June had to surrender. Everybody was on Sunny’s side, even Chuckie, and
+the wedding came off as planned. Sunny wore a pale gold dress that
+matched her hair, and Page found himself actually tremulous at the sight
+of her.
+
+“Why couldn’t your family come?” she asked him unhappily as they were
+driving to Wheaton. “I wanted to meet them so badly. There won’t be
+anyone there but us and my family.”
+
+“I know. They sent you their love and all,” he said uncomfortably.
+
+“And all,” she echoed with resentment.
+
+“Mother is sick,” he told her.
+
+“How sick?”
+
+“Housebound. And Dad’s out of town. Couldn’t make it back.”
+
+“For your wedding?” she said. “His only son?”
+
+“Don’t make a fuss, honey. This is our wedding day,” he said. Moments
+later, stopping for a red light, he bent to kiss her, but she wouldn’t
+give him her lips.
+
+“You’ll smudge me,” she said, prim and miffed.
+
+But he was too happy to complain. “Sunny, sweetheart,” he said. “My
+almost wife.” The line of cars began to honk behind them and he stepped
+hard on the gas. The sudden acceleration made her laugh and dispelled
+for a minute her secret doubts and fears.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ceremony was quick and simple. June cried and Ben Rotheli, watching
+from behind the couple, felt a strange aching loneliness for the son he
+had lost so long ago: his first child, Roger. He couldn’t have explained
+it, having known the child a mere three weeks. It had been hard for him
+to shift his hopes to Chuckie; hard on Chuckie too, feeling so much
+expected of him. Ben tried not to let it show.
+
+Now, looking at the broad back and blond hair of his new son-in-law, Ben
+felt a swell of affection. Perhaps, in a way, Page could take Roger’s
+place. Roger would have been about this age, and Ben wanted to know Page
+much better, wanted him to like him. And so he indulged in a pride and
+fondness that were rather special.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Page was blissfully happy. He had been two years making up his mind to
+this marriage and he had no misgivings. For Sunny, there were minutes of
+quiet fear when she realized how little she actually knew of Page, how
+much she was relying on their mutual love.
+
+But they were short minutes, swallowed up in the sheer joy of being
+married to the one man she had always loved and wanted above all others.
+
+They took a small furnished apartment in Chicago. It was cramped and
+plain, but they loved it. They went to the movies, bought modernistic
+ashtrays, soaped each other and made love in the shower. It was all
+wonderful, all so normal: pure sunshine and fun with no clouds of
+calamity visible on the horizon.
+
+The only thing that bothered Sunny was the mystery of Page’s parents.
+
+“I guess they disapprove of me, hm?” she said once, needling him.
+
+“How could they when they don’t even know you?” he said.
+
+“Do they know _of_ me?”
+
+“Certainly. They know I’m married.”
+
+“You said they lived here in town. Can’t we drop in on them?”
+
+“No,” he said quickly.
+
+“Would they kick me out?” she asked.
+
+“It isn’t that, honey. It’s just—”
+
+“Just that they hate you? Or me, or us, or _something_.”
+
+“They love me, they’re very proud of me. But my life with them is over,
+now. I’m yours, not theirs. They’ve had me for the past thirty years.
+The hell with them.”
+
+Sunny was shocked at the way he spoke, but she was afraid to press him
+further on the subject.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Page and Sunny spent only one month in Chicago, for Page was being
+transferred to the _Tribune_’s New York office. They spent most of their
+spare time packing and visiting the Rothelis. But finally, a few days
+before their departure, Sunny demanded, “Let me meet your parents,
+Page.” She felt it was then or never.
+
+He looked up from the fried egg he had been tranquilly enjoying, his
+breakfast obviously ruined. “No,” he said, and forked half a yolk into
+his mouth.
+
+“I’m their daughter-in-law, and I want to know them. They’re my family
+now, too.”
+
+He put down his fork and they argued, briefly but fiercely. Sunny forced
+the issue. “All right!” Page shouted. “They’re just a pair of kindly
+gray-haired squares and you’ll be bored to tears. But if we don’t go,
+you’ll imagine all sorts of horror stories.”
+
+“Now you’re being reasonable, darling,” she beamed. But when he sulked
+at her she added, “Is it a feud between you, or something?”
+
+“No,” he said. “We’ve just drifted apart. I feel badly about it. I’m not
+what they thought I’d be when I grew up.”
+
+“What did they think you’d be?”
+
+“The President. What else?” He gave her a rueful grin.
+
+They went over on a Sunday afternoon three days later. Page was nervous
+and Sunny, taking her cue from him, started chewing her nails. She began
+to realize how much she wanted the Pringles to like her, the way her
+parents liked Page.
+
+She followed Page into one of the modern glass-faced buildings on the
+Outer Drive, north of the Loop, and took the elevator up. A maid showed
+them into the Pringles’ spacious living room, which had a marble
+fireplace and a huge picture window looking out on Lake Michigan. Sunny
+had pictured a pair of gloomy hermits living in faded Victorian
+gingerbread and speaking in whispers.
+
+Instead, a vigorous, tall man, aging but with straight back and strong
+shoulders, came into the room, smiling, and held out his hand to her.
+
+“You must be Sunny,” he said as, speechless, she gave him her hand to
+shake. “I’m Page’s father. I’ve been asking him to bring you over ever
+since the wedding. I’m so pleased to meet you at last.”
+
+Nonplussed, Sunny could barely say, “Thank you.”
+
+Mr. Pringle mixed them cocktails, speaking easily as he did so. “You
+must have been a lovely bride,” he told Sunny, serving her a martini.
+“I’m sorry we had to miss it.”
+
+“We missed _you_, Mr. Pringle,” Sunny said faintly.
+
+Page had not spoken a word, not even a greeting, since they had entered
+the apartment.
+
+“Of course,” Mr. Pringle said. “But Page didn’t let us know in time. I
+was in Canada on business when he wired me ... the day of the wedding.”
+His eyes were on his son, who looked away.
+
+“I see,” Sunny said softly, taking refuge in a sip of her drink. Anger,
+resentment, and curiosity all boiled within her. It was as if Page were
+deliberately trying to alienate them all.
+
+Fifteen minutes later they went in to meet Mrs. Pringle, who was propped
+up in bed, dressed in a pink mandarin bed jacket. She was a handsome
+woman in her sixties, a perfect match for her husband, to judge by
+appearances.
+
+She held out a gracious hand to Sunny. “My dear, how lovely to meet you
+at last. I must say, you’re just as beautiful as Page said you were.”
+
+Charmed and astonished, Sunny stammered her thanks and sat down at the
+bedside. She was utterly unsure of herself by now. But Mrs. Pringle did
+most of the talking while Page stood at attention at the foot of her
+bed, remote and cool.
+
+“You will forgive us for not attending the wedding?” Mrs. Pringle
+pleaded. She was rather formal, but in an anxious way that tried to
+please, as if Page had warned her Sunny was a difficult person. “I
+rarely leave this bed any more,” she apologized.
+
+“I understand,” Sunny said warmly. “Page told us you were ill.”
+
+“I see as much of life as I can from here,” Mrs. Pringle smiled. “Not
+much, but enough to occupy me. I don’t mind being alone half as much as
+most people would. You see, before we got Page, I was quite a loner, by
+choice.”
+
+“Before you ... _got_ Page?” Sunny repeated, confused.
+
+“Yes. I guess it’s all in your nature. Some like solitude, some don’t.
+Page was a great joy to us, though. He was just tiny when we got him. He
+never knew any other family.”
+
+Sunny’s mouth opened slightly. “He—didn’t tell me,” she whispered. She
+had to force herself not to turn and stare at him.
+
+“Oh!” Mrs. Pringle paused a moment, plainly afraid of offending her son.
+But the fat was in the fire. She had taken it for granted that Page
+would have told his wife so fundamental a fact about himself. “Well,
+George and I always wanted a boy,” she said restrainedly. “That’s the
+nice thing about adopting, you can choose your favorite.” She laughed, a
+small flustered sound, and Sunny pitied her.
+
+It was no crime to be adopted. What earthly reason did Page have for
+keeping it secret?
+
+“He was a very good baby,” Mrs. Pringle said nostalgically. “I wish we
+could have gotten another. I would have liked a brother for Page. Are
+you an only child, Sunny?”
+
+“No. My brother Chuckie is eleven now. And my parents had another son,
+before I was born, but I never knew him. He died.”
+
+“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, we intended to adopt another before my health gave
+way. But after that we couldn’t, so we’ve had to concentrate everything
+on Page. I hope we haven’t spoiled him for you.”
+
+“I like him the way he is,” she said. But her anger sparkled on the
+surface of her words.
+
+“I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon for New York,” Mrs. Pringle
+added. “Will you write to us, Sunny? Page never will.”
+
+“With pleasure, Mrs. Pringle.” Sunny could hardly keep her eyes off Page
+now, and he stared sullenly out the bedroom window.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+A half-hour later Sunny rode down in the elevator with her silent
+husband, and not until they were in the car and on their way home did
+she say, “All right, Page. I love you and I’m your loyal wife. But I
+don’t like being lied to.”
+
+He knew the storm was coming and he wanted to keep calm, explain things
+temperately to her. He lighted two cigarettes, passing one to Sunny. “I
+just can’t get along with them,” he said. “It’s a long story.”
+
+“I’ve got plenty of time.”
+
+“Well, Sunny, damn it, in the first place, I’ve always been sort of
+ashamed of being adopted.”
+
+“You’re nuts!” she said. “That attitude went out when Freud came in.
+Some of the nicest people I know—”
+
+“Sure, sure.”
+
+“—are actually proud of it.”
+
+“Will you let me tell you!” he said, suddenly so upset that she shut her
+mouth and began to worry about his driving.
+
+“You see, with most parents who adopt kids, it’s different. They tell
+them about it, even before the kid understands what it means. He grows
+up knowing everything. It’s nothing new, it doesn’t scare him, and he
+comes to comprehend it gradually.
+
+“But with me they waited till I was twelve years old, an only child,
+brought up in a formal household, stiffly disciplined, afraid of his
+mother and father. And then I found out the truth by accident. Otherwise
+they never would have told me.” He spoke resentfully and made her feel
+he might be at least partly justified.
+
+“How did it happen?” she asked.
+
+“The family doctor let it out. The adoption had been arranged through
+him instead of an agency because it was faster, and my parents trusted
+him. So he knew about it from the start. Doc Blue....
+
+“Well, I went in in the fall for a school check-up when I was twelve.
+I’ve never known if he let it slip on purpose, I think he did. I think
+he thought I had a right to know, and my Dad hadn’t told me.” Page
+slowed up for a red light.
+
+“He measured my height,” Page said, speaking uncomfortably. “I asked him
+if he thought I’d be as tall as my father.... He’s six-two. And Doc Blue
+just grabbed the opportunity. He said, ‘You can’t always tell, Page ...
+unless you know a boy’s ancestry.’
+
+“I started to fill him in on the Pringles. I was up to my ears with my
+illustrious forebears. But the doc interrupted. He said, ‘I know your
+Dad is proud of his family, but you ask him about it ... where you fit
+in. I don’t think he’s told you everything.’”
+
+“He stuck his neck out, didn’t he?” Sunny said.
+
+“Yeah. But Dad had promised him at the time he adopted me that he’d tell
+me the truth. So Doc Blue felt he had a duty to speak up. He thought I
+should know.
+
+“I went home and asked Dad ... and he told me, all right. And told Doc
+Blue to go to hell. He’s never forgiven him, not to this day. Hates his
+guts, though I have the feeling Mother would have relented after a few
+years.” Page laughed unpleasantly. “You can’t mention Doc Blue’s name in
+front of Dad. Poor Mother. Blue was always her favorite, and I know she
+misses him. But she wouldn’t dare go near him without Dad’s approval,
+and she’ll never get that.”
+
+“Your father didn’t seem like such a tyrant.”
+
+“He is, though. The kind women love to be dominated by,” Page said
+candidly. “It wouldn’t show so much to you. He’s sixty-seven and you’re
+only twenty. But when he was young he never had to chase the girls. They
+chased him.”
+
+Page spoke with secret admiration and Sunny sensed that in spite of his
+resentment, he still had a lot of unadmitted love for the man. “But he
+was absolutely faithful to Mother, and his principles and his family
+heritage. Family meant more to him than Mother or me or his life. Than
+anything!” Page took a corner on squealing wheels.
+
+“Your father loves you, darling, he’s proud of you,” Sunny said. “It
+shows in his face. And your mother, too. They said some fine things
+about you, and they weren’t acting. You must have known that all these
+years.”
+
+He threw his cigarette out the window and his face was pale and tense.
+“Sure they love me. They’re stuck with me. But the day I discovered I
+wasn’t a born Pringle I spoiled it for them. As long as nobody knew but
+them, they could damn near convince themselves I was really their flesh
+and blood. But once _I_ was in on the secret—once I questioned my
+identity, my Pringle ancestors—the illusion was wrecked.
+
+“I had to be arrogantly sure of myself, a Pringle to my finger-tips. How
+else could Dad turn me into a carbon of himself? And that’s what he
+wanted a son for.”
+
+“My father loves Chuckie a little that way,” Sunny said.
+
+“A little. I know, I saw it. But not like Dad loved me. I was an
+obsession. Besides, Chuckie is Ben’s own child. He sired him and he
+loves him for himself. Not because he’ll give some kids the name Rotheli
+some day.
+
+“I tell you, Sunny, my parents spent many bitter years blaming each
+other for not being able to have their own child. For having to settle
+on some stranger’s issue to carry on their name. For sending me to Doc
+Blue when he turned out to be a black-hearted traitor.”
+
+“But they were so—”
+
+“So charming, so nice! I know, God, I know. They’re even nice to me!
+Their borrowed bastard, who exploded their selfish little daydream by
+finding out he had alien blood in his veins.”
+
+Sunny listened to him with an aching heart. “Did a family name really
+mean all that to them?” she asked. “Couldn’t they go on loving you after
+you knew? They certainly love you now.”
+
+“I don’t know. I’ve made things pretty hard for them,” Page said. “I
+hated the whole mess, I hated my ignorance. I hated being a nobody
+without a name or a family.”
+
+“_They_ were your family. You should have been grateful.”
+
+“They were my room and board. I was their immortality. It wasn’t a fair
+trade,” he retorted.
+
+“Page, did it ever occur to you how they must have yearned for a child,
+how they must have adored you when they got you? Maybe their motives
+weren’t the purest, but nobody’s are. If they hurt you, you’ve gotten
+back at them. Can’t you call it quits?”
+
+“I was only a name to them. _Their_ name.”
+
+“You’re more than that now. Surely even you can see that.” She turned to
+face him as he pulled the car into their carport and turned off the
+motor. “Darling, I’d hate to think, if _I_ ever wronged you somehow,
+that you’d hold it against me the way you have against them. It scares
+me.”
+
+“You could never hurt me like that, sweetheart.”
+
+“By mistake, by accident, I might,” she whispered.
+
+“They took my childhood away from me. My name.” His voice was hard.
+
+“What is your real name?”
+
+“I don’t know.” His face was sad.
+
+“Do they know?”
+
+He sighed. “No. Doc Blue wouldn’t tell them. They gave him several
+thousand bucks and a promise never to contact my real parents. He gave
+the money to my real parents, and me to the Pringles. I was bought and
+sold for hard cash, Sunny. And my own name got lost in the shuffle.”
+
+“The Pringles couldn’t take your name away from you if they never had it
+to give,” Sunny said. “They only had one name to give you—their own.”
+
+“It hurts me to use it,” he said. “I’m a man without a past or a
+heritage. I wish I had a real name to give you, Sunny. A real father to
+know and love.”
+
+“You have, if you weren’t so blind stubborn!” she cried.
+
+“Anybody could have brought me up. I’d make just as good a Smith as a
+Pringle.”
+
+Sunny crushed her cigarette. “If Doctor Blue knows your name,” she said
+thoughtfully, “why don’t you get it from him?”
+
+“I’ve been trying to since the day he let the cat out of the bag,” Page
+said, his hands limp on the rim of the steering wheel. “I’ve begged him,
+offered him money, threatened him. Even broken into his office and gone
+through his papers. _And_ been caught at it. He’s immovable, a
+sickeningly honorable old son of a gun.”
+
+“You know, you’re more fanatical on the subject of family than the
+Pringles,” Sunny said. “Maybe they cured themselves by giving you the
+disease.”
+
+“Well, they exposed me to it long enough,” he said.
+
+“You’re a grown man, Page!” she said. “Make your own name now, your own
+place in the sun.” She was full of pity and love, and disappointment in
+him. “A name is just a label, darling. It doesn’t matter half as much as
+the man himself.”
+
+“A name is a history, a home, everything,” he said unhappily.
+
+“Maybe your real parents were sad, ugly people who couldn’t have done
+half the things for you that the Pringles—”
+
+“To hell with the Pringles! I’d rather love my own flesh and blood, no
+matter who, than grow up a stranger in borrowed luxury. And I’ve been a
+stranger there since I was twelve, Sunny.”
+
+“You’ve made yourself a stranger,” she exclaimed. “You big dumb _nut_.
+Page, I’m actually ashamed of you!”
+
+He slammed his fists against the wheel and the horn barked accidentally,
+startling her.
+
+
+
+
+                                   6
+
+
+Jack and Laura were sitting with Mr. Winkler in the Manns’ living room
+after dinner, while Jack narrated the story. “Page made himself unhappy,
+it’s true,” Jack said. “The Pringles were ready for the peace pipe years
+before he was. But they had made the cardinal mistake that adults can
+make with kids. They made him feel, right or wrong, that they only loved
+their name. Not him. They loved the idea of a son and heir, not the son
+and heir himself.”
+
+“Well, he and Sunny moved to New York, then,” Winkler said. “Were you
+and Laura married?”
+
+“Yes. They looked us up right away. Even took an apartment near us on
+East Fifty-second. Sunny was upset about this thing when they first
+arrived, but everything went so well for them that she soon relaxed.
+Used to sit and gab with Laura. They hit it off right away.
+
+“And Page was really happy. Always smiling. Loved his work, loved his
+wife. And he was making ‘Pringle’ his own name at last. Nobody there
+knew his family, so the name was more his own than it had ever been
+before.
+
+“He kept on with the Trib and did very well. When I look back, those
+first months in New York seem like a sort of reprieve,” Jack said.
+
+“Reprieve from what?” Winkler leaned forward on his elbows, hands
+hanging between his knees.
+
+“You’re a good audience, Mr. Winkler,” Jack grinned.
+
+Winkler shrugged, suddenly shy again. “You’re a good talker,” he said.
+
+“Well, around Christmas everything was going beautifully for them,” Jack
+resumed. “We saw them then at a party we threw, and they were the
+happiest couple there.
+
+“But it wasn’t long after that this whole crazy tragedy blew up in their
+faces. Hard to believe, but it sure as hell happened.”
+
+Winkler’s cigarette burned forgotten in the ashtray beside him.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was one of those red-and-green gatherings that stud the Christmas
+season. Most of Jack’s guests were straight. He didn’t like to mix many
+gay people into his parties. He had renounced the painful homosexual
+adventures that used to fill his life before he got married, and it made
+him feel socially clumsy and anxious when the old gay crowd turned up.
+
+Besides, no one in his office crowd knew he was an invert, and he wanted
+to keep it that way.
+
+There were plenty of drinks, carols, and conviviality. Laura turned out
+all but the Christmas lights and candles, and the rooms took on a
+multi-colored jukebox glow.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sunny, full of laughter, was the center of the carol singing. Her voice
+was small but true, and pleasantly husky. She sat on the sofa, crowded
+in by admirers, and sang “Santa Baby” and “The Christmas Song” to warm
+applause. Page was enough of a bridegroom to get foolishly jealous.
+
+She was too popular, too beautiful, with her radiant smile and the
+smooth skin of her breasts showing down to the line of a daringly cut
+dress.
+
+“That thing is too damn low,” he growled, but she stuck her tongue out
+at him and he either had to laugh or be laughed at.
+
+It was a night for costumes. One of the guests was a well-pillowed Santa
+Claus. One came dressed all in white bunny fur, just for the hell of it.
+And later in the evening somebody climbed into a grass skirt Jack had
+brought back from a trip to Hawaii, and favored them with a hula. He
+made a lei of a Christmas wreath and rigged up a pair of glass ornament
+breasts which generated a lot of hilarity.
+
+Page, still grumping, muttered to Jack, “I hate that kind of stuff.”
+
+“What stuff? Hulas?” Jack said. They were standing together by the wall
+watching the performance.
+
+“_Men_ doing hulas.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know,” Jack said, laughing. “He’s not half bad. You’re just
+mad because everybody wants to lay Sunny.”
+
+Page lit a cigarette. He knew he was high and not very cogent. He
+directed his anger at the dancer, who was enjoying his innocent
+transvestitism as much as his audience.
+
+“I don’t know why people think that’s so damn funny,” Page said. “He
+probably gets a secret charge out of it.”
+
+“Come on, old buddy, I’ll doctor your drink,” Jack said and led the way
+to the kitchen. Page followed him on an off-balance course through the
+swinging door.
+
+“No more of that sweet junk,” he said, grimacing at the eggnog. “Gives
+you a rotten hangover.” He handed Jack his glass and Jack handed it back
+with a couple of inches of whiskey in it. Page tasted it critically and
+then turned to his host. “You look uncommonly sober for this hour of the
+night,” he said with disapproval.
+
+“I am. I’m on the wagon.”
+
+“What? Goddam. Are you sick?” Page said.
+
+“Laura cured me,” Jack told him.
+
+“Well, get that damn hula dancer on the wagon with you. Cure him and he
+won’t make such a horse’s ass of himself at the next party.”
+
+“Still worried about Sunny’s dress?” Jack said.
+
+“Oh, the hell with Sunny’s dress. It’s _men_ in dresses I’m worried
+about.” Page hiccoughed.
+
+“Page, I didn’t know. Shall we dance?” Jack said, and laughed at him.
+
+“Oh, shut up.” Page finished half his drink in one gulp.
+
+Jack knew perfectly well that Page was straight. He was also tight, and
+aggravated, and men in skirts were handy whipping boys. But it surprised
+Jack that his old roommate could be so harsh on the subject.
+
+“I’m no fairy,” Page declared, “but that pansy in the grass skirt—”
+
+“—is married and has four kids,” Jack informed him.
+
+“Lots of fags get married to fool their friends,” Page said.
+
+“How would _you_ know?”
+
+Page threw up his hands in a gesture of comical disgust. “I heard it
+somewhere,” he said. “You don’t think I know anything about a lousy
+queer first-hand, do you?”
+
+It hurt Jack, but it was an old familiar pain; one he had long since
+learned to tuck under his heart to heal at leisure. It joined a
+battalion of old scars and his face showed no sign of it.
+
+Jack understood better than he ever had how deep Page’s conformity went.
+Page wasn’t worried about his masculinity; that had never been a problem
+to him. He was worried about being different. He had been raised in a
+conservative home where old-fashioned morals and conformity were prime
+virtues. Then he suddenly found out the family he was supposed to honor
+wasn’t his at all. The morals he respected included lying. And his
+comfortable conformity had been painfully stripped from his back, like a
+suit of clothes. He stood exposed, without a name or identity. At that
+moment, conformity became very dear to him. He wanted to be like
+everybody else with a family all his own.
+
+As for the odd balls in this world, he had little but contempt for them.
+And a small secret awe for the few who could be deliberately different
+and still respect themselves.
+
+But nobody had ever asked Page if he wanted to be different. Instead he
+grew up a member of a minority group, in spite of himself. When he
+thought of orphans and adopted children, he thought of the huge neglect
+they suffered, the rare love, the vague pity of charitable ladies
+fussing over them. And he classed all adopted children among the
+orphans.
+
+Jack watched him in silence a moment. “Next you’ll be telling me _I’m_
+queer,” he said wryly.
+
+Page laughed and clapped Jack on the back. “Okay, boy, you win. It’s
+that eggnog I was drinking. I should know better.”
+
+“I still say it was Sunny’s bosom that got you started,” Jack said. “If
+Laura had a bosom like that I’d never complain about anything again, so
+help me.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jack and Laura saw the Pringles often, especially after Jack learned he
+was being transferred back to Chicago. It was a promotion to his home
+office, and he felt he owed it to Laura and Betsy to go. But he hated to
+leave New York. They gave him three months to make the move.
+
+Sunny, homesick for Hillsburg and Chicago, spent a lot of hours with
+Laura swapping information and feminine chatter.
+
+“Go see Page’s family if you get a chance,” she pleaded. “They’d be so
+happy to hear about us first-hand.”
+
+“We will. Why doesn’t Page ever talk about them, Sunny?” Laura asked. “I
+asked him about his father once and he said the strangest thing. He
+said, ‘I don’t have a father.’ I told him everybody has a father and he
+said, ‘Everybody but me.’ What does that mean?”
+
+Sunny tried to explain it to her.
+
+“I don’t get it. What does he want from them?” Laura said.
+
+“He wants to turn back the clock thirty years and stay with the worms
+who had him in the first place.”
+
+Laura laughed. “_Were_ they worms?”
+
+“Maybe not. But they’d have to go some to beat the Pringles. I’m hoping
+Page will get over this when he has a son of his own.”
+
+Laura, stooped over a suitcase, straightened up and stared at Sunny.
+“Hey!” she said. “You’re not—?”
+
+Sunny smiled. “I wasn’t going to tell anybody so soon,” she said. “I’m
+not really sure yet. I just know, like you do.”
+
+Laura came over and took her hands. The warm firm grasp gave her a quiet
+shiver of delight—the kind Laura so often experienced in contact with
+lovely women. “Sunny, I’m so happy for you,” she said. Up until that
+moment Laura had both admired and feared Sunny a little. People so
+beautiful sometimes inspire a sort of timidity in others, and Laura was
+naturally shy. But now, with the sharing of this secret, Laura felt
+close to her. She had the courage to touch Sunny, even to hold her.
+
+“Does Page know yet?” she asked.
+
+“No. He’ll go into orbit when he finds out,” Sunny laughed. “He’s been
+after me since our wedding day to do this.”
+
+“When will you tell him?”
+
+“The minute I’m sure. I have to see a doctor first.”
+
+“See Dr. Settick,” Laura said. “Richie Settick. He delivered Betsy and
+he’s the greatest. I’ll give you his address.”
+
+“I was going to ask you,” Sunny said, pleased. “I don’t know any doctors
+here.”
+
+Laura was thinking of Jack’s incredulous reaction to the news that Laura
+was carrying their child. But for him, older and with a sexual
+abnormality to fight, it had seemed like a real miracle. It gave him a
+soaring feeling that a normal man, sure of his virility, would never
+know.
+
+Laura sat down on her bed next to Sunny and put her arms around her.
+“You should have seen Jack’s face when I told him he was going to be a
+father,” she said.
+
+Sunny’s laugh brought her slim, smooth body even nearer Laura’s. What
+Sunny thought she was doing there in Laura’s arms she didn’t say. But it
+didn’t seem to alarm her. She submitted to a shy, sisterly kiss from
+Laura—a kiss that scarcely mussed her shining hair—and then pulled away
+with an easy motion and said, “Got any maternity clothes I can borrow?”
+
+“Plenty,” Laura said, and the regret she felt at the lost contact did
+not show in her voice.
+
+She never did discover what Sunny thought of that indiscreet caress. She
+was only grateful that it didn’t interrupt their friendship. Sunny was
+one of the good things in life that Laura would never possess, and Laura
+had the sense to see it early and keep the relationship platonic.
+Sunny’s love was given for the rest of her life ... and given to a man.
+
+
+
+
+                                   7
+
+
+Dr. Settick had been practicing in Manhattan for about six years. He was
+in his thirties, stocky and good-looking, full of good-humor. He had
+managed to avoid marriage, though some of his obstetrics patients made a
+habit of proposing.
+
+“Well,” he told Sunny, “if that’s not a baby in there, you’ll make
+medical history.”
+
+She hugged herself with a happy laugh. “Thank you, Doctor!”
+
+“Don’t thank me. I had nothing to do with it, I’m sorry to say,” he told
+her with a grin.
+
+She went home that evening ready to tease Page frantic before she told
+him the news. But when he got home he cut her off with big news of his
+own.
+
+“Sunny, don’t say a word!” he said as he came in the door. “Guess what?”
+
+“That was my line,” she said as he carried her into the bedroom and
+lowered her into the pillows. “You couldn’t have been promoted again?
+Back to Chicago?”
+
+He fell on top of her, laughing. “Better!” She began to squirm under his
+weight and to wonder if it would hurt the baby. “They want me to write
+my own column.”
+
+She stopped wiggling. “Darling! The Trib?” she cried.
+
+“No, the _Sunday Magazine_. Almost two million circulation. Imagine,
+honey—a magazine. I get a byline and my picture, every damn week of the
+year. One of their editors has been following my feature stuff and liked
+it. We’re in New York a half year and this happens. I knew this was my
+town. Goddam!”
+
+“What will you write about?” she said.
+
+“Whatever comes into my head. You, for example. You inspire me.” He
+gathered her in his arms and kissed her triumphantly. “Oh, baby,” he
+murmured. “If it weren’t for you, I’d never have gotten this. Or if I
+had, it wouldn’t have meant anything. Nobody in the world matters to me
+but you. You make everything so right, Sunny. I’ll write every word for
+you. That way I know it’ll be good.”
+
+She felt a few tears coming on; the kind that take a smile beyond its
+natural borders.
+
+“You’re ashamed of me!” he exclaimed.
+
+“You should be ashamed of yourself, making your wife cry,” she said,
+laughing at the same time. “As a matter of fact, I had something to tell
+you, but I don’t think I’d better. So much good news would be bad for
+you.”
+
+“Try me.” He got up and went into the kitchen. “How about a toast?
+Scotch or whiskey?” he called.
+
+“Scotch,” she answered, sitting up and feeling her abdomen with new
+care.
+
+“Honey, let’s call your family,” he said. “Your dad would love to know.
+He’s been great to me, as if I were part of the family.”
+
+“Well, you are, goofy,” Sunny said, leaning against the kitchen door and
+accepting her drink from him.
+
+“To us,” he said, lifting his glass. “My favorite people.” They clinked
+glasses and drank, watching each other, too happy to feel sensible.
+
+“Oh, honey,” he said, overcome with her beauty, her love for him. “Honey
+baby, I love you so.” He pulled her tight to him and moved against her,
+slowly, rhythmically, guiding her hand in an intimate caress.
+
+She responded with pleasure; subjecting herself to his will with sensual
+delight. And then, equally feminine, she took advantage of his mood to
+whisper, “Let’s call your family, too.”
+
+“Don’t spoil it,” he said softly.
+
+“My father isn’t the only one who cares about you.”
+
+“Nothing doing.” He dropped her hand. “Dad would take it for a peace
+treaty.”
+
+“He’s earned it.”
+
+Page finished his drink, ignoring her. “Oh God, I forgot. You started to
+tell me something. What was it, honey?”
+
+She let herself be sidetracked, too excited to keep still. “Your
+charming wife ...” she said seductively, and kissed his mouth.
+
+“My charming wife,” he repeated, grabbing her again, “has been elected
+Miss Dill Pickle in Pratfall, Indiana.”
+
+“No.” She grinned at him. “I’m going to make you the happiest man in the
+world next August.”
+
+“What’s wrong with now?” Suddenly he stiffened. “What? _Sunny!_ My God!
+Are you ... expecting?”
+
+“Yes.” She glowed at him.
+
+“Are you sure?” His voice dwindled to a whisper.
+
+“Dr. Settick says so.”
+
+“Who’s he?”
+
+“My obstetrician. Laura recommended him.”
+
+“He’d better be the best damn—”
+
+“He is.”
+
+“Oh, darling. This is too much.” He put his arms around her, so proud
+and amazed that his voice cracked like an adolescent’s.
+
+“If you weren’t such a good writer and such a good husband,” she told
+him, “you’d never have gotten us into this mess.”
+
+“Some mess,” he said ardently. It was a long time and a lot of gentle
+kisses before either of them moved. “And it won’t be any poor little
+unwanted bastard, either,” Page said. “This is the most wanted baby
+anybody ever had. My child. My son. How can I wait till August?”
+
+“Let’s call Hillsburg,” she said. “Just think, Chuckie will be an uncle
+at the tender age of eleven. He’ll love that!”
+
+“No, let’s not call tonight,” Page said. “Tomorrow you can tell the
+whole world, but tonight I want just us to know.”
+
+She was touched by the idea.
+
+“If it’s a boy we’ll name it Ben,” he said. “Your dad will bust his
+buttons.” He led her back toward the bed.
+
+“Oh, it’s a girl, I can tell. And your dinner’s burning up on the stove.
+We’ll name her Katherine and call her Kate.”
+
+“The hell with dinner,” he said, easing her down on the bed. “And Kate
+is too old-fashioned.”
+
+He undressed her with hands that adored her lovely fresh body, her
+fragrant curves and slopes, her warmth. He pressed his big hands
+together side by side on her little belly, smothering it, and said in an
+awed tone, “God. Think how tiny it is. How alive.”
+
+She reached for him and pulled him down on top of her.
+
+“Honey, no. I’m too heavy,” he protested anxiously, but she smiled and
+silenced him with kisses.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+They planned to call the Rothelis the next night at six, but chance
+fouled their neat timing; chance or fate, heaven or hell—whatever
+controls these things. This was the night for the sky to fall and
+shatter their lives.
+
+At five minutes to six, their phone rang. It was George Pringle, Page’s
+step-father. Sunny came in from the kitchen and picked up the phone.
+Page, looking at the paper, saw her look at him cautiously.
+
+“My parents?” he guessed aloud. She nodded, speaking fond trivialities
+into the receiver. He could tell she was worried about what he would say
+to them.
+
+What the hell, he thought. I’ll tell them the news. This is no night for
+harsh words. Maybe Sunny’s right, it’s time to sign the treaty.
+
+He surprised himself. He hadn’t planned any reconciliation. But he was
+full of a new self-assurance, a gratitude that took in the whole world.
+The Pringles’ call happened to come at a lucky time. He could talk to
+his step-father man to man now, and he would.
+
+He took the phone Sunny held out to him and whispered, “Don’t worry,
+honey, I’ll be nice to him.”
+
+But she shook her head. “Your father’s worried about something. He
+didn’t call you just for a chat. He has too much pride for that.”
+
+She was right. Page frowned at her as he spoke. “Dad?” he said in a
+friendly voice.
+
+The elder Pringle answered at once and the words seemed to tumble out of
+him pell-mell, more breath than voice. “Page, my son, I have something
+to tell you. You remember—”
+
+“Sorry, Dad, I can’t hear you very well,” Page said, wondering if his
+mother had taken a bad turn. “You sound like you have bad news.”
+
+“Yes, I’m afraid—”
+
+“Then let me give you our good news first. We were just going to call
+you.”
+
+“You were?” Pringle was frankly skeptical, and it made Page feel guilty.
+
+“Two things,” Page said. “I’m going to do a column for the _Sunday
+Magazine_. Got the offer yesterday. Byline, picture, and all.”
+
+Silence. Page frowned again. “Dad? What do you think of that?”
+
+“I’m delighted for you, Page,” his father said in a curiously weak
+voice.
+
+“Well, if that doesn’t get you, how about this: Sunny’s going to have a
+baby! In August.” Another queer silence. “Dad, for God’s sake!” Page
+said irritably. “Don’t you hear me?... Dad, are you there?” The
+irritation verged suddenly on alarm.
+
+“Yes, Page, I’m here. Are you _sure_ about Sunny?”
+
+“Sure I’m sure. She saw the doc yesterday.... Well, _say_ something. Say
+it’s great. Say you’re happy for us. Or aren’t you?”
+
+“Page....”
+
+“Dad, tell me, is something wrong?”
+
+“My boy, I have to tell you this. I’d have given anything in my life to
+spare you, especially now,” Pringle said. “But you must be told. I mean,
+now that Sunny—”
+
+“Told what?”
+
+“Page, you’ve got to believe me—”
+
+“Well, damn it, _tell_ me!” Page demanded.
+
+Sunny felt a sharp foreboding, seeing the concern on Page’s face. She
+sat down in an easy chair where she could follow the talk. Page began to
+pale as he listened to his father.
+
+“You remember Dr. Blue?” Pringle was saying.
+
+“Sure I remember him,” Page said. And in a sudden sick flash, away in
+the back of his frightened soul, he saw what was coming.
+
+“Well, your mother wanted to see him again. She has for some time, as
+you’ve guessed. She trusts him, and lately, with you gone and our life
+so restricted, she wanted to patch things up a bit.” He related these
+old problems awkwardly. “We talked it over and I decided if it would
+cheer her up a little, it was worth calling him in. Let bygones be
+bygone. I’m not a man to carry a grudge to my grave.”
+
+“Yes,” Page said, seized by a wish to hang up, to stem the stream of
+words.
+
+“He was glad to hear from us,” Pringle went on, “and he came to see your
+mother yesterday. They had a lot to talk about. They talked mostly about
+you, Page. Mother told him you were married now. To Sunny Rotheli....”
+
+“Oh.” His tongue felt sticky dry. “Well, I’ll bet he was glad to hear
+I’ve settled down. He had me figured for a burglar when he caught me in
+his office that time.”
+
+“Page,” his step-father said in a trembling voice. “There’s no way to
+break this to you gently. I—I....”
+
+“Dad ... did he tell you who I am? Do you know who I am, Dad?” That had
+to be it. Page felt himself shaking, and Sunny, watching him, shook too.
+Her hands were knotted in her skirt, soaking the cloth with her
+perspiration.
+
+Pringle cleared his throat. “You are Sunny’s brother,” he said.
+
+Four words. They shot across the wires like electric darts and paralyzed
+Page. He stood gripping the phone, staring stupidly at the floor, unable
+to make sense. “I’m what?” he said faintly at last.
+
+“You are Sunny’s brother. You are a Rotheli. You were christened Roger
+Rotheli. Page, do you understand me? Sunny is your _sister_.”
+
+Page went dead white. His jaw slackened and he turned slowly to stare at
+Sunny. “That’s impossible,” he whispered.
+
+“It seems the Rothelis had a boy,” Pringle said, “some years before they
+had Sunny. I guess you know that. Sunny even mentioned it to your mother
+and me. They had a little boy named Roger. He came just nine months
+after they were married. It was in the Depression, and Ben Rotheli was
+out of work. June was very sick, frail and emotionally upset all through
+the pregnancy. They hadn’t planned to start a family for several years.
+But the thing happened anyway and that, on top of their money worries
+and her bad health, nearly finished her.
+
+“She had a drastic mental breakdown. Didn’t even know her husband for a
+while, and when he brought the baby in to show her, she tried to throw
+it at him. She thought it was a doll. When he swore it was hers she
+became hysterical and accused him of lying. She said it couldn’t be hers
+because she’d never had a baby and anyway she hated babies and that one
+most of all. Ben tried to show her the baby’s eyes, because they looked
+so much like hers, but she wouldn’t listen.” He paused. “That was you,
+Page.
+
+“Ben wanted to keep you. He tried to figure out a way. But he didn’t
+have a dime, and he couldn’t stay home and care for you while he was out
+job-hunting. June was too sick even to know her own baby, much less love
+him or tend him. Every penny Rotheli could borrow went to pay hospital
+bills. He didn’t even have enough to feed himself more than a couple of
+cans of beans every other day. The baby had to be farmed out to a
+welfare agency the first few weeks.... Page? Do you hear me?”
+
+“I hear....”
+
+“Well, at the time this happened, Ben was living in a tiny basement
+apartment just off North Clark Street, not far from where we were. Dr.
+Blue had delivered you and he was taking care of June. It looked
+doubtful that June would ever recover her reason. As you know, Dr. Blue
+had been our family doctor for years, and he knew how much we wanted a
+son. Of course we didn’t know the Rothelis or anything about them then.
+We’ve still never met them, or known your real name till now. But when
+you were born, Dr. Blue came to us. He had talked it out with Ben, and
+promised him you’d have as loving and kind parents in us as it was
+possible to find.
+
+“We wanted a boy desperately, and we were willing to pay generously for
+him. And Ben was just as desperate to find good loving care for you in a
+private home. That came first with him. But he was also hopelessly in
+debt. I think if there’d been the least chance June might have come out
+of it and been able to raise you herself, Ben wouldn’t have signed the
+adoption papers. But you couldn’t speak the word ‘baby’ in her hearing.
+It was that serious. And he was afraid she would end up a charity case
+in the city hospital psycho ward—practically a guarantee she’d never
+recover. Her condition looked permanent.
+
+“Well, there we were with several thousand dollars in our hands to pay
+up all his bills. All June’s hospital bills and drugs and doctor’s fees
+until she was completely recovered. To us it was a small price in
+exchange for the son we wanted, and the money would never be missed. To
+Rotheli, it was a hand up out of the hellhole. He sacrificed the baby he
+didn’t know for the wife he loved.
+
+“Dr. Blue drew up an agreement. In addition to the financial
+arrangements, both sides agreed never to try to contact or know each
+other. The doctor refused to help us until we all signed it.
+
+“June was sick for almost two years, and in and out of the hospital
+after that for the next four and a half. You were in second grade by the
+time your mother was a well woman, Page; by the time she could have
+cared for you herself.”
+
+There was a long silence between adopted son and step-father. Finally
+Pringle spoke again in a voice weary and near to breaking. “My dear
+son,” he said. “I know how you must feel—how impossible this seems. It
+just couldn’t have happened—”
+
+“But it did, thanks to you,” Page broke in irrationally, pressing a hand
+over his mouth to crush the sobs. He had not wept since he had first
+learned of his adoption so many years ago.
+
+“All the records tally,” Pringle said. “We checked them immediately, of
+course, over and over. There’s no way out of it.”
+
+“No way. You’ve ruined our lives. You ruined mine years ago and how
+you’ve ruined _ours_,” Page cried out so bitterly that Sunny shuddered,
+hugging herself with fear.
+
+“My boy, would you rather I hadn’t told you?” Pringle was shaken with
+grief, fully as much as Page, but Page was too stricken to realize it.
+
+“I’m _not_ your boy!” he said fiercely. “Oh, God! Nothing makes sense
+any more. I suppose you’ve told the Rothelis.”
+
+“No one knows but us and Dr. Blue,” Pringle assured him. “If I had known
+Sunny was pregnant....” He stopped, uncertain himself what he would have
+done.
+
+“You would have told me just the same,” Page said.
+
+“It’s imperative that you separate now,” Pringle said. “You aren’t
+blaming us for this, are you, Page? You can’t imagine how we’ve suffered
+over it. I would have gone through hell to spare you.”
+
+“Why didn’t you, then!” Page was incapable of logic. “You didn’t have to
+adopt me.”
+
+“Perhaps you hate me now,” Pringle said sorrowfully. “But later you’ll
+understand Page, there are urgent things to settle. If Sunny is really
+pregnant, she must get an abortion.”
+
+“Now you want me to murder my own child!” Page cried.
+
+“Page! Stop it!” Sunny said, horrified.
+
+“Your child is the product of incest,” his step-father said, and the
+word tolled in Page’s ear like a death-knell. “I’m certain Dr. Blue will
+help us. He has to share the responsibility for this thing. Get Sunny on
+the earliest possible flight to Chicago, and—”
+
+“Haven’t you done enough?” Page said. “Every time I come near you
+something rotten happens. This is the end. You just let _me_ figure this
+out!”
+
+“Page, wait! Listen to me!” Pringle said, but Page slammed the phone
+down and pulled the cord out of the wall. He flung it into a corner
+where it landed with an ugly clatter.
+
+
+
+
+                                   8
+
+
+Sunny waited in tense silence in the chair, holding herself together by
+sheer force of will.
+
+Page stood motionless in the middle of the room with his back to her,
+his head in his hands. “Page?” she whispered, afraid her voice might
+unhinge him. “Who are you, darling? Did your father tell you?”
+
+He turned and walked into the bedroom. She followed to find him pulling
+open his dresser drawers and throwing clothes on the bed. Sunny took his
+arms and made him look at her. Her face made him cry again, briefly and
+harshly: her beautiful, sensitive face. Suddenly he caught her to him,
+holding her in arms made powerful with misery.
+
+“Page, you must tell me. You always wanted to know who you are. Was it
+so awful?” She spoke to him soothingly as his mother might have.
+
+Instead of explaining he picked her up and put her one last time on the
+bed, meaning to leave her. But he gazed down at her and found he
+couldn’t move. He had been so warm and ready for love, so enchanted with
+her before the call came and blasted his life. It was beyond his courage
+to tell her and then walk out and leave her forever.
+
+Instead he sat down and tried to open his mouth and declare that he was
+her brother. _Roger Rotheli._ That the father-in-law he loved and
+admired was his own father. His tongue refused to move.
+
+He sat there beside his wife and felt the utmost love he had ever felt
+for her, and the deepest despair. He leaned down and kissed her brow,
+afraid of her sweet mouth. And abruptly, to his helpless dismay, was
+consumed with a raging desire for her.
+
+_Just once, before she learns the truth_, he told himself in anguish.
+And without a word he took her. For Sunny, his sudden furious
+love-making was a nightmare. His hands that had been so gentle were
+hard, his lips bruised her, his tears terrified her.
+
+Weeping and tremulous, she gave herself and prayed that her tenderness,
+her fright, her very flesh, would calm him, bring him back to sanity.
+But when it was over he simply lay across her, a dead weight, and said
+nothing.
+
+Sunny held him tightly and murmured, “Page, my darling, whatever it is,
+we have to face it together.” He turned his face away so she couldn’t
+see it. “My darling, my love, nothing in this world can whip us as long
+as we have each other,” she told him.
+
+“One thing,” he said.
+
+“Was your father a ... an evil man, Page? A criminal? Or sick?” She
+spoke as she might have to an ailing child.
+
+Page rose suddenly and began pulling his clothes together. “No,” he
+said. He zipped up his pants and put his jacket on and started out of
+the room, not daring to take time to collect his clothes. He felt he had
+to leave at once or he would want her again. It was a nightmare.
+
+“Page!” Sunny cried, running after him into the living room. “For the
+sweet love of God, _tell_ me!” When he opened the front door and turned
+to face her like a man taking permanent leave of his woman, she gave a
+little scream. “Tell me,” she demanded.
+
+“Sunny, I—I—”
+
+“You what? Page, are you trying to destroy me? You _what_?”
+
+She stood with fists clenched, eyes wild in a flushed face, only half
+dressed.
+
+“I’m your brother,” he said in a weird, strained voice.
+
+Again a fateful silence struck the room. Page hesitated, waiting for her
+to faint. He would catch her, put her on the sofa, and sneak out before
+she regained her senses. It would be cowardly but easier. He dared not
+stay under the same roof with her.
+
+But she didn’t faint. She only stood gazing at him while her face, that
+had been in the ruins of despair, slowly took shape again. A great wave
+of trembling went through her and subsided. Like Page, she lost her
+voice entirely for a minute ... an inherited trait they shared in
+emotional moments. When it came back she said, “You are _Roger_? My
+brother, Roger, who _died_?”
+
+He nodded, ready to bolt. For a second they stared incredulously at each
+other, as fascinated as they were appalled. Sunny absorbed it bravely,
+better than he had.
+
+“Page, shut the door and come here,” she said. Her voice was still
+quavery but she showed no signs of fainting. The blood had left her face
+and her eyes grew wide like green flowers above her white cheeks. But he
+wouldn’t come near her.
+
+“I can’t stay, Sunny,” he said.
+
+“You can’t stay?” It didn’t make sense at first.
+
+“I commit the foulest kind of sin every time I look at you,” he said.
+“Now that we can’t ... I mean ... I want you terribly.”
+
+“Page, are you absolutely _certain_? There’s no mistake?”
+
+“Doc Blue told Mother when he learned your name. The records verify it.
+Good old Doc Blue ... my evil spirit,” he said acidly.
+
+Sunny sat down on the arm of the sofa and Page moved to leave again, but
+she stopped him. “You can’t go!” she cried.
+
+“I can’t stay, that’s for sure,” he said grimly.
+
+“But where will you go?”
+
+“The Manns’, I guess.”
+
+“What will you tell them?”
+
+“My God, that’s right.” He slapped his face with one hand. “I can’t tell
+any of our friends.” The enormity of it hit him brutally and he drew the
+hand over his grimacing face. “I guess I’ll have to get a hotel room
+somewhere.”
+
+“Page, darling,” Sunny said, in better control of herself now, “did it
+ever occur to you that it’s too late for that? There’s no point in
+leaving me now.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I’m pregnant with your child. You can’t do any more harm. It’s all been
+done. Does it matter then if we still make love?”
+
+He was so shocked that he took a few steps toward her, his face screwed
+up with the effort to understand her. “Are you trying to tell me we
+should go on living together, as if this hadn’t happened?” he said. “Is
+_that_ what you’re saying?”
+
+Sunny was taken aback by his disgust. She looked down, unprepared for
+this turn. “Darling, that baby was conceived in love and innocence,” she
+said.
+
+“We aren’t innocent any more, Sunny. Neither is our love.”
+
+“I love you so much,” she said miserably.
+
+“You’re in love with your brother,” he said, still stunned by it. “It’s
+evil now.”
+
+“Evil!” The word made her reel; she was frightened by his revulsion for
+the situation. “I can’t be ashamed of my love for you, no matter what
+you call it!” she flashed. “I won’t apologize for falling in love with
+you!”
+
+“We don’t have to apologize for it, we have to do something about it,”
+he cried.
+
+“What? Stop loving each other?”
+
+“Separate,” he said miserably. “God, Sunny, I’ll never stop loving you.”
+
+“Then stay with me.”
+
+He threw out his hands at her. “You’re my _sister_, can’t you understand
+that? I’ve found my name at last. I’m your brother, I’m a Rotheli.” Just
+the thought of it shut him up for a second. “And you’re sitting there
+suggesting that we go on as if we were normal, ordinary, wholesome
+lovers! It’s unbelievable!”
+
+All his ideals: normality, wholesomeness. How could he face the world
+without them?
+
+“Page, you talk about us as if we were diseased!” she shot back at him.
+“Were we degenerates when we married, when we made love to each other?
+Does just knowing it debauch us somehow?”
+
+“Only if we stay together,” he said, “and keep on committing an act we
+know now is criminal.”
+
+“No!” she said with the ardor of a woman fighting for her love. “I’ll
+never accept that, Page. I can’t believe a love like ours is anything
+but good.”
+
+“Well, now you _have_ to believe it,” he said. “It’s dirty and it’s
+wrong, Sunny. The sooner you face it, the less grief this will bring us
+both.” He seemed to be struggling to convince himself as much as her.
+
+“The sooner I face what? The baby in my arms—your baby? How do I explain
+him away? What shall I tell this ‘most wanted baby in the world’? Daddy
+doesn’t exist, dear? Mother just stirred you up in a test tube?”
+
+“Would you rather tell him his father is also his _uncle_?” Page
+shouted.
+
+“Does he _have_ to be told? Does anyone?”
+
+“Things like this don’t stay secret forever, no matter how you try.
+Suppose he’s born a monster. How will you explain that?”
+
+Sunny put a frightened hand over her stomach. Like most people she had
+only hazy ideas of what happened to children born of incestuous unions,
+and all the ideas were gruesome.
+
+“It will be beautiful,” she said, shaken but still brave. “It has to be,
+to prove our love is right.”
+
+“It will only prove we found out about ourselves too late,” he said
+sorrowfully.
+
+“It’ll be healthy and normal,” she said. “A sign—”
+
+“Stop it, Sunny! There are no signs from heaven any more. All the
+miracles happened long ago. There aren’t any left for us. Darling,
+there’s only one way out.”
+
+“What?” She was crying now, unable to control her face.
+
+He tried to say it kindly, but the word itself was cruel. “An abortion.”
+It was her turn to register shock and disbelief. “Dad said Doc Blue
+might do it,” he added rigidly.
+
+“Your _father_ said that?”
+
+“In this case, he happens to be right.”
+
+Sunny shook with resentment. “How can you think such a thing? This
+innocent baby, this part of yourself you were so almighty proud of, and
+you want to murder—”
+
+“And you want to go on living with me. Me, your _brother_!” he shouted.
+“And give birth to an imbecile—”
+
+“Page, don’t!” she cried with all her strength. “Get out! Get out! Get
+out!” She collapsed into the sofa, whimpering.
+
+He stood in the door for a moment, watching her until she looked up to
+see if he had gone. They gazed at each other, speechless with the size
+of their despair and the size of their love.
+
+“Don’t tell anyone. _Anyone_,” she pleaded.
+
+He nodded and pulled the door shut behind him.
+
+“And let me know where you are,” she called after him. “Page? Page!” But
+the door was closed; he had left her and nothing indicated he had heard;
+or, having heard, that he would keep in touch.
+
+
+
+
+                                   9
+
+
+Sunny sat where she was until the cramps in her legs reminded her of the
+hours that had passed. Like a hurt animal she roused and shook herself.
+With all the care of other nights she performed her usual nightly
+chores: bathed, brushed her teeth, curled her hair on trim tin rollers.
+It comforted her, as if she could enter the bedroom when she finished
+and find Page waiting for her.
+
+To her surprise her hands moved, her heart beat, her mind functioned.
+She looked at her face in the mirror and her features were still in
+their places. She touched them to be sure.
+
+For the first time she studied her face for signs of similarity to her
+husband’s. She got his photograph from her dresser and, turning on both
+dresser lamps, stood at the mirror full front, holding Page’s picture at
+the level of her own face.
+
+It was several minutes before it began to come clear: the tiny dents at
+the sides of their noses, the sweep of the jawline, the full curve of
+the underlip. But suddenly the likeness leaped at her, like a light
+switched on in a basement, and made her wonder how they could have
+missed it all this time, why their friends and family hadn’t caught it.
+All those small subtle signs imploring recognition: those two mouths
+that knew the feel of each other so well, those two pairs of green eyes
+that looked at each other so often but saw, it now seemed, so very
+little.
+
+But the thing that astonished Sunny the most, hurt the most, was the
+sudden total opposition of their views. Their faces might be alike,
+their love painfully strong. But in their minds something terrible had
+happened. He had taken one tack and she another, and the two were
+irreconcilable.
+
+Sunny’s first thought, when she was able to think, was to save their
+marriage somehow. The morality of the thing was secondary; _everything_
+was secondary to her love and her life with Page. They would worry about
+morality after they agreed to stay together.
+
+But to her tragic surprise, they didn’t agree. He saw things exactly in
+reverse: morality dictated a separation. Their marriage was an offense
+to society, to religion, to the law. Page couldn’t live with that and
+keep his self-respect.
+
+Sunny put Page’s neglected clothes back into his dresser drawers and
+told herself he would have to come get them sooner or later. She would
+see him then. In the meantime she would contrive a way to lure him back
+to live with her, back where he belonged.
+
+She knew he had adopted his step-father’s attitude. All the curses he
+flung at Pringle on the phone didn’t change that. But she hoped
+Pringle’s words would carry less weight with him in the long run than
+her own.
+
+In the next few days she spent a lot of time at the mirror with Page’s
+photo in her hand. It gave her the same message every time: _You are
+brother and sister. It’s true. You look alike and nobody saw it before
+simply because nobody would have believed it._
+
+Gazing at her guilty features she realized that Page would never be
+persuaded of the morality of their marriage. She would have to win him
+back on the strength of his love for her alone, and let the morality go
+hang. She felt she would die without him.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Page did not come back for several days. She guessed he was holed up
+somewhere, suffering as she was and uncertain what to do. She waited at
+first with confidence, sure that he would need his things. He couldn’t
+get them without seeing her and he couldn’t see her without wanting her;
+that was her secret weapon. She didn’t leave the house.
+
+But when three days had passed she began to get scared. Finally,
+swallowing her pride, she called Jack Mann. “He isn’t home yet,” she
+said, “and it’s past dinnertime. Have you heard from him?”
+
+“No, honey, not for the past few days. I was going to call you, in fact.
+His office says he’s home with the flu.”
+
+“What?” she exclaimed. So Jack caught on at once that something was
+wrong. It humiliated her, and yet relieved her that she could share some
+bit of her troubles.
+
+“I tried to get him for lunch yesterday,” Jack explained kindly. “Only
+have a couple of weeks left before I go to Chicago, you know.” He
+paused. “Want to talk about it, Sunny?” he asked.
+
+She was not offended; only afraid to discuss it. “I guess I have the
+bug, myself,” she said. “If you _do_ hear from him, Jack—”
+
+“I’ll call you right away.” Again he waited, giving her an opening. His
+instinct for people, for trouble, for people _in_ trouble, was too good.
+There was no fooling him.
+
+But she said, “Thanks, Jack,” and hung up quickly to avoid crying over
+the phone.
+
+She wondered, as she replaced the phone, if she had better call the
+police. But she was afraid if they were called in, the whole fantastic
+mess would come out in the papers. And if that happened it would destroy
+Page.
+
+In the middle of the morning’s anxious monotony she had an idea. Page
+must have realized what she was up to, waiting there for him in that
+neat little trap, ready to grab him when he came for his things.
+Couldn’t he be watching the place, waiting till she went out for a
+while? He could get in and grab his things then without having to face
+her, and it would spare him the temptation he dreaded.
+
+With the speed of new hope she got her coat and purse and left the
+apartment. The cold air outside felt good to her. She glanced quickly up
+and down the block, wondering if he saw her from the shadows of a
+doorway. If he did he wouldn’t show himself.
+
+Sunny walked toward the market on the corner where she bought her
+groceries, bending her head slightly against the gray wind. Her eyes
+were open wide, aching to see behind her. She spent six or seven minutes
+in the shop. _That should give him time to get in_, she thought, and
+went out without buying so much as a package of gum.
+
+She ran back to her building with her heart struggling to break out of
+her ribs all the way, and hurried into the warm entrance hall.
+
+They met halfway on the stairs. Sunny was dashing up with her head down
+and saw his feet first. Page stopped in his tracks, motionless with
+surprise and indecision. “You got me after all,” he said at last, as if
+she ought to move aside and let him pass to make up for it.
+
+“Caught you like a thief,” she said to shame him.
+
+“It won’t do any good, Sunny,” he said brusquely, trying to shove past
+her, but she threw frantic arms around him. And suddenly he dropped his
+bundles and kissed her.
+
+“I love you,” they said together, the way they had at the beginning of
+their love. It made her cry and made him wild to escape the need that
+swelled in him.
+
+“Let me go,” he said, pulling her arms away, but he saw that if he left
+her there on the stairs she would become hysterical. She was close to it
+already. He hesitated a few seconds and then the shame caught up with
+him. She would take him for a weakling.
+
+He retrieved his belongings and took her elbow, mounting the stairs with
+her. “This will only hurt both of us,” he said grimly. “But if you want
+to talk about it....”
+
+“Thank you, darling,” she said and let him unlock the door for her. She
+went in ahead of him and saw at once a note he had propped on the phone
+table. She started for it but he grasped her hand, letting his things
+fall again.
+
+“It’s just a note,” he said impatiently. “If I hadn’t taken time to
+write the damn thing—”
+
+“I wouldn’t have caught you red-handed,” she said. She freed her hand
+and picked it up, ignoring his plea not to read it. It said, “I love you
+desperately. I will always love you, only you. Sunny, there will never
+be anyone else. Page.”
+
+When she looked at him again through wet eyes, he was gazing at the
+floor. “It’s not as if you didn’t know it,” he said, embarrassed.
+
+“I just like to be told,” she said.
+
+“It’s against the law to tell you now,” he said. “Did you know that? Our
+marriage is legally dead. If we went on living together we’d be
+criminals.”
+
+“Does that scare you so much? I’m willing to be a criminal, I’m willing
+to be _anything_, if it means keeping you. But you’re not willing to do
+that for me. You just want to sneak in and out of here with your clothes
+before I catch you.”
+
+“Don’t you wonder what living with a sickness like this all our lives
+could do to us?” Page said earnestly. “It would be slow poison. All
+you’re thinking about is right now. You want me and—and I want you.” He
+stopped, trying to steady himself. “But suppose I gave in and we went
+back together. Even if nobody ever found out it would destroy us,
+Sunny—”
+
+“Destroy _you_!”
+
+“Knowing every time we touched each other, every time we kissed—”
+
+“Page, I won’t have our love defiled, not even by you.”
+
+“And what if somebody _did_ find out? Do you think they’d approve of it?
+
+“Your parents won’t tell, if that’s what you mean,” she said.
+
+“My father would despise us if we stayed together.”
+
+“Well, who is more important, your wife or your father?” she cried
+spitefully. “You never seemed to give a damn for him before.” Seeing him
+brace for a fight she softened suddenly, imploring him. “Darling, your
+father wouldn’t despise us. He wouldn’t approve, it’s true, but if he
+saw we meant it; saw how deep our love is.... He loves you too much to
+risk breaking with you forever. And I have a woman’s feeling your mother
+secretly wishes we’d stay together, no matter what. They love us, Page.”
+
+“Sure they love us. That doesn’t make us right.”
+
+“Oh, say the damn word!” she exclaimed, shaking her head till the blond
+curls flew. “We’re both so scared of it we can’t pronounce it.... Well,
+_say_ it, go on!” she taunted.
+
+“Say what?” he muttered stubbornly.
+
+“_Incest._ Incest, Incest, Incest!” she shouted. “That’s it, that’s the
+one big fact in our lives. Let’s at least call it by its right name.”
+
+“Let’s just get rid of it, end it,” he said.
+
+“Page, you know you can’t leave me,” she said, approaching him. “Any
+more than I can leave you.”
+
+“All right,” he flared. “We’ll live here and raise that little idiot we
+spawned. And someday, somehow, the news will leak out. Only by that time
+I’ll have a name, a reputation. We’ll be well known. Our child will have
+ears and he’ll understand things—at least I _hope_ he’ll understand
+things—and either this gets plastered all over the papers or somebody
+gets smart and blackmails us. We lose our sanity either way. We’re
+helpless, completely trapped.” He stopped, out of breath.
+
+“I’ll take that chance,” she said. “For you.”
+
+“You will now, but not ten years from now. How would you like your child
+to have to face it with us? Sunny, there are things you can face by
+yourself, but not with a child to protect.”
+
+It was true. She felt the uprush of unwanted tears and cursed softly to
+herself. “We might never have to face it. We could move.”
+
+“Where? The moon? You can’t escape yourself, anyway. You take yourself
+with you wherever you go—and your secrets and your shames. We’d have to
+look at each other every day, every night in bed, and know....” He gazed
+at her quietly for a minute, with his love, terrible and sharp in his
+heart, making him weak. “Sunny? Are you afraid to have an abortion?” he
+asked.
+
+_Sacrifice the baby_, he was begging her, _and maybe we can live
+together. If it’s just you and me with no kids to suffer with us._
+
+She understood. “Yes, I’m afraid,” she said truthfully. “But not so much
+of the pain as—” She gave a little sob. “I love this baby, Page.”
+
+“You’d rather have the baby than me, is that it?” he said roughly.
+
+“I’d rather have you both,” she wept. “We belong together, Page.”
+
+“Not in the eyes of the law.”
+
+“The law can go to hell!”
+
+“Swearing won’t change it. Why do you suppose incest is forbidden?” he
+asked. “Because brothers and sisters are falling all over each other
+trying to get hitched? No, Sunny, no. It’s to protect children, preserve
+the race. Did you ever hear of inbreeding? It happens to dogs and cows.
+They get nervous and weak. They get stupid. They bleed. It happened to
+the great royal families in Europe. What was it? Inbreeding. _Incest._”
+
+“But that took generations,” Sunny protested. “That doesn’t happen the
+first time.”
+
+“It can,” he said with the certainty of a man who isn’t sure of his
+facts; only his prejudices. “I knew a brother and sister who were the
+children of first cousins. What do you think they were like?”
+
+“Both gargoyles, of course,” she fumed.
+
+“He was completely hairless from the day he was born. He didn’t have a
+hair on his body—not on his head or his chest or his genitals. Not one
+lousy eyelash did that guy have. He looked like polished plastic.”
+
+“You can live with a thing like that,” she whispered.
+
+“And his sister,” Page went on, “was a hopeless cripple from the waist
+down. Her legs never carried her one inch in her life. They were just a
+detour for her blood. They hung from her hips like sacks of water, and
+you’d have sworn there wasn’t a bone in either one. She went everywhere
+in a wheel chair. Her brother pushed her.”
+
+“It might have been an accident or an illness,” she protested, trying to
+hide the anxiety he had roused in her.
+
+Page lighted a cigarette from the one that was burning out. “Their
+parents were cousins. That’s the only explanation,” he said. “Cousins,
+Sunny. We’re brother and sister.”
+
+She covered her face with her hands and cried. It tore him nearly to
+pieces to watch her. He had dramatized it for her, tortured her with it,
+in the hope that she would agree to the abortion. He felt it was the
+only chance for them to stay together. But it didn’t work.
+
+“Maybe Dr. Blue was wrong,” she said pathetically.
+
+He reached her in one big step and took her hard by the shoulders.
+“Maybe our eyes aren’t the same color and our hair isn’t blond and our
+noses and our ears and our mouths—” He faltered. “That mouth of yours,
+that mouth I love so unspeakably much,” he said, helpless with her
+closeness “... is my own mouth.” His voice separated each awful word.
+Sunny covered her lips with her hands as if they were court evidence of
+guilt. “It’s so obvious,” he said, studying her face, lifting his
+fingers to touch it. “God, why couldn’t we have seen it and saved
+ourselves before we fell in love? I’ve spent hours in front of the damn
+mirror. And the more I look at myself, the more I see you.
+
+“I saw my face for the first time three days ago, Sunny. My face: _your_
+face. The same!” It was a cry of despair. She bent her head like a
+little girl being blamed for something she can’t understand. But he
+raised it again till he could see every feature.
+
+“Oh, my darling,” he said, wiping ineffectually at her tears. “Oh, my
+love, my wife, my—my sister.”
+
+He caught her in a crushing embrace, hiding his face in her soft neck,
+and she felt him shake with sobs that only a strangling repressive
+effort kept silent. He released her abruptly and turned, picking up his
+bags and hurrying toward the door. Sunny rushed after him, catching at
+his sleeve.
+
+“Page, where are you staying?”
+
+“I’ll get in touch with you,” he answered.
+
+“I’ll die if I don’t know. Page!” she begged.
+
+“Sunny, I have to be alone a little while. Can’t you see that? I’ll call
+you, darling.” He struggled toward the door, afraid to prolong the stay.
+He would succumb to her and betray them both, and end up hating her for
+it. To make love to Sunny now was to make her filthy as well as himself.
+His love was turned to lust since his wife had turned into his sister.
+Those were his feelings, a Pringle’s feelings, and he couldn’t escape
+them. Physical love with Sunny would be wrong and he despised himself
+for wanting it so constantly.
+
+He pushed her firmly away and reached the door. She stood where she was,
+momentarily defeated, crying and heart-sick. Page was too moved, too in
+love and too worried, to leave her without another word. He said, almost
+hoping she wouldn’t hear, “Maybe if you got an abortion ... we could—”
+
+She straightened up and said with a fierce pride that surprised him,
+“Never!”
+
+He shut the door quietly behind him.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sunny waited another couple of days alone in the apartment, afraid to go
+out and leave the reinstalled phone untended. But Page, in spite of his
+promise, didn’t call.
+
+Sunny phoned his office at the _Sunday Magazine_ twice, but they told
+her politely that Mr. Pringle was out covering a story, and gave her her
+own number to call.
+
+He thinks if we just don’t see each other or hear each other, the
+problem will disappear, she thought angrily. For the first time since
+she had known him she was tempted to question Page’s courage. Not his
+physical courage; he had been in Korea, and his record was good. It was
+his moral courage she wondered about.
+
+Sunny called Jack again. She knew her call would advertise serious
+trouble between her and Page, but he was their closest friend and she
+trusted him. “I don’t know where he is,” she admitted to him.
+
+“Well, I don’t know where he’s living, but I do know he’s in his office
+part-time. We talked yesterday about getting together for a drink.”
+
+“They keep telling me he isn’t there,” she said.
+
+“He probably isn’t. He’s out a lot on interviews. Why don’t you go down
+there, if it’s that urgent?”
+
+“He’d kill me,” she said.
+
+“The hell with him,” Jack retorted. “If he hurts you, I’ll break his
+head. It’s worth a try, Sunny. If it doesn’t work, let me know. I’ll try
+to work something out.”
+
+She thanked him and hung up somewhat reassured. It made sense for Page
+to hold tight to his job. He needed work right now, all the more since
+he had given up his wife. Sunny wished sourly that she had a similar
+crutch to lean on.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+She took Jack’s advice and went to the midtown offices of the _Sunday
+Magazine_, but it was all for nothing. She wasn’t admitted to see him
+and had to leave, frustrated and furious. But Page suffered over it,
+too. He was angry that she should have tried to approach him in public
+and make a display of their trouble, especially here where he had a new
+job and had to establish his worth. But not all the wrath he could
+muster over her dangerous foolishness helped him forget that he had
+turned her out; embarrassed and hurt her. He ached with regret over it,
+wanting to rush home and hold her and beg her to forgive him.
+
+He stood in his small private office, looking out the window at the
+complex geometry of the city. The street thirty-two stories below looked
+so inviting that he let himself wonder how it would feel to jump. But
+anything was better than suicide, any act less final than death.
+
+Page fell into his swivel chair and wept all over his bright,
+self-confident new column. For the first time he really wanted to
+change; try to accept the thing for Sunny’s sake, but he couldn’t do it.
+Not yet. It still seemed too much like a weak surrender to him. Sunny
+would have to wait and let him come to her. For when she approached him,
+and worst of all, in public, he panicked. It was partly the
+uncontrollable sex thing, partly moral confusion, partly painful love.
+
+
+
+
+                                   10
+
+
+Jack and Laura were packed and Jack had located a temporary apartment
+for them in Chicago. Their New York place was almost empty. The moving
+van would pick up the remaining things in the morning.
+
+Jack had talked Page into a last night’s outing. “You can’t let me go
+without a send-off, old buddy,” he said. Privately, he hoped he could
+help with whatever was troubling the young Pringles. It was probably a
+typical newlywed complaint, but Jack pretended at first that he didn’t
+know anything was amiss.
+
+He met Page at a quiet little bar in Jack’s neighborhood. Both of them
+were early. Jack was surprised at Page’s appearance. He was wearing the
+right sort of clothes: the style-conscious young-executive sort. His
+shirt was hand-tailored, his shoes were new. And yet he looked neglected
+and unpressed.
+
+“You look like I did when I was drinking myself to death,” Jack said
+humorously.
+
+“How?” Page said, anxious to get the first drink down and the second one
+ordered.
+
+“Seedy,” Jack told him.
+
+“Thanks.” Page gulped over the hot whiskey.
+
+Jack ordered a glass of milk and Page’s eyebrows soared, “Jesus, are you
+still on the wagon?” he croaked, clearing his burning throat.
+
+“More or less. Mostly more,” Jack grinned.
+
+“Jack! You’re my friend. Get _drunk_ with me, for God’s sake.” He looked
+so dismayed, with his face in lines and a button loose and his eyes lost
+and troubled, that Jack, against his better judgment, ordered a shot of
+Scotch.
+
+“I do this out of sheer misguided brotherly love,” he told Page. “Laura
+will probably divorce me when she finds out, but if it’s that
+serious....”
+
+“It’s _that_ serious.”
+
+Jack waited for him to pick up the cue and tell him his problems. He
+knew how to listen sympathetically to people, because he cared about
+them. He was really interested, even in the dreariest dilemmas.
+
+“I can’t talk about it,” Page said, putting the second drink away and
+signaling for the third.
+
+“Well then, what the hell am I doing sitting here getting drunk with
+you?” Jack demanded to know.
+
+“Shut up and drink,” Page said solemnly.
+
+“It’ll take all night to get drunk on this stuff,” Jack said. “You could
+down ten shots in a row and be sober as a pole. Why don’t we go up to my
+place?”
+
+“And slobber over your lovely wife?” Page objected.
+
+“She isn’t home,” Jack said. She was, in fact, down in the Village
+saying good-by to a few close friends.
+
+“She isn’t? Let’s go.” The drinks seemed slightly stronger to Page than
+Jack’s description—perhaps because he took down four or five in less
+than ten minutes and they landed in an empty stomach.
+
+Jack eyed him critically. “Can you stand up?” he kidded.
+
+“Certainly, if you promise not to watch.”
+
+They headed outside and the fresh air steadied Page. He was glad to go
+with Jack. He had no wish to display his misery in a public bar. At the
+same time he yearned to get high, to relax with an old friend who
+wouldn’t judge him; muddle himself up and think about something besides
+Sunny Pringle, his wife who was not his wife: his beautiful, bewitching,
+seductive, adorable sister. But the liquor was just so much acid eating
+up his little tin inhibitions. The higher he got the more he thought of
+her; the more tempted he was to confess himself for the sake of the
+comfort Jack would give him.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Manns’s apartment was bare except for packing boxes full of books
+and the built-in kitchen appliances. Jack and Page settled, with two
+glasses and a bottle, in the kitchen.
+
+Page wouldn’t talk about the thing for a while. He had given himself
+strict orders, while he was still sober, not to mention it at all, not
+even to this oldest and best of his friends. Not that Jack would ever
+use it against him. But having revealed the thing once he might do it
+again, and the more people who knew, the shakier Page’s future.
+
+But as the evening wore on and the level in the whiskey bottle sank, the
+urge for admission came over him again. It had all been stopped up
+inside him for the past lonely, worried weeks. He wanted another
+viewpoint, help, somebody to tell him what to do. Above all, he needed
+someone to tell him he was right.
+
+Jack was almost too easy to talk to. If you were sad he cheered you up,
+if you were wrong he righted you, if you were happy he lived it up with
+you. He was the one who had seen, even before Page himself, what a rare
+and wonderful girl Sunny was.
+
+Page put a friendly arm around him. “Jack, what would I do without you?”
+he said in an unusual show of affection, brought on by straight Scotch.
+
+“Why, you’d go straight to hell, old buddy. What else?” Jack grinned.
+“Fill your glass?”
+
+Page handed it over. “What did you say was the name of that drink?” he
+asked, aware that his tongue was stumbling around in his mouth, like a
+mole lost in the daylight.
+
+“‘Jack’s Damnedest,’” Jack said. “Never fails.”
+
+“What’s in it?” Page studied the glass suspiciously.
+
+“Ten parts whiskey,” Jack said.
+
+“Ten parts whiskey to _what_?”
+
+“To your health.”
+
+Page smelled it doubtfully.
+
+“Man, you don’t smell the stuff, you _drink_ it,” Jack said.
+
+Page drank. “You know, sometimes I feel like I can tell you just about
+anything,” he said. “Women don’t understand some things.”
+
+“Well, let’s have it,” Jack said. “No, wait, let me guess. Sunny can’t
+cook?”
+
+“Oh, hell, she can cook anything.” Page made a sweeping gesture and
+tumbled an ice tray to the floor.
+
+“She squeezes the toothpaste from the top and you squeeze from the
+bottom? That’s Laura’s specialty. Ought to be worth a trip to Reno.”
+
+Page wrapped both hands around his glass. “Guess again, Counselor.”
+
+“Well, there’s only one other problem we haven’t examined. You don’t get
+along in bed?”
+
+Page found himself laughing, knowing it was the liquor that tickled him,
+and trying to stop. Jack slapped him on the back.
+
+“Maybe you’d better tell me,” Jack said. “I’m not doing so well.”
+
+“I only wish it were all as simple as sex,” Page sighed.
+
+“Simple be damned. That’s an art.”
+
+Page finished the drink and stared slowly up the wall behind Jack’s
+head, unable to look squarely at him. He felt the words coming up in his
+throat, and he had nothing left to fight them with. It was wrong, it was
+grossly unfair to Sunny. And yet he felt safe with Jack, who had had an
+earful of Page’s escapades over the years and never betrayed him.
+
+Page was so bewildered that his thinking apparatus had ground to a halt.
+The whiskey made it a cinch to surrender. He needed help and Jack was
+there to give it.
+
+“I don’t know how to say it,” he began. “It’s so ugly. So humiliating
+and queer. It’s impossible, Jack, no kidding. But it really happened.”
+
+Jack stared at this odd introduction. “The whole world’s a little queer,
+Page,” he reassured him. But he was thinking, Jesus don’t tell me
+Sunny’s gay. He knew Page wasn’t but he was never as sharp about the
+girls.
+
+“Help me,” Page said. “I’ve got to tell somebody.”
+
+“Is it about Sunny?” Jack asked.
+
+“About both of us. You see, we ... we’re....” Page looked at him very
+hard and suddenly lost his nerve. “I’m adopted,” he told his shoes,
+retreating.
+
+“So?”
+
+The liquor whirled in Page’s head and his heart ached and he knew, as
+well as he knew his real name, that Sunny was thinking of him at that
+moment.
+
+“So Sunny is my sister.” He had to force the words out and his voice
+boomed unnaturally from the effort.
+
+Jack was stunned almost the way Page himself had been when he first
+heard it. But before he could answer, offer his sympathy, Page bent his
+head into his hands and sobbed, knocking over the whiskey glass at his
+feet. A lone ice cube skidded out.
+
+Jack left him alone for several minutes before he put a tentative hand
+on his shoulder. “Your _sister_?” he echoed. “Are you sure?”
+
+“You think I’m kidding? About a thing like this?” Page stood up like a
+shot to dramatize his words, stood there wavering, trying to stabilize
+himself.
+
+“You, of all people,” Jack said, dazed.
+
+“Why do you say it that way?” He flushed the truth out of Jack, who was
+too shaken up for white lies.
+
+“You hate everything like this, everything that isn’t normal and
+ordinary,” Jack said. “This must have been unbearable. My God.”
+
+Page was offended. “I don’t like abnormality, no,” he declared still
+trying to balance himself.
+
+“Sit down, boy, sit down,” Jack said, giving Page’s hand a tug and
+toppling him back onto his packing box. “And I suppose you think this is
+completely abnormal?”
+
+“Well, what do _you_ think it is? Clean, wholesome fun?” Page demanded.
+
+Jack got up and filled their glasses again. “I guess I just think it’s
+an accident,” he said. “You can’t very well blame anybody for it.”
+
+“That’s a matter of opinion,” Page answered. “Oh, don’t misunderstand
+me, I know nobody planned to marry us off knowing we were brother and
+sister. But it could have been avoided, if my real parents had kept me.
+If the doctor had told Dad who I was. If my step-parents had kept it to
+themselves when they found out.”
+
+“That wouldn’t have been strictly moral, would it?”
+
+“No. But at least I wouldn’t have had to—” Page stopped, ashamed, and
+let Jack finish for him. “You wouldn’t have had to face it,” Jack said,
+sitting down with their fresh drinks. “I guess there’s something in
+that.”
+
+“Remember when Sunny and I were going together in college? You used to
+tell us we were like an old married couple. We even looked alike.” Page
+laughed sadly.
+
+“I remember. But I never thought....” Jack put his drink down between
+his feet. “You know something, Page? I think you and Sunny could make a
+go of it ... provided you keep quiet about it.”
+
+“That wouldn’t be strictly moral, Jackson,” Page said, throwing Jack’s
+words back at him.
+
+“I’m not so sure this is any time to be moral,” Jack said, rolling some
+whiskey thoughtfully around in his mouth.
+
+“You can’t be moral on a part-time basis. It’s a condition, like being
+alive,” Page objected. “You have principles to live by. You can’t chuck
+them overboard at the first crisis.”
+
+“Some things are more important than principles, old buddy.”
+
+“If you’re talking about love, you’re wrong. Love has to be moral too,
+Jack.”
+
+“Love has its own morality, doesn’t it?”
+
+“What does that mean?”
+
+“Well, it means you and Sunny have to work something out so you can go
+on living together. Because you love each other too much to live apart.”
+
+“That thing would eat us alive, Jack.”
+
+“I doubt it.”
+
+Jack’s calm, rational attitude angered Page. “You make it sound like a
+little misunderstanding between friends,” he said. “Some trifle we can
+just smooth over if we give it the old college try.”
+
+“I didn’t mean to,” Jack said. “I guess I don’t shock so easily, Page.
+I’m used to odd balls in my life.” It was as close as Jack had ever come
+to revealing his homosexuality to Page.
+
+He got up and went to the book-loaded cartons in the living room. Page
+could hear him pottering around, skimming pages.
+
+“I want to read you something,” Jack called. “Just remembered it. Ever
+hear of Lord Byron?”
+
+“Sure. English 231. The girls called him Gorgeous George.”
+
+Jack found his book and blew dust off the top. He brought it back to the
+kitchen and sat down by Page again. “Lord Byron was in love with a lady
+named Augusta Leigh,” Jack said.
+
+“So what?”
+
+“So he wrote her a very beautiful poem.”
+
+“Spare me the literature,” Page said.
+
+“I’ll just read you a couple of lines. Listen.” He marked the words with
+his finger and read: “‘For thee, my own sweet sister—’”
+
+“_Whose_ sister?” Page flared.
+
+“Byron’s. Augusta.”
+
+“He was in love with his sister?”
+
+“Didn’t they teach you anything in English 231, old buddy?”
+
+“Well, I don’t want to hear about Byron’s troubles,” Page grumbled.
+“He’s dead.”
+
+Jack ignored him. “‘For thee, my own sweet sister,/ In thy heart/ I know
+myself secure, as thou in mine;/ We were and are beings who never each
+other can resign.’”
+
+Page hiccoughed. “The poor broad was in love with him, too?”
+
+“‘It is the same, together or apart,/ From life’s commencement to its
+slow decline/ We are entwined—’”
+
+“Jack, for God’s sake, this is very painful—”
+
+“‘—Let death come slow or fast,/ The tie which bound the first endures
+the last.’”
+
+“Oh, Jesus! You mean they were stuck with each other?”
+
+“Well, they weren’t married, but they always loved each other,” Jack
+said, closing the book. “They settled for making love whenever they
+could. And they had a daughter.”
+
+“An idiot?”
+
+“Now where in hell did you get that medieval idea?” Jack said.
+
+“_Was_ she an idiot?”
+
+“No, she was a normal girl. Why, Page? Is Sunny pregnant?”
+
+Page nodded.
+
+After a moment Jack said quietly, “I should think you’d have to stay
+with her now.”
+
+“Jack, if Laura were your honest-to-God sister, what would you do?”
+
+“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “But I wouldn’t let her go.”
+
+“You’d keep her? As your wife?”
+
+“Not as my cook and bottle washer, that’s for sure.”
+
+“You’re as bad as Sunny,” Page complained. “You two would make a lovely
+pair.”
+
+“I’ve always thought so,” Jack said sardonically.
+
+Page stood up again. “Knock it off,” he said, and took a swipe at Jack
+that nearly staggered Page back to the floor. Jack lowered him onto his
+packing box again and Page tried to control himself. “Forgive me, Jack,
+I didn’t mean it,” he said, humiliated. “It’s the whiskey.”
+
+“Forget it.”
+
+“No, I want you to know,” Page protested with drunken urgency. “I’m sick
+of myself. I can hardly bear to think of it. I know we were innocent
+when we got married. But that only makes it seem worse. More sinister,
+more tragic. We were so damn happy. And now—the contrast is torture. I
+can’t have her back and just because I can’t, I want her so much I get
+crazy with it. Did you ever want anybody that much?” He was clutching
+Jack’s lapels, talking straight into his face.
+
+“Yes, I did,” Jack said without flinching. But he didn’t describe the
+kind of love that tore him up that way.
+
+“No, you didn’t, you couldn’t have. Nobody ever did.”
+
+“You mean,” Jack said, “nobody ever suffered as much as you did. Or as
+long or as hard.”
+
+But Page was too drunk and too desolate to hear the parody of self-pity
+in Jack’s voice. “That’s it,” he said. “And to have to think of yourself
+as—as good as queer, on top of everything else—”
+
+“Oh, nuts,” Jack said. “No one knows about it but you and Sunny.”
+
+“And the doc, and my step-parents. And now _you_,” Page said, suddenly
+resenting Jack. “And for every one of us who knows, I get sick to my
+stomach.”
+
+“You mean if nobody knew you’d feel swell about it?”
+
+“That’s not what I mean!”
+
+“You’re so damn mixed-up right now you don’t make sense,” Jack said,
+speaking steadily with firm hands on Page’s shoulders that helped to
+quiet him. “Am I right?”
+
+“I guess.” Page said.
+
+“Just because a man is different from the rest doesn’t make him
+contemptible, Page,” Jack said.
+
+“Just miserable.”
+
+“Depends on how strong he is. How much of a man. These things happen to
+people and they have to learn to live with them. The better they face
+them, the stronger and finer they are in the end.”
+
+“You mean, live with incest and be healthy,” Page said.
+
+“I mean live with Sunny and be _happy_. And let the rest go to hell. You
+don’t need to climb on a soapbox in Bughouse Square and explain that
+your wife is also your sister. You don’t have to get yourself punished
+in public to make your marriage permissible. You’ll only lose everything
+that way,” Jack told him. “Some things have to be kept secret if you
+want to make it in this world.”
+
+“You’re telling me to do what Sunny wants me to do: keep it quiet and go
+on as if it hadn’t happened.”
+
+“Keep it quiet, yes, but for God’s sake, don’t go on as if it hadn’t
+happened. Face it. Between yourselves. Adjust to it the best you can and
+don’t let it defeat you.”
+
+“Jack,” Page said uncertainly. “How can you respect me, knowing about
+it?”
+
+“Am I talking as if I didn’t?”
+
+“No, but—”
+
+“Page, listen. Learn something about charity. You respect me, don’t
+you?”
+
+“You know how much I think of you, Jack. I couldn’t sit here and tell
+this to anyone else in the world.”
+
+“Well, would it make a difference to you if Laura were my sister and we
+were still married? Would you shove my teeth down my throat and turn me
+over to the cops if you found out such a thing about me?”
+
+“I can’t say I’d admire you for it,” Page said. “But I wouldn’t meddle,
+if you wanted things that way. But hell, Jack, there’s nothing wrong
+with you. You can’t possibly know how it feels—”
+
+“I know exactly how it feels. What if I told you I’ve been as misfit and
+miserable with my problems as you ever were with yours?”
+
+“My God, Laura isn’t—” Page began.
+
+But Jack stopped him with a wry smile. “No, she’s not my sister. It’s
+me. I’m gay, Page.” He hadn’t planned to say it, but when it came out,
+it came simply and generously. It was a brave risk to speak like that to
+Page Pringle, who couldn’t watch a man do a hula in fun without
+condemning him. It might cost Jack a valued friendship. But he was
+hoping it would comfort Page instead; show him with a shock that you
+could be different from the pack and survive. Better than that: live a
+good life, love a good wife, and enjoy the respect you deserved.
+
+“Gay?” Page repeated doubtfully. “You mean ... a homo?” The word tasted
+even worse to him than ‘incest’. It smacked of pretty boys cruising the
+streets in ridiculously tight pants.
+
+Jack nodded, letting his hands fall away from Page’s shoulders. In
+almost the same gesture Page released Jack with a shudder and they sat
+looking at each other. Page was acutely embarrassed. Self-conscious and
+clumsy and drunk, he fumbled for a way out. “Well, that must make things
+dull for Laura,” he said, forgetting even that Jack and Laura had a
+child. Jack didn’t smile.
+
+After a few minutes of mortified silence Page stood up, steadying
+himself with a hand on the kitchen counter. “I’d better go,” he said,
+afraid to say more. The thing revolted him and yet he was ashamed to
+feel that way. He wasn’t too drunk or too callous to realize what a
+sacrifice Jack had made for him. And yet he felt remorse that Jack had
+thought it necessary.
+
+Jack rose and followed him, handing him his cigarettes and coat as he
+reached the front door.
+
+“I’m sorry you told me, Jack,” Page said quietly.
+
+“I can see that.”
+
+“Sort of ironical, isn’t it?” Page said, not sure if he were joking or
+trying to hurt his friend.
+
+“What’s ironical?”
+
+“Your name. Mann.” Page began to laugh against his will.
+
+“Laura doesn’t think so,” Jack answered. He had himself under tight
+control. But he knew now he had forfeited Page’s friendship. Tired and
+profoundly disappointed, he felt a sudden pity and scorn for Page; pity
+and regret for himself.
+
+“I should have known you couldn’t grow and learn a little,” he told
+Page. “You can’t see any parallel between us. You can’t see how my
+problem lets me understand yours. You only see that I’m queer—your word,
+by the way. And suddenly I’m not like you any more and you want to wipe
+me off like so much mud on your hands.
+
+“Well, go on. I only wish to God Sunny had gotten the man she deserves
+and not her chicken brother.”
+
+Page paused in the doorway, insulted and shocked. “You hate me for
+having the strength to leave her, to do what I know is right,” he said.
+“You hate me because I’m a normal male. And if I weren’t so drunk—”
+
+“Yeah, well, you _are_ that drunk, Brother Pringle. Go home and sober
+up.”
+
+Page lunged at him but Jack ducked, grabbed Page, spun him out the door,
+and let him blunder noisily into the wall across the corridor. Page
+stood there dizzily, searching for his equilibrium like a man trying to
+find his shadow; turning around and around with increasing frustration.
+
+Jack shut the door and leaned against it, exhausted. He felt like
+crying, the way he had when he was a kid and too small to defend
+himself. He had learned a lot about fighting since then. But when
+something like this happened, he felt vulnerable, as if he and not Page
+had had the worst of it.
+
+
+
+
+                                   11
+
+
+“Now you know why we haven’t seen each other since then,” Jack said
+quietly to his guest, Mr. Winkler. Repeating the story had been almost
+like reliving it; Jack felt tired and used. He poured himself another
+drink. “It’s funny how you don’t suspect so much prejudice, so much
+contempt, in somebody you know that well,” he said.
+
+“Well, maybe his confusion was the Pringles’ fault,” Winkler suggested,
+staring thoughtfully at the floor. He added diffidently, “Then again,
+maybe there was some sense in his father’s ideas.”
+
+“Sure there was. Quite a lot. Page wouldn’t have swallowed anything
+vicious or stupid,” Jack said. “Do you know the Pringles, Mr. Winkler?”
+He looked at his visitor curiously.
+
+“Me? No, no,” Winkler said. “I suppose, being older, I can’t help
+sympathizing with them a little.” He cleared his throat. “You lost track
+of Page and Sunny after that?”
+
+“No. Sunny began to write to Laura. She didn’t have anybody else. She
+was madder than hell at Page when she found out he’d told me everything.
+But she trusted us enough to get over it eventually.”
+
+“I’m glad she did,” Winkler said. “I was afraid I’d miss part of the
+story.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+On their own, Page and Sunny began to read books on incest. Page took
+the ones on law and medicine; Sunny, all the history and mythology and
+psychology she could find. They both dug out what they were looking for
+and ignored the rest.
+
+Page wanted to damn incest medically and legally. Sunny wanted to
+whitewash and glamorize it. And the books, which reflected the world’s
+confusion on the subject, gave them both ammunition.
+
+What is incest? Why is it so wrong? Why are there strict laws against
+it? _Because_, said Sunny’s books, _it’s so alluring. If the laws
+weren’t strict, everybody and his brother—literally—would be taking it
+up. The boy with his beloved mother, the girl with a father she
+worships, the brother and sister sharing the same bed too long or
+discovering each other erotically in some kind of emotional crisis._
+
+There have to be laws against it, Sunny concluded, or we’d have an
+epidemic.
+
+She read about the ancient Ptolemies, fabled kings and successors of
+Alexander the Great, who practiced incest for three hundred years and
+produced a defiantly healthy line to the end.
+
+She read about Cesare Borgia, who fell madly in love with his luscious
+sister Lucrezia, and who arranged the plot by which her husband, the
+Duke of Besaglia, was strangled.
+
+She read of strange customs in the Melanesian Islands where sisters
+turned away and covered their faces at the approach of their brothers,
+so powerful was the forbidden attraction between them.
+
+She read about the gold-encrusted Pharaohs, children of the Sun, who
+married their sisters to preserve the purity of royal blood. And she saw
+that after several thousand years of inbreeding they were still
+producing tough healthy children. Even Cleopatra, the symbol of
+seductive femininity, married her brother. And the poetry of love in
+Egypt still uses the words ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister’ to mean ‘Lover’ and
+‘Beloved.’
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sunny ignored the bloodshed and bitterness and rigid strictures against
+incest that spotted these narratives. They were in the sections she
+skipped: the austere laws of Leviticus in the Bible, the tales of crop
+failure and calamity ascribed to incest in ancient Greece, the awful
+tragedy of Oedipus.
+
+The thing that confused her most was not in the books. It was a small,
+almost artificially forced feeling, that she adored her husband even
+more because he was her brother. Perhaps she had to feel that way or
+lose her mind.
+
+Sunny continued to see her doctor for regular check-ups. Finally,
+burning with curiosity, she asked, “Doctor Settick, what happens if two
+people, say two first cousins, get married and have children?”
+
+He screwed his handsome young face into a laugh. “Whatever put that in
+your head?” he asked. When he looked at her that way she wished she were
+in the hands of an older, more businesslike doctor. But she liked
+Settick. She laughed a lot in his office, and it was the only place
+where she did.
+
+She blushed at his question. “I read about it once,” she said. “When
+you’re pregnant you read all sorts of goofy books. If a brother and
+sister had a baby together would it—would it—”
+
+“Would it what?”
+
+“Would it be an idiot? A monster?”
+
+“Not necessarily,” he said.
+
+She tried to look casual, not relieved. “Oh,” she said, hoping he would
+go on. He did, crossing his arms over his chest while she looked
+demurely at the white sheet that covered her.
+
+“When two people that closely related have children, however,” he said,
+“the children are likely to have their parents’ strengths and weaknesses
+magnified.”
+
+“How does it work?”
+
+“Well, if you have bad eyes and your husband, who is also your
+brother”—he smiled interestedly at her—“also has bad eyes, your child is
+going to have a terrible pair of eyes. On the other hand, if you both
+have good vision, he’ll probably see like a hawk.”
+
+“That sounds normal.”
+
+“Almost. Incest just seems to exaggerate the parents’ characteristics in
+the children.”
+
+“If you were both healthy, then, your children would be, too?”
+
+“Very likely.” There was a small line of intrigue between his eyes. “Why
+all the questions?”
+
+“Oh, my husband was telling me about a family he knew where the parents
+were first cousins. And their kids were crippled and bald.”
+
+“You tell him it was probably some other complication than
+consanguinity,” said Settick. “That might have intensified the trouble,
+but it probably didn’t cause it unless there had been a lot of close
+inter-marriage over several generations. Why hell,” he said, “my own
+brother fell madly in love with our first cousin once.”
+
+“He did?”
+
+“Sure. Fortunately he was only thirteen at the time. He got over it.
+Still, it wouldn’t have been such a catastrophe if he hadn’t. From the
+standpoint of having kids, anyway. But he got smart and put off
+marriage. Didn’t get hooked till he was thirty-two.”
+
+“That’s kind of old,” Sunny said.
+
+“Couldn’t be helped. The damn fool went through medical school. And
+dragged me after him. Takes quite a while, you know, particularly if you
+specialize.”
+
+Sunny chuckled with him. He had reassured her and she went home from the
+examination feeling better.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Sunny had not reassured her doctor. Richie Settick had a couple of
+favorite patients, and one of them was Sunny Pringle. It was not the
+incest talk that bothered him. He dismissed that as vagrant curiosity
+inspired by her reading. His patients came up with all manner of
+moon-shot questions. He had learned to answer with a straight face, even
+when they brought him their horoscopes and ordered their babies
+delivered on a propitious day.
+
+What troubled him about Sunny was that she was actually losing weight.
+Although the foetus continued to grow and Sunny didn’t complain, she was
+obviously worried and unhappy. And she was getting visibly thin.
+
+“At the rate you’re going,” he informed her the next time she came, “you
+won’t need to bother with maternity clothes till the last week.”
+
+“Oh, I’ll wear them anyway. Makes me feel motherly,” she said. “Besides,
+I’ll look like I’ve swallowed a watermelon the next time you see me.”
+
+But she didn’t. When she came back her face and limbs were thinner
+still, her waist still small.
+
+“You look too sexy to be as far along as you are,” he told her
+critically. “In five months of pregnancy you’ve lost two pounds. What
+are you trying to do, disappear?”
+
+“Will it hurt the baby?” she asked anxiously. “I can’t work up an
+appetite.”
+
+“Nuts,” he clucked at her. “I don’t see how you could be getting the
+minimum healthy diet. And I don’t mean just vitamin pills.”
+
+“Dr. Settick,” she said seriously, “if anything happens to this baby,
+I’d want to die. But when I force myself to eat I upchuck.”
+
+“What’s all this dying talk?” he broke in. “That’s no way to carry on,
+Sunny. Nothing’s going to happen to the baby. That’s number one. But if
+anything did, there’s nothing in God’s world to prevent you from having
+a whole passel of kids if you want them.”
+
+“Yes there is,” she said quietly. The last few empty months in the
+apartment had made her desperate to talk to somebody, the way Page had
+been desperate when he confessed to Jack Mann. She didn’t want to open
+her soul to Dr. Settick. But he stood there waiting for some
+explanation; compassionate and friendly and with the sort of frank,
+good-featured face Sunny fell for. So she said in an unsure voice, “My
+husband doesn’t want any more children.”
+
+“Can’t stand them, hm?”
+
+“No.” She looked away, already sorry she had spoken. But the doctor came
+over to her and touched her gently. “Any time you want more you just
+come and see me,” he said. The words were insolent but Settick wasn’t.
+His tone was quite respectful. “You can always tell him it was an
+accident,” he added.
+
+Sunny didn’t know whether to laugh or lose her temper. She turned
+scarlet and couldn’t look at him. “I love him,” she said.
+
+“He’s making you unhappy, isn’t he?” Dr. Settick stood where he was,
+taken with the daffodil lights in her hair, the trembling of her
+finely-sculptured mouth.
+
+“It’s something neither of us can help,” Sunny said, squirming with the
+intimacy of the situation.
+
+“I’ll tell you something,” Settick offered. “The beautiful Mrs. Pringle
+is hurting her baby’s health by hurting her own. And if Mr. Pringle is
+to blame, I’ll talk to him myself. I’d rather flatten him out on the
+floor, but I’ll _talk_ to him, I promise.”
+
+“There’s nothing you can say that would help,” she said. “He won’t
+come.”
+
+“With a wife like you?” He took the sexual implication of the phrase,
+and again she didn’t know how to handle him. His hand touched her
+breasts and it was no neat medical gesture. Sunny brushed it quickly
+away.
+
+“Hey,” she said. “None of that. I told you, I love the guy.”
+
+“Okay, you love him,” Settick said, turning away from her with a sigh.
+“These things happen. Wives do love their husbands, although to hear
+some of my patients talk you’d never believe it. You know something,
+Sunny? You’re all backwards. You not only love your husband, you
+actually want more children. Do you know how many women come in here day
+after day telling me what slobs they’re stuck with and how many
+screaming brats they’ve got at home? They hate being mothers, they hate
+being wives. God, it’s enough to keep a man single for the rest of his
+life.”
+
+She smiled at him. “They’d probably all stay right where they are if you
+gave them a choice.”
+
+He shook his head with a laugh. “What makes you such an optimist?” he
+said.
+
+“I have to be. It’s all I’ve got.” For a moment she was afraid she would
+lose control and cry in front of him. But she found a measure of dignity
+by staring carefully at the large stethoscope through which mothers were
+allowed to listen to their growing baby’s heartbeats. She had heard her
+baby’s heart not ten minutes ago. It sounded like the rapid tapping of a
+metronome in the next room, and it moved her unspeakably.
+
+“I wish you’d tell me what’s the matter, Sunny,” the doctor urged. “I
+didn’t mean to get fresh just now. Forget it, will you? That’s the price
+you pay for being so damn beautiful.” He smiled disarmingly.
+
+“It’s okay,” she said, letting him persuade her that he meant no
+offense.
+
+“You’re worried and you’re not eating right,” he said briskly. “I’m
+going to put you on a diet, to gain, and some tranquilizers.”
+
+She protested but he wrote a prescription for her. “It’s for the baby,”
+he said. “You don’t have to live on them.”
+
+Sunny got off the examination table, holding her sheets around her.
+
+“Are you getting a divorce by any chance?” Settick asked, unable to
+resist.
+
+“We don’t need to,” she said cryptically.
+
+He surprised himself by recalling at that moment the questions on incest
+one of his patients—was it Sunny?—had put to him: just a fleeting notion
+that crossed his mind and left it the moment he saw her out the door.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sunny’s letters to Laura and her talks with Dr. Settick were her only
+relief from solitude. Laura was the sole person she could tell
+everything to. Her notes were restrained at first, but Laura’s warmth
+and concern shone through her answers and gave Sunny the courage to be
+honest.
+
+“It takes two to dissolve a marriage, just as it takes two to make one,”
+Laura wrote. “So Page can’t call it quits by himself, whatever the
+heartless law books say. Fight for him. He’s worth it. Or at least he
+_will_ be when he grows up and realizes life is more important than
+arbitrary rules.”
+
+Sunny reread the letter a dozen times. And from then on her own letters
+were graphic charts of her heart and mind. She described the long gray
+days that not even a sweet spring breeze could brighten. And the nights,
+infamous in the poems of separated lovers, and hourglass-endless.
+
+“I like being mad at Page,” she wrote Laura. “It gives me energy—keeps
+my pride alive. I think how mean I’ll be when he comes home. And when he
+begs me to take him back—oh, how tender and passionate! I have only one
+fear, Laura—that he’ll never come. The longer he waits, the more I
+wonder. Maybe I’ll have to start crawling again after all.”
+
+Sunny took Laura’s sympathy with gratitude, with greed, but it didn’t
+replace her husband. And it was all Laura could give her.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Page’s _Sunday Magazine_ column was getting noticed. It was funny, a
+little rough and overstated, but clever. Sunny loved it. It surprised
+her and made her laugh—and then weep because he hadn’t shared it with
+her before he shared it with the public.
+
+She cut out the columns, pasting them in a scrapbook. The best she taped
+to her mirror to memorize:
+
+“It’s like a gold yoyo,” he said of a modern canvas. “If you want it
+you’ll pay anything for it. If you don’t, nothing is too damn much.”
+
+He quoted a famous movie producer signing a witless young lovely for a
+new film: “Never mind about the lines. Just be sure to bring your face
+along.”
+
+Sunny yearned with a choking envy to share all this with him: the
+excitement he felt as his name gained currency, the pleasure of turning
+out quotable prose, the odd thrill of having your words read by people
+you would never know. To be denied her part in his blossoming career was
+one of her worst burdens.
+
+One morning, after reading his newest column, she suddenly chucked her
+pride and wrote him a fan letter:
+
+   Dear Mr. Pringle,
+   If a lady is single
+   And wants you to chase her,
+   Adore and embrace her,
+   Should she ...
+   Be sexy and clever?
+   Or wait here forever?
+   Your columns are funny.
+   I hate you.
+
+                       Love,
+                       Sunny
+
+She mailed it on a Monday morning in April. Tuesday was the first of
+May, and it was the day Page called her after nearly three dismal months
+of silence.
+
+When the phone rang she ran to it from the kitchen as if she had been
+expecting it. With trembling hands she lifted the receiver. It might be
+Dr. Settick, after all. He had called her several times and once ended
+up asking her to dinner.
+
+“Hello?” she said.
+
+“Sunny?” It was Page. His voice sounded a little unsure, but there was
+no mistaking it.
+
+“Oh, Page!” She pressed a hand over her mouth for a second and then said
+weakly, “How are you?”
+
+“I’m miserable,” he said. “How are you?”
+
+“Oh, darling!” Her heart kicked joyfully. “Are you really miserable?”
+
+“Aren’t you?”
+
+“Yes; God, I can hardly stand it. Did you get my poem?”
+
+“Honey, it was beautiful. It was immortal,” he said.
+
+“Page, can we meet somewhere? I mean—”
+
+“Yes,” he said and she knew at once he had been thinking about it hard.
+He wanted to see her so much that he knew an argument would end up in
+his ignominious surrender. “Can you have dinner with me tonight?” he
+said.
+
+“Can I!” she cried. “_Beg_ me, darling.”
+
+“Please, baby. Please.... I have your poem in my pocket. Any girl who
+can write such deathless verse deserves a filet mignon,” he said.
+
+“Oh, you wonderful idiot. Darling, when will you pick me up?”
+
+“Sunny, maybe I’d better meet you,” he hedged. He knew what would happen
+to him if he got caught in that apartment again. Sunny knew too and she
+couldn’t give up without trying.
+
+“I’ve fixed the place up so nicely,” she said. “You won’t know it. I
+want you to see the new curtains and—”
+
+“No,” he said anxiously, and she was afraid of scaring him off. She gave
+in with the hope that when they were physically close she could move him
+better than she could on the phone. All she asked was the chance.
+
+“Where are you staying?” she said.
+
+“Let’s not get into that.”
+
+“I’m not going to storm the gates, Page. I really need to now. What if
+the baby comes and I have to contact you?”
+
+“You can always call the office,” he said.
+
+“Sure, and get told off again,” she reminded him. “Page, it might be an
+emergency. I’m completely alone in this city. The only friends I had
+were your friends and I never see any of them. And Jack and Laura are
+gone now. About the only human being I see who gives a damn about me is
+Dr. Settick.”
+
+“How much of a damn?” he said, feeling an upswell of jealousy that
+suddenly made him determined. “All right,” he went on, “but Sunny, play
+fair. Promise me you won’t call unless it’s really urgent.” Somewhere in
+the back of his mind was the unacknowledged thought that he secretly
+wanted her to come; but he sternly ignored it.
+
+“I promise,” she said. You can’t go to hell for breaking one lousy
+promise, she reasoned.
+
+“I’m on East Thirty-second Street,” he said with misgivings, and gave
+her the number and the phone. If she ever showed up, his conscience
+would blast him.
+
+Sunny wrote it down on the phone pad with a sense of triumph.
+
+They agreed to meet at a small restaurant on Tenth Avenue.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Sunny had other plans. She knew Page would blow his top if he found
+her in his rooms that very day. But she was as sure as love could make
+her that his anger would die a quick death.
+
+She heard the tremor of love and long denial in his voice. If it was so
+desperately hard for her, a woman, to forbid herself the love she
+needed, how difficult mustn’t it be for a man? A young vigorous
+passionate man who adored his wife?
+
+He’ll never resist, she told herself, laughing aloud with anticipation.
+She made herself stunningly beautiful. She took pains she rarely
+bothered with and hardly needed. But it made her feel irresistible to
+know there was a sheen of exotic color over her eyes, an underfilm of
+silver witchery on her lips, a fragrant mist in her swinging yellow
+hair.
+
+She was still slim enough to look chic in a small-waisted dress. It had
+a full, soft skirt that hid her six-month stomach. She put on her
+four-inch heels, her sequined cocktail hat, black gloves and purse, and
+checked herself out in the mirror, ticking off each feature like a
+C.P.A. going over his books. Her glamorous reflection surprised her.
+
+She looked older, beautiful in an experienced way. It was not just the
+makeup. It had something to do with the past three months of solitary
+introspection and yearning. She was full of the new things she had
+learned from the books, the new life she felt within her, and the new
+depths and shadows her heart had explored. They changed her face. She
+was no little girl any more. She was a lovely woman.
+
+
+
+
+                                   12
+
+
+Sunny left her apartment early, hailed a taxi, and gave Page’s address
+to the driver in a confident voice. When she got out in front of the new
+apartment building, it was forty minutes before their date. She decided
+he was probably taking his shower.
+
+Inside the front door she found his mail box with a button beneath the
+name. There was a small speaker and she knew he might ask through it who
+was there.
+
+_Well, the worst he can do is make me wait down here till he’s ready_,
+she thought. Still, how much better to get a foot in the door. He’d
+never be able to resist that foot—not when it was followed by her slim,
+silky leg. So she boldly pushed the buzzer. A wave of goose bumps fanned
+over her back and neck while she waited.
+
+In a moment the speaker came on. To Sunny’s amazement, a feminine voice
+answered. Sunny looked to see if she had pushed the right button. She
+had. The voice repeated, “Who’s there?”
+
+“The florist,” Sunny said. “I have a corsage Mr. Pringle ordered.”
+
+“Oh. Okay.” The speaker went off and a buzz sounded. Sunny went inside
+and up a flight of stairs. On the second floor she found his door to the
+left of the landing. It opened before she could knock.
+
+Sunny found herself facing a valentine-pretty girl, very young, very
+efficient looking, with her hands full of typed copy. The girl stared at
+Sunny, fully as startled as her visitor. After an anxious pause she
+said, “Was Mr. Pringle expecting you?”
+
+“Apparently not,” Sunny said coolly. “May I come in?”
+
+The girl hesitated briefly and then stepped aside. “Please,” she said.
+“I—I should explain, I was just here to bring Mr. Pringle some notes I
+took for him at the library. He doesn’t have time to do all his own
+research, so I—”
+
+“Oh, you don’t have to explain,” Sunny said with dangerous charm. “I
+understand perfectly.” She looked sharply at the flustered girl who
+lowered her eyes in confusion. “Of course you’re his secretary.”
+
+“Yes. I’m Pat Burridge. I—hope you won’t jump to conclusions,” she said
+with a clumsy laugh.
+
+“Why not?” Sunny said.
+
+“Oh, but really, it’s not what you think!” Pat cried, wide-eyed and
+innocent as milk. But there were a few sour curds floating around. She
+was ready to defend herself and fast if Sunny didn’t ease up. And she
+was impatient to know who Sunny was. Sunny made her wait.
+
+“What do you think I think, Miss Burridge?” Sunny said. “That you’re
+sleeping with him?”
+
+“How dare you!” the girl exclaimed.
+
+“Well, Mr. Pringle and I have been having a little affair ourselves for
+some time now,” Sunny said, pulling off her gloves. “I’m not surprised
+he’s getting tired of me.” She gave Pat a critical going-over that made
+the secretary frantic.
+
+“Whoever you are, you have no right to talk to me that way!” she cried.
+
+“Oh, hell, if you’re going to be a bitch, be a good honest bitch,” Sunny
+said. The shock of the situation had frozen the fury in her veins and
+given her a sardonic composure that staggered Miss Burridge.
+
+“If you think I’m having _relations_ with Mr. Pringle,” the girl panted,
+“it might just interest you to know that I’m engaged to a very nice
+man.”
+
+“Poor man. This will come as something of a shock, won’t it?”
+
+“And I happen to be a virgin!” Pat declared.
+
+“Fancy!” Sunny said, sauntering across the room. “All hail to the last
+member of a vanishing race.”
+
+“You have a filthy mind!” Pat said.
+
+“And you have a filthy habit: sleeping with a married man.”
+
+“Evidently I’m not the only one,” Pat snapped.
+
+“Ah, but there’s a difference. I’m a married _woman_.”
+
+“Besides,” Pat went on with noisy outrage, “Mr. Pringle is _not_ a
+married man.”
+
+“_Really?_” Sunny said with genuine astonishment. “Did he tell you
+that?”
+
+“He certainly did. His divorced wife calls him on the office phone all
+the time but he has me tell her he’s out.” She evidently considered a
+divorced man even less attached than a bachelor.
+
+“Well!” Sunny said with sugary sarcasm. “I guess that makes it all right
+for you to sleep with him, then, as long as your fiance doesn’t find out
+what his bride-to-be does in her spare time.”
+
+Abruptly Page burst into the room behind Pat, who turned around with a
+gasp.
+
+“Page, darling!” Sunny said, beautiful in her anger.
+
+Page’s face fell. “Oh, God,” he said. “What are _you_ doing here?”
+
+“Which one of us are you referring to, darling? Well? Go on, introduce
+us.”
+
+He looked distractedly from one to the other, caught between two
+fighting females; a nightmare for any man. “Miss Burridge,” he said
+resolutely. “My wife, Mrs. Pringle.”
+
+Pat Burridge’s expression changed from anger through shock to
+mortification. “Mrs. Pringle?” she repeated to him. “But you said—”
+
+“Never mind what I said!”
+
+“How do you do, Miss Burridge?” Sunny said with savage courtesy.
+
+“I’d better go,” Pat said. “Here’s your key, Mr. Pringle.” She stopped,
+raising a hand to her mouth. “Oh! I mean—Well, he only gives it to me so
+I can bring him the notes when he’s not home!” she cried, and ran
+weeping out the front door.
+
+The Pringles were so mad at each other that neither of them could talk
+for a few seconds. Finally Page said, determinedly calm, “You promised
+me you wouldn’t come here. Your promises aren’t worth a damn, are they?”
+
+“It’s forbidden for your wife to come here; only your secretary is
+allowed,” she shot back.
+
+“For your information, Pat Burridge comes over here nearly every
+afternoon about this time with a bunch of research notes I’ve assigned
+to her. She puts them on the desk and leaves,” he said.
+
+“After she warms up the bed.”
+
+“She doesn’t go near the damn bed!”
+
+“Oh, an experimenter. She likes the couch in the living room.”
+
+“Sunny, cut it out. Pat is a nice decent kid, but I’m not sleeping with
+her.” He glared at her over the back of a chair upon which he was
+leaning stiff-armed.
+
+“Why not, darling? You could climb in bed with her and still feel nice
+and clean. After all, _she’s_ not your sister.”
+
+Surprised at her, he answered, “I could, but I don’t.”
+
+“I suppose she means more to you than your own wife!” Sunny cried
+unhappily.
+
+“How many times do you have to be told, Sunny? You’re _not_ my wife.”
+
+“Then don’t introduce me as Mrs. Pringle. It might confuse people.”
+
+“That was a slip of the tongue.” His anger blew itself out suddenly.
+“Sunny, for the love of God, how could I make love to any other woman
+while you’re alive? Do we have to shout at each other? This is our first
+meeting in three months. Darling ... my love, my wife—”
+
+“You just got through hollering that I’m _not_ your wife,” she wept.
+“Make up your mind before I lose mine, will you?”
+
+Page dropped his head in his hands to compose himself and then lifted it
+to look at her. “I’m going to read you something,” he said, going to his
+desk, “from an outline of American law.” He picked up a big black
+leather-bound book with torn matchbook covers marking various pages, and
+turned to an underlined passage.
+
+“‘Where the parties to the marriage are closely related,’” he read her,
+“‘—such as brother and sister or ancestor and descendant—the marriage is
+void.’ _Void_, Sunny. ‘And a decree of annulment should be and
+apparently is unnecessary.’” He shut the book and dropped it on the desk
+with a bang, looking at her.
+
+“What does it mean?” she said.
+
+“It means we aren’t married. And there isn’t a damn thing we can do
+about it even if we want to. We are automatically un-married, because
+our marriage was never valid in the first place.”
+
+“There _is_ something we can do about it,” Sunny said, trembling.
+
+“What?” His face and voice were weary but, like her, in his heart he
+kept hoping ... hoping for nothing less than a revolution in Heaven’s
+laws and Earth’s traditions.
+
+“Keep it a secret,” she said. “What the law doesn’t know the law can’t
+very well change.”
+
+He sat down heavily in his desk chair and said, “the law has eyes and
+ears, Sunny. We might get away with it for a while, but—”
+
+“I’d rather have that little while than nothing at all.”
+
+He put his head down on his crossed arms for a minute and the sight of
+him like that, near despair, twisted her heart. “Oh, Page,” she
+whispered, afraid to touch him. She folded into the chair he had been
+leaning on moments ago. “Can’t we live with it? Can’t we even try? Do we
+have to be so damn tragically moral?”
+
+“I’ve been reading,” he began, but she interrupted:
+
+“So have I.”
+
+“Have you read Freud?”
+
+“A little,” she said.
+
+“Have you any idea what a childish, immature, emotionally crippling sort
+of thing incest is?”
+
+“Page, we didn’t commit incest! It _happened_ to us!” she said
+passionately. “We had no idea we were brother and sister. We chose each
+other as normally and innocently as other husbands and wives.”
+
+“_Did_ we, Sunny?” He spoke softly, looking away from her. It frightened
+her.
+
+“What on earth do you mean?” she said indignantly.
+
+“I mean, isn’t it just possible that we recognized each other
+subconsciously? People fall in love with the people who remind them of
+themselves, Sunny. Couldn’t we have fallen in love and refused to admit
+the awful truth we were half-aware of? Tried to hide and deny it so we
+could get married with a clear conscience?”
+
+“No!” she said appalled.
+
+“Isn’t it possible that what we fell in love with and desired in each
+other was our own selves, without ever permitting ourselves to realize
+it? If we did that, we’re as guilty as anybody else who ever committed
+incest.”
+
+“We didn’t do it,” she protested. “Page, we don’t look _that_ much
+alike.”
+
+“Oh, don’t we, though!” he said, rising quickly and grabbing her hand.
+“Look at my eyes. My hair.” He took a handful of hers and held it out so
+her eyes could compare. “Same color, same texture, same everything,” he
+said.
+
+“A lot of people have hair like that. There aren’t that many kinds of
+hair!” she said.
+
+“Look, Sunny, even our hands,” he said, and though his was heavier and
+hairier, the basic bone structure was the same.
+
+But Sunny was incapable of hating their similarities. She lifted his
+hand to her mouth and kissed it and suddenly he leaned over her, almost
+tumbled into the chair with her, and kissed her mouth hard.
+
+Before they knew it, they were making love in the chair. It was awful;
+agonized, furtive, rushed. The chair tipped precariously. They hurt each
+other, half on purpose. And yet, in spite of that, it was beautiful.
+They gripped each other with hands like traps. They kissed each other
+everywhere, desperate to leave a touch of love all over each other.
+
+Sunny clung to him ecstatically, sobbing his name when he freed her
+mouth for a second. He felt himself losing control, and the harder he
+tried to fight free the more deeply entangled he became.
+
+“Sunny, no,” he pleaded at the very moment that he was tearing the
+buttons off her dress in a fever to touch her warm satin skin. “Oh, dear
+God, stop me,” he muttered, kissing her all the while so that she
+couldn’t answer him.
+
+He wanted to punish her for making him do the terrible thing he had
+resisted so long. He took a bite in her delicate shoulder that made her
+sob with startled pain. His hands twisted the shining flesh of her back
+and his lips bruised her full sweet breasts.
+
+Sunny knew why he was doing it and at first she didn’t try to stop him,
+hoping it might ease him. But it got too bad. She finally combed his
+cheeks with her nails in self-defense and shocked him into gentleness.
+After that they made love, as much love as blood and breath would bear,
+until they were utterly worn out. Only sheer exhaustion stopped them.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The chill air woke them. Page got up and fetched a down comforter from
+his bedroom and wrapped her in it, giving her a cigarette while he fixed
+them a drink.
+
+He had put on his bathrobe. His actions, as he poured the drinks, were
+almost normal. But his grim-lipped silence belied them.
+
+There was a mournful quiet, broken only by the rustle and crack of the
+liquor flowing over the ice cubes. He walked over to her, handed her a
+glass, and sat down on the rug beside her. They leaned back against the
+sofa and drank. Page put an arm around her.
+
+“Page,” she said. “Do you really think we can live apart when we love
+each other like this?”
+
+“I don’t know,” he admitted finally, and she wondered if it were the
+first break in his armor of rectitude.
+
+“Tell me you don’t want me, darling,” she teased.
+
+“I can’t,” he said softly.
+
+“Tell me you want me more every time we make love. Tell me that pretty
+soon you won’t be able to resist me at all any more. Tell me we can try
+living together again ... just for a while.”
+
+He inspected his drink. “How do you feel right now?” he asked her.
+“After we’ve made love. Tell the truth.”
+
+“I’d be unbearably happy if I weren’t so afraid it will be the last
+time,” she said.
+
+“Is that all? No shame? No regret? No wonder, even, that maybe it’s
+wrong?” He looked at her.
+
+“No,” she said, sniffling. “I’m too glad to be back in your arms to care
+about the rest.”
+
+“Suppose,” he said, his voice still low, “that your father—_our_
+father—went a little crazy and forced you to go to bed with him. I mean,
+made love to you. Would you feel anything then?”
+
+“Don’t you ever speak like that again,” she said rigidly.
+
+“It’s exactly the same thing,” he said.
+
+“It is _not_ the same thing! I grew up in my father’s house, I knew all
+along he was my father. I could never let him touch me that way. He
+could never _want_ to.”
+
+“You’re saying the only difference between him and me is, you knew all
+along who he was. If you and I had always known we were brother and
+sister, you couldn’t let _me_ touch you, either,” he said. And he was
+right.
+
+Sunny groaned and hung her head. “Darling, I’m not much for logic,” she
+said at last. “All I know is I’m miserably in love with you and I don’t
+care _who_ you are.” Her voice rose, becoming stubborn.
+
+He looked so unhappy that she set her drink down and took his face in
+her hands, trying to kiss some cheer into him. But he stopped her. So
+she stayed where she was, kneeling in front of him, afraid to look at
+him again. In silence she began a tormented debate with herself,
+deciding at length to make one final try; one ultimate sacrifice.
+
+“Page?” she said unsteadily.
+
+“Hm?” He fingered the slim knee winking out of her blanket at him.
+
+“If I don’t have this baby—could we—would you live with me?”
+
+He looked slowly up at her green eyes that glittered with tears and took
+her hands. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” he said. “You’re too
+far along now. If you’d been willing three months ago....”
+
+“I wanted the baby so much,” she whispered. “But I’d do anything to have
+you back, darling. I almost wish I could tear it out now—” She stopped,
+feeling the baby kick. It made her sick. Grasping one of his hands, she
+put it on her abdomen and held it there fiercely, over his protests,
+until he felt the solid thump of a small foot under it. He looked up at
+her, astonished. At that moment, for the first time, his child became
+real to him: a human being with a beating heart and moving limbs.
+
+He got up and walked to the other side of the room and she could tell
+from the inclination of his head that he was deeply disturbed.
+
+“Can we live together if I destroy this child?” she asked.
+
+“This child,” he repeated in a daze. “Our child. My son.”
+
+“If it’s between you and the baby, I choose you,” she said, trembling
+uncontrollably. “I don’t know how I’d get rid of it now, I don’t know if
+it would kill me just to try. But I’m willing.”
+
+“No, Sunny,” he said firmly.
+
+“You thought it was a good idea not so long ago,” she reminded him. “You
+said—”
+
+“I know what I said. It was barbarous!”
+
+“You asked me to get an abortion and I didn’t think I could. But I
+hadn’t been living without you for three months then. I think I could do
+it now.”
+
+“I won’t let you do it now and don’t ever bring it up again,” he said.
+
+“Well then, can we live together anyway, even if I have the baby?” she
+implored him.
+
+“No we can’t, Sunny!” he cried, throwing out his arms for understanding.
+“I wish that poor little kid had never been conceived but I’m not going
+to _murder_ it,” he added. “The night I found out about us I was half
+mad with grief and that baby seemed like the crowning blow. But it
+wasn’t a person, then, honey. It was just a mess of proliferating cells.
+Now it’s a baby. You can’t go around murdering babies. Go ahead and
+_have_ it.”
+
+“Thanks a lot! You’re too generous, Page,” she said. “You get me
+pregnant and then graciously _allow_ me to have the damn baby. And just
+how shall I support this creature, now that I’m permitted the joys of an
+illegitimate birth, labor pains, no money in the bank, no husband in my
+bed, no father for my child? Shall I feed it pipe dreams and dress it in
+lullabies? Shall I wrap Junior in an old rag and pass the tin cup around
+to my neighbors?”
+
+“Good God, Sunny, there’s money in the bank,” he said.
+
+“I’ve been spending some these past few months, you know,” she said.
+“There’s the rent. And I can’t seem to stop eating—not entirely, anyway.
+Oh, and the doctor bills. And I’ve seen at least two movies.”
+
+“Well, God damn it, I know you’ve spent money. I’m _making_ money and
+every cent I don’t need is in your bank account.”
+
+“It is?”
+
+“Don’t you ever read the balance sheet they send you?” he demanded,
+insulted that she should have thought he would let her starve.
+
+“No. I can’t understand it,” she said. “I didn’t know if it was the top
+figure or the bottom one.”
+
+“Oh, God,” he murmured, almost laughing with exasperation. “Sunny, did
+you think I’d send you to the poor house?”
+
+“I didn’t know. I don’t know you at all any more, Page.” She got up from
+the floor and walked across the room to where he stood with his back to
+her, putting her hands lightly on his hips.
+
+“I always thought we were so much alike before we got married, darling.
+And I don’t mean our faces, either. I mean in the way we thought, the
+way we looked at life.
+
+“Remember when we met? I ran out of the bushes and there you were,
+standing by the lake, completely bare. Anybody else would have covered
+himself up and acted like a silly fool. I kept waiting for you to make
+an ass of yourself. But you just stood there and kidded me and let me
+look at you and didn’t seem to mind at all that your clothes were piled
+up under a tree twenty feet away.
+
+“Page, I never was so excited, so scared, so thrilled, in my life. The
+way you looked at me, the way you stood there, seemed to sum up your
+whole attitude toward life—and mine. You were bold, you were amused with
+me and with yourself. You were so wonderful to look at. And you weren’t
+ashamed. All I could think of from that day on was, ‘That’s the kind of
+man I could adore and live with and take care of for the rest of my
+life.’
+
+“You made me feel so womanly, Page. So feminine and passionate. I always
+liked boys and I’d had my share of crushes. But I’d never felt like that
+before till I met you.”
+
+“I know, baby, I know,” he said softly. “It was wonderful. But hell, it
+was normal, sweetheart. Moral.” He paused, trying to keep himself
+controlled, pulling her arms around him as he continued. “God, you were
+gorgeous. I couldn’t quite believe you. When you suddenly burst in on me
+I was too surprised to move. And when I could, I was afraid I’d lose you
+if I did. So I stood there and kidded you to make you stay. To make you
+look at me as long as possible.”
+
+“There was never anything Puritanical about our romance,” she said. “A
+lot of people say we went too far.”
+
+“I’m no Puritan, honey,” he protested. “We were two unrelated kids as
+far as we knew. If two people are clean and decent and really in love,
+then what they do with their bodies is only an expression of their love.
+No sin, certainly. But there are some things I won’t and can’t do,
+things that offend me morally.”
+
+“You break down and do them, though,” Sunny said. “You hypocrite. And
+don’t you call me a moral offense.”
+
+“Do you have to twist everything I say? Don’t you know—”
+
+“I know we used to agree on everything!” she wailed. “Now we can’t agree
+on anything at all.”
+
+“That’s because everything in our lives resolves around the central fact
+of incest.”
+
+She reclaimed her arms and moved away from him, the old despair fighting
+up in her again. “No, it’s not just that,” she said. “You’ve changed,
+Page. You’re a different man from the one I married. You even had a bad
+argument with Jack Mann, your best friend, because he tried to put in a
+good word for me.”
+
+“I suppose Laura told you,” he said angrily. “Well, Laura’s all wet.
+Sure, he put in a good word for you. I expected him to. But that’s not
+why I broke off with him.”
+
+“You broke off with him because you couldn’t take the truth!” She cried.
+“You broke your promise to me and told him our secret, and when he told
+you what a twerp you are, you went to pieces.”
+
+Across the length of the small room they looked at each other as if the
+Grand Canyon, narrower but just as deep, yawned between them.
+
+“That had nothing to do with it,” Page said. “I dropped him because he’s
+a damn fairy!”
+
+Sunny was too startled to answer him for a moment. When she finally did
+it was with a dour laugh. “Page, I really think you’re dotty,” she said.
+“Jack Mann is about as much of a fairy as you are. And I’m here to state
+you aren’t.”
+
+“He told me so himself,” Page said. “He was trying to make me
+understand, as he put it, that abnormality can be fun.”
+
+“Like hell he was,” Sunny flashed. “He was probably trying to get it
+through that thick skull of yours that you can live with abnormality.
+You don’t have to turn tail and run.”
+
+“Don’t you listen when I tell you something?” Page shouted. “He’s
+_queer_, Sunny!”
+
+“Well, what do you want me to do, write to my Congressman? Besides,
+there are all kinds of homosexuals. You don’t have to put on lipstick
+and skirts and flirt in the streets. If Jack is a homosexual, that’s his
+business. If we’re incestuous, that’s ours!”
+
+“I might have known you’d react like this,” he said harshly.
+
+“Jack Mann is a good friend of mine,” she cried with feeling, “and I
+wouldn’t care if he were an ape in the zoo; it’s all the same to me. I
+like him and I’m grateful for his friendship. If it weren’t for Jack, I
+would have been even more miserable than I am.”
+
+Page picked up his forgotten drink and finished it, as if the only way
+to deal with such idiocy was to get drunk.
+
+She marched up to him as he smacked the glass down on his desk. “You
+listen to me, Page Pringle,” she said. “I’m ashamed of you.”
+
+“You’re what? You’re ashamed of _me_!” he said in disbelief.
+
+“I’m ashamed of the way you treated Jack. You weren’t afraid to be his
+friend when you thought he was normal. You would never have guessed, and
+he didn’t have to tell you. Don’t you suppose it hurt him to speak the
+truth? And why did he do it? Because he’s a true friend. Because you
+matter to him.”
+
+“I’ll bet I do!”
+
+“And I don’t mean _that_ way!” she broke in. “Did he ever lay a finger
+on you?”
+
+“I’d have tied him in knots if he had.”
+
+“You’re a damn coward, Page. You’re afraid of Jack because he’s more of
+a man than you are.”
+
+He stared at her open-mouthed, his face going scarlet.
+
+“He has guts. I mean that, Page. He had the courage to tell you a
+terrible secret, to risk losing your affection and respect—which by the
+way he did—because he had faith in you. He wanted to help. His mistake
+was that you weren’t worth it.”
+
+“Sunny, that man is a degenerate—”
+
+“And you’re a rotten coward!” she said with bitter tears. “I know what
+Jack is, and it isn’t degenerate. If you had his courage, you’d be a
+better man.”
+
+“You mean I’d be in your bed. Like the coward I am _not_,” he said,
+slamming a heavy fist down on the desk and making his whiskey glass
+jump.
+
+“You are a coward, Page, because you can’t face this thing,” she said,
+calmer now but still crying. “Because from the very night you found out
+you were my brother you’ve been running away from me. You ran out that
+night and you’ve been running like a frightened hare ever since.”
+
+“I have the courage to see this marriage has to end,” he said, shaking
+with rage. “Hopelessly as I love you, I have the courage to admit that
+our life together would be one long nightmare and our baby’s life would
+be ruined by it.”
+
+“You’d see to that, wouldn’t you?”
+
+“The hardest thing I ever did was leave you, Sunny. If that’s being a
+coward, all right, I’m a coward. I love you, I never loved anybody like
+I love you, but—”
+
+He stopped, too broken up to talk. “But it’s over,” he said hoarsely at
+last. “If you think a coward could face that, you’re wrong. _You’re_ the
+coward, Sunny, as long as we’re pointing fingers. You’re the one who’s
+clinging to rosy dreams.”
+
+“Page, you think if you look the other way and keep your front door
+locked this whole mess will clean itself up. God, I wish I had the
+strength to slug you! That law book you read me: ‘We don’t have to do
+anything, we’re automatically un-married.’ How nice for you. That’s a
+coward’s way out, Page, and that’s what you are. _Coward!_” She
+shrieked.
+
+His eyes took on a hot shine and she could see the muscles working under
+the skin of his face. “You come with me,” he said. “I want to show you
+something.” He was perilously angry and Sunny’s temper vanished suddenly
+in wave of fear. He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her roughly
+after him into his small kitchen. Sunny scrambled after him, afraid he
+would crack her wrist. She had never seen him like this before, and yet
+it was a strangely familiar expression he wore. She gasped when she
+recognized it: it was the look her father, Ben Rotheli, wore one time
+when a local business rival tried to ruin him by impugning June’s
+virtue. It was a look of uncontrollable fury.
+
+Page released her by the sink and went to a drawer in one of the
+cupboards. She stood silent and shaking while he pulled the drawer open
+and fumbled in it. But when he took out a chef’s knife, heavy-handled
+and with a massive blade of spotted steel, she gave a little scream.
+
+“Now who’s a coward?” he said, glaring at her, waving the blade slowly
+back and forth under her face.
+
+Sunny stood white and still in front of him. “Go ahead, operate,” she
+whispered. “You never wanted the baby, anyway.” There was almost more
+contempt than fear in her voice.
+
+“Not on you,” he said and his voice went deathly quiet, like hers. Sunny
+dared to look at his face then. “If I hurt you you’d have a good reason
+for calling me a coward,” he said. “And you’d be right.”
+
+Her eyes went huge with alarm then. “Page, don’t hurt yourself,” she
+begged. “I didn’t mean it. Page!”
+
+“Sure you meant it.” He was temporarily demented with wrath and
+humiliation, and before she could stop him he put his left hand down on
+the drainboard of the sink, palm up and with the fingers spread, and
+struck a terrible blow to the little finger. Sunny shut her eyes.
+
+There was an awful silence. Page dropped the knife with a nerve-scraping
+clatter into the sink and lifted his hand. Slowly Sunny opened her eyes
+and looked at it. The finger clung to its place by a forlorn thread of
+skin, hanging horribly backwards and upside-down against the back of his
+hand and bleeding heavily. He picked up the knife again and sawed it
+free and threw it at her feet.
+
+Sunny had covered her mouth with both hands in an effort to stifle her
+shock. Now she stooped as if in a dream and recaptured the severed
+finger. A strange sort of calm enveloped them both as she straightened
+up. Having touched the awful thing, so lately living, her horror left
+her. She was almost drowned in a well of love and pity.
+
+“You didn’t have to do that,” she wept softly. “You fool. You big baby.”
+His disembodied finger vanished within her clenched hand. She stared at
+the tiny red rivers seeping through the cracks of her own fingers and
+blending with her tears.
+
+“Yes, I did,” he said, holding his left hand up carefully to stem the
+copious blood flow. The pain was only half-real to him. The whole
+action, in fact, seemed dreamlike. “It was worth it. I can tell by your
+eyes. I’m not a coward, Sunny.”
+
+“I didn’t mean this way, darling,” she said. “You’re the bravest man in
+the world. I meant—the _other_ way. Morally.”
+
+“You mean I did all this for nothing?”
+
+She shook her head. “Page, if you offered me the world on a string it
+wouldn’t mean half to me what this poor bloody finger means,” she wept.
+“Darling, what a stupid, gruesome, _brave_ thing to do. Page ... I love
+you more than I can bear. Forgive me.”
+
+And she went to him and kissed him and his gory hand. They stood
+together with their arms around each other; damp and discolored with
+blood and tears; too stunned to talk any more.
+
+
+
+
+                                   13
+
+
+“You know, Laura, I don’t think either of us really knew what courage
+meant that day,” Sunny wrote to Laura Mann. “We were a couple of little
+kids lost in the dark, each one hanging on to the other, near dead with
+fright and both shouting how brave we were. To Page, courage was the
+strength to do what he thought was right. To me, courage was the guts to
+do what I knew damn well was wrong. (By conventional standards, at
+least). We were at opposite ends of the pole, too proud to meet
+halfway.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sunny left Page’s apartment that night with Page asleep from the effects
+of a sedative the doctor had given him. She went home in a taxi. There
+had been no verbal understanding between her and Page. It seemed as
+though the more they talked about their problem, the farther they drew
+apart. They traveled away from each other on the wings of their own
+words.
+
+But when they kissed or clasped hands or stood and shared a lingering
+look, words were unnecessary. They had made love this time, they had
+been so close to one another that Sunny began to hope the future wasn’t
+all black.
+
+Page had told her with his hands, his eyes, his mouth, how much she was
+cherished. No matter how wrong and painful and misunderstood their
+speeches were, they never misunderstood each other’s kisses.
+
+She spent the next few days expecting him to call her, and when nearly a
+week went by and he didn’t, she was gravely hurt.
+
+What does he expect me to do, make all the advances? she wondered. I’ve
+swallowed my pride. Let him swallow his this time.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in a downcast mood that Sunny went to Dr. Settick for her
+six-month check-up. She sat in the examination room, staring at the
+white gown that covered her and trying not to think of Page. She hardly
+heard the doctor enter.
+
+He walked around in front of her, pulled her chart out of a folder, and
+checked her weight without a word of greeting. Total gain for six
+months: two pounds. He noted it, still silent, and turned to look her
+over.
+
+It was so unlike him to keep quiet that she glanced up at him. “Am I all
+right?” she asked anxiously.
+
+“I don’t know,” he said, straightening up. “_Are_ you all right? You
+tell me.”
+
+“I _feel_ all right,” she said.
+
+“How does your husband feel?” He eyed her closely.
+
+“He had a slight accident last week,” she answered. “I imagine he’s
+still pretty uncomfortable.”
+
+“Oh? You wrung his neck, I hope. Sunny, you’re badly underweight. The
+baby seems to be all right. His heart is strong and he’s growing. But
+frankly, you worry me. The first time I saw you in here you were smiles
+all over, just like your name. And when I told you you were going to be
+a mother you nearly floated out of here. Now you’re moody, gloomy,
+listless....” He sighed. “I’m the last guy to make predictions, but I
+don’t like what your husband’s been doing to your state of mind.”
+
+“It couldn’t be helped,” she said shyly.
+
+“Well, something had better be done about it,” Settick said, “if you
+want me to take responsibility for delivering that baby in good
+condition.”
+
+“Is it that bad?”
+
+“It could be. It depends on how much pressure you’re under and how
+strong you are to resist it. This is your first baby and there’s no way
+of telling.”
+
+“What can I do?” she asked. “If anything happens to my child—”
+
+“Do you ever see your husband?” the doctor asked.
+
+“Now and then.”
+
+“Does it upset you a lot?”
+
+“I guess it does,” she admitted with restraint.
+
+“Then you shouldn’t see him at all,” Settick told her. “I mean that,
+Sunny. You’re in no shape to fight and argue and whatever the hell else
+you do with the guy. I’m telling you honestly: forget him till after the
+baby comes. Don’t call him and don’t let him in. Tell him it’s doctor’s
+orders and if he gives you a bad time tell him to call me. I think I
+have good medical grounds for asking you to do this.” He stepped closer
+to her, though there was a careful lack of intimacy in his manner.
+
+“Sunny, you’re such a damn sweet girl,” he said. He leaned his weight on
+the examination table behind her, his eyes averted. “You ought to be the
+way you were the day I met you, and instead you’re coasting downhill.
+There’s nothing physically wrong, nothing I can prescribe any more pills
+for. But it’s obvious your husband’s making you miserable, and if he
+doesn’t quit it’s my professional opinion he may injure this child
+you’re carrying. Or you. I don’t know how I can make it any stronger.”
+
+“I don’t know if I _can_ stop seeing him,” Sunny said.
+
+“Well, okay, it’s your choice,” Settick said, shrugging. “You can choose
+between husband and baby. At the moment, I think baby comes first. You
+can square things up with your husband later.”
+
+Sunny breathed deeply and fought her tears. To make it easier for her,
+Dr. Settick pretended not to notice and re-aligned the papers in her
+file.
+
+“If I can’t see him at all, I think I’d better get out of the city,” she
+said when her nerves steadied. “Because if I’m still here and he’s still
+here, I’ll see him, Doctor.”
+
+Settick folded his arms on his chest, and shook his head at her.
+“Brother,” he said. “You sure are a case. The guy makes you sick and you
+adore him for it. If you love each other so much why aren’t you happy?
+It doesn’t make sense.”
+
+“I guess it doesn’t,” she agreed.
+
+“I don’t mean to pry,” he added. “But if you have to move out of New
+York, move quickly. I suggest California.”
+
+“Why California? It’s so far away.”
+
+“That’s exactly why,” he said. “Ever been there?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“That makes it even better. He won’t suspect it. He’ll think you went
+home to Mama. And when he finds out otherwise, he won’t know where to
+look. My brother Brian lives in Los Angeles,” he went on. “I told you
+about him. He’s an obstetrician too. I want to keep close track of you,
+Sunny, and give you the best medical care. Brian is the best ... Could
+you finance the trip?”
+
+“I think so, Page puts money in the bank every month.”
+
+“Wait till the last minute and then close out the account. You’ll like
+the coast,” he added reassuringly. “Brian’s wife will show you around.”
+
+Sunny couldn’t help being touched and grateful for his concern. “I’d
+only do this for the baby,” she said. “I don’t care about myself.”
+
+“What happens to you happens to Junior. Think of it that way.”
+
+“All right, then.” She had made a momentous decision; now she felt
+tired. After a minute she became conscious of the silence and glanced up
+at him. “May I go now?” she asked.
+
+“Yes,” he said, but there was an avalanche of words piled up and waiting
+behind that ‘yes’ for some gesture of Sunny’s to release them. “I’ll
+call you when I’ve made the arrangements,” he said. “You can go home and
+pack.”
+
+“Thank you.” She paused. “If I weren’t so tired I wouldn’t let you talk
+me into this, you know.”
+
+“That’s the first time I’ve been glad to see you tired,” he grinned.
+
+She smiled, letting him help her down from the table, and found herself
+standing right in front of him, suggestively close. Oddly immobile,
+whether from weariness or a desire to be comforted she never knew, she
+stood there until she felt his arms go around her. She had known they
+would, and her behavior actually encouraged it. She even knew he would
+kiss her, and she didn’t want his kiss. But she wanted to be held; she
+wanted to be caressed and reassured by a man’s gentle strength, and she
+was willing to pay for it.
+
+It was a chaste kiss: the kind a man gives a woman he reveres; a woman
+he can’t have and yet can’t give up. It surprised Sunny, who thought the
+young doctor would make the most of this chance to rouse her sexually.
+But he seemed to know that such a move could only repel her then.
+Instead he touched her lips lightly with his and kissed her forehead.
+And then he wrapped her in the strong embrace she yearned for and rocked
+her tenderly.
+
+He was so kind, so careful to control his fascination with her lest he
+offend her, that he won her over. She clung to him and let herself cry
+into his starchy clean coat.
+
+“Sunny,” he said, afraid of breaking the spell but more afraid he’d
+never talk to her again. “I have no right to say this, but—”
+
+“Don’t then, please,” she pleaded.
+
+“Let me. Just listen for one minute. I have no claim on you. You belong
+to another man. You love him. For some reason he sees fit to torment
+you—”
+
+“You’re being unfair!”
+
+“Okay, I’m unfair. I don’t know all the facts.” He held her closer. “But
+I do know you’re bitterly unhappy because of him and you’re making
+yourself sick over it. Every time I see you I want to take you in my
+arms and brush away the tears and make you smile. Sunny, I haven’t been
+very subtle about this. I guess it’s no secret that ever since you’ve
+been coming here I—I’ve had a special interest in you.”
+
+“Dr. Settick—”
+
+“My name is Richie,” he said gently. “Let me finish. For want of a
+better word let me say I’m infatuated with you. If you weren’t married
+I’d call it something much stronger. I’d want you for my own.”
+
+“Richie, I didn’t mean to start this,” she said, pressing away from him.
+But he held her firmly.
+
+“Just one last thing,” he said. “I know I can’t have you. But please let
+me help you. I can’t tell you what it would mean to me to see you safely
+through this pregnancy. If I thought we could get away with it I’d
+certainly keep you here where I can watch over you myself. The next best
+thing is to put you in Brian’s care. And when the baby’s due I’m coming
+out there to deliver it. I want you to promise me—”
+
+“I can’t ask you to drop everything and—”
+
+“You don’t have to ask me, I _want_ to do it.” He looked down at her and
+she could see in his serious clean-featured face that he meant it. “I’ve
+been planning a couple of weeks off later in the summer anyway. I’ll be
+in close touch with Brian. And I want you to write me, too. Sunny, let
+me do this. Don’t be embarrassed by my feelings for you. Don’t even
+think about them. I’m a good doctor, and I’ll take good care of you.
+Please. It’s all of you I can ever have.”
+
+The rush of words stopped. Sunny was tempted simply to resign her will
+and be cared for. She needed it so much and he wanted so much to do it.
+Was it wrong to accept his help, just because he loved her? He was a
+doctor, he was trained to care for people.
+
+“Richie,” she said awkwardly, “I’m grateful to you—”
+
+“Then don’t turn me down.”
+
+“I ... I can’t turn you down. I need you too much. But you mustn’t
+expect me to leave my husband. I can never thank you enough for what
+you’re doing for me, only—”
+
+“I’ll never take advantage of you, Sunny.”
+
+She smiled at him then. “You make me feel terribly selfish,” she said.
+
+“I’m the selfish one.”
+
+She put a hand on his arm. “I want you to know about Page. It’s never
+been a question of love between us, Richie. That’s the only thing we’ve
+been sure of in all this mess.” She remembered suddenly that she was
+clad in a loose gown with nothing underneath it. He brought it to her
+attention inadvertently, being extremely close to her as he was. With a
+deep blush she said, “I’d better dress.”
+
+“Sunny, have dinner with me tonight?”
+
+It would be nice to have some company, some laughter. She relented
+without a struggle. “All right, if you’ll let me cook it for you,” she
+said. “I haven’t cooked a meal for a man in months. Seven o’clock?”
+
+“You’ve got a deal,” he said with a grin.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+She got a roast on the way home and some squash and fresh broccoli—the
+sort of things that take a little doing when they’re spiced and wined
+and buttered right, things women never fix for themselves. It felt good
+to be busy in the kitchen, even though the bother wasn’t for Page.
+
+She wondered once, briefly, if Page would choose that evening to come
+over. He’d blow a fuse, she thought. But it was too late to change
+things: already quarter to seven.
+
+Richie arrived ten minutes later, with a spray of yellow roses and a
+bottle of champagne under his arm. “I thought as long as we were doing
+it, we might as well do it right,” he said handing them to her. He
+looked very handsome in his dark suit. He was fair, like Page, but
+heavier set and shorter. His features were fuller, more emphatic than
+Page’s: one might say a little coarser, though coarse only by
+comparison. He was a sensitive, intelligent man, and he was pleasant
+company that evening.
+
+The champagne eased Sunny’s apprehensions about Page and she relaxed and
+enjoyed herself. Richie talked about himself at her insistence, telling
+her about the medical school he had attended and why he had specialized
+in obstetrics. “I just like women and babies, I guess,” he laughed. “Not
+a very scientific reason.”
+
+She laughed with him and listened with interest, and he found himself
+growing expansive with her attention on him and the champagne in him.
+
+“It’s a pleasure to talk like this,” he told her when the dinner was
+over and they were drinking their coffee with Page’s prize Drambuie. “I
+spend so damn much time every day listening.”
+
+“That’s why you’re so popular,” she said.
+
+“You think so?” he chuckled. “I used to have an old professor who
+insisted the bedside manner was half the cure. Any time you want to let
+me practice it on you, I’d be delighted.”
+
+The time went much too fast. Sunny was surprised and disappointed when
+Richie got up to go a few minutes past eleven.
+
+“I’m afraid I kept you too long,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
+
+“Are you really?”
+
+“No,” she admitted with a little smile. “I’d keep you longer if I
+could.” But when he reached toward her she added quickly: “But just to
+talk. Nobody else can make me smile these days.”
+
+He let his hands fall back. “When you take up medicine you give up
+normal hours for the rest of your life,” he said. “You have to sleep
+wherever you can and whenever you get the chance.”
+
+She saw him to the door, getting his coat from the hall closet. There
+was a clumsy little silence after he had put it on and stood there in
+front of her, hesitating. She hoped, suddenly self-conscious, that he
+would not try to kiss her.
+
+But he only said, “Thank you, Sunny, for a beautiful evening. Everything
+was perfect. Especially you.”
+
+She surprised herself and him both by kissing his cheek, a swift, soft,
+tip-toed peck. “That’s for taking such good care of me,” she said.
+
+He couldn’t help kissing her then, and she wondered, while he held her,
+what might have happened to her life if she had met him before she met
+Page. It was idle conjecture, really; she loved Page with her whole
+heart. But Richie Settick was a fine man; strong, intelligent,
+attractive. And while he respected her feelings for her husband, he was
+not sorry she admired himself and liked him and needed him. He would do
+nothing to discourage her.
+
+He squeezed her one last time. “I’ll call you tomorrow, after I’ve
+talked to Brian,” he said, gave her one long look, and left.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Richie’s call came just five minutes after unpredictable Page had walked
+in on his wife, and Sunny was so flustered on the phone, trying to warn
+Richie without making Page suspicious, that Richie finally caught on.
+
+“Is your husband there?”
+
+“Extremely!” she said and he muttered, “Oh, God. Well, I’d better call
+you back.”
+
+“No, I’ll call you,” she said, afraid he might call again before Page
+left. Or perhaps Page had no intention of leaving. She couldn’t guess
+what he had come for.
+
+Sunny hung up and followed Page into the kitchen, where he had gone
+while she was on the phone. She found him with his head in the
+refrigerator, sampling the previous night’s leftovers.
+
+“Boy,” he mumbled through a full mouth. “Good, honey.” He waved a piece
+of roast beef at her.
+
+“Is that all you have to say to me?” she said, half-joking,
+half-dismayed.
+
+“No.” He glanced at her almost bashfully, and turned away, finding a
+knife in the kitchen drawer to cut the meat. The sight of him with a
+blade in his hand made her gasp.
+
+“It’s all right,” he said hastily. “I just want something to eat. I
+always thought I married a crackerjack cook.” He gave her a smile that
+seemed more like a cover-up for something else. He was too casual, too
+much the sophisticated spouse calling on his estranged wife to chat. She
+half-expected a polite inquiry on the health of her lovers.
+
+“How is your hand, darling?” she asked. The wound was one week old.
+
+“Okay,” he said.
+
+“I’ll bet it hurts a lot,” she said. “What did you do with the finger,
+Page?”
+
+He blinked, humiliated by the discussion. “Threw it in the garbage,” he
+said briefly.
+
+“But it was a part of you,” she protested. “I know it sounds silly,
+but—”
+
+“It certainly does,” he said, refusing to look at her and eating a chunk
+of beef. “What would I do with the thing? Pickle it?”
+
+“I guess not,” she admitted. She put a cautious hand on his shoulder.
+“Page? Why are you here?”
+
+“To see you.”
+
+“Don’t be so damn matter-of-fact about it,” she cried. “This is the
+first time you’ve come to see me since this thing happened. Page, put
+that meat down and _talk_ to me.” She snatched it from him and
+re-wrapped it in aluminum foil.
+
+“I’m sorry,” he said.
+
+“What did you come for?” She faced him with her hands folded over her
+bosom and he knew he would have to do battle to get them down again. She
+wasn’t going to give him any help.
+
+He made a fuss over his sticky hands and spent some minutes cleaning
+them up.
+
+“How are you feeling?” he said lamely. “I mean, what does the doctor
+say? I mean you scared me last week. You were so thin and white. You
+looked so beautiful, honey, but too damn skinny. Are you all right?”
+
+He delivered this halting speech, full of love and embarrassment,
+without looking at her. She decided not to answer till he looked at her.
+Eventually, in the ensuing silence, he had to.
+
+“Darling?” he questioned softly. “Are you all right?”
+
+“No, I’m not.”
+
+He paled. He blushed easily when he was self-conscious and conversely
+went white with alarm. Sunny’s reactions were identical, and it touched
+her to see the trait in Page, even though it was another physical proof
+of their blood tie. “Are you really sick or are you trying to scare me?”
+he said.
+
+“I’m really almost sick. Dr. Settick says I have to get out of New York
+for a while. He doesn’t want me to see you any more.”
+
+She hadn’t stopped to think that her words would be antagonistic. She
+meant to spite him and instead infuriated him.
+
+“You tell that bastard he can take a flying jump at the moon!” he
+exploded. “Who is he to tell you if you can see your own husband?”
+
+“My _ex_-husband,” she reminded him. “Be consistent, Page. He said it
+because I get so upset he’s afraid it will affect the baby’s health. And
+mine. He said if my depression lasts he can’t answer for the baby’s safe
+delivery. He said it would be on your conscience.”
+
+She hadn’t intended to tell him that. She meant to slip away on her trip
+and leave him a reassuring note. No recriminations. But the way he
+gnawed on that roast beef, maligned Richie, avoided her, with such a
+show of casual sophistication, incensed her. She knew he was trying to
+hide his love, to prevent a burst of uncontrollable desire for her. But
+it made her want to tear down his cool self-righteousness.
+
+“Page, I wish I could make you come to me on your knees,” she cried. “I
+wish I could make you feel what I feel when I crawl to you and beg you
+to kiss me and need me and—” She broke down and cried.
+
+Watching her, his anger melted. “Don’t go away,” he began. “Please,
+Sunny. I couldn’t live in this town if you weren’t here. Just knowing I
+can see you if I have to—”
+
+“If you have to!” she shouted. “That’s too big an ‘if,’ Page. Either
+live with me as my husband or consider the annulment official and leave
+me forever. Make up your mind.”
+
+“Darling, I can’t. Don’t force me—”
+
+“Well, which is better?” she asked brokenly through her tears. “This
+piecemeal love-making? This frantic once-a-month stuff that exhausts us
+both? Or making up our minds we have to have each other anyway, and so
+living together? Page, I can’t take this and neither can you.
+
+“You say it’s wrong for us to sleep together because we’re brother and
+sister. Well, why do we do it, then? Why don’t we say good-by and get it
+over with? This installment-plan passion is just as immoral as living
+together and a lot more agonizing. You say you have principles. All
+right, stick to them!”
+
+She finished with a small cry of dismay. She had delivered an ultimatum
+to him by mistake. All the pent-up wrath of the preceding months boiled
+out of her and she couldn’t stop it.
+
+“That doctor’s been brainwashing you!” he said.
+
+“He’s been telling me the truth.”
+
+“He’s trying to turn you against me! And he’s probably in love with
+you.”
+
+“Yes, he is!” she fired back with vindictive pride.
+
+“Oh, God!” he cried. “And I suppose you’ve invited him over here—to _my_
+apartment—”
+
+“_My_ apartment,” she corrected him. “You forfeited your right to it
+months ago.”
+
+“I suppose that roast beef was for him.”
+
+“You don’t think I’d cook all that for myself, do you?” she said in a
+voice made unsteady with tears. “He’s a lot better company than you are,
+too.”
+
+“Don’t you leave this city,” he warned. “I’ll have that bone-picker
+jailed for alienation of affections!”
+
+“Can you sue if the affections belong to your mistress, not your wife?
+Since we’re getting technical, let me remind you as you keep reminding
+me: we’re not married. And I’m no more sleeping with Richie Settick than
+you are with your secretary.”
+
+They stared at each other. Page dared not relent for fear of crushing
+her in his arms and forgiving her everything, even the things she only
+did in his imagination—and those were the worst of the lot.
+
+“You think I let him make love to me, don’t you?” she said.
+
+“No,” he said and the admission surprised her almost as the sudden quiet
+of his voice. The starch in him washed out suddenly.
+
+He went to her, hesitant and ashamed of his outburst, expecting the
+frigid reception he deserved. But she moved toward him and he caught
+her, holding her tightly as if he meant to keep her there forever.
+
+“Every time I shout at you I get myself in trouble,” he said unhappily.
+“I’m so damn jealous I’m acting like a five-year-old. If I can’t have
+you I don’t want anyone else to. But you see Settick too much and you
+like him too much. No wonder he’s in love with you. He’d have to be
+blind not to be. And he’s too damn available.”
+
+“But darling, the man I want is so _un_available.”
+
+He kissed her mouth, long and tenderly. She only said one word when he
+released her: “Stay.”
+
+But he wasn’t ready; not yet. He was thinking, he was suffering, he was
+even softening. But it was still beyond his courage to commit himself.
+
+He left her moments later. Sunny didn’t beg, she didn’t cry. She sensed
+a new attitude in him, a new gentleness, and she didn’t want to frighten
+it off. He was trying to control the emotions that had mastered him so
+often in the past, and, for the first time, he was taking a cautious
+look at her side of things.
+
+An hour later she called Richie Settick back on the phone.
+
+“You have a reservation on a jet flight to Los Angeles for Thursday,
+honey,” he told her. “Tessa, Brian’s wife, will pick you up at
+International Airport. She’ll have an apartment for you, too; something
+small, near Brian’s office. They wanted to take you in themselves, but I
+told them no. They have four little kids and it’s a madhouse.”
+
+“Thanks a million, Richie,” she said. “I’d better let my parents know
+where I am.”
+
+“Wait till you get out there,” he said. “And don’t let them tell Page.”
+
+“I’ll say it’s a trial separation,” she said. “They don’t even know I’m
+pregnant and they’re awfully fond of Page. They’d be heart-sick if they
+thought we were breaking up.”
+
+“This won’t be half as bad as you think, Sunny,” he comforted her. “I’ll
+drive you out to Idlewild Thursday.”
+
+“Thanks, Richie.”
+
+“Now get yourself packed and get your money from the bank,” he said.
+“And don’t do it all at once and wear yourself out. That baby’s still
+got almost three months to go, and we don’t want him coming early. Might
+louse up my vacation.”
+
+She obeyed him; she was too tired to argue. Richie was efficient and
+strong and he simply took over, helping her pack, running last-minute
+errands for her, getting things in order. She told him about Page’s
+visit.
+
+“And you told him you were leaving? You shouldn’t have done that,
+Sunny.”
+
+“I don’t know why I did, except that he made me so angry. I wanted to
+see him really afraid of losing me.”
+
+“But my God, he’ll be after you all the time,” Richie said. “I’m
+surprised he hasn’t barged in already.”
+
+“Not that boy,” she said with weary sarcasm. “I told Page I was leaving,
+yes,” she added. “But not when or where. I’ve stuck it out all these
+months and he just figures I won’t leave now. And I wouldn’t, except for
+the baby.”
+
+She sat down glumly on a suitcase. “Maybe I ought to stay,” she
+whispered, almost to herself. “He really tried to understand a little.”
+
+“A little isn’t enough. Now forget it. Don’t think about him,” Richie
+ordered her. “Think about that instead.” He indicated her small belly.
+
+“I don’t see how there’s room for a _mouse_ in there,” she mourned,
+looking down at herself, “let alone a baby.”
+
+“Some of the smallest girls have the biggest babies,” he said.
+
+“But they stick out, don’t they?” She lifted her sad face for his
+reassuring reply and he kissed it instead. She murmured wryly, “Enter
+Page, twirling mustache. Sunny screams. Gallant doctor draws pistol and
+defends virtue of wronged damsel. Duel follows. Everybody drops dead.
+Justice is served. Fanfare. End of story.” She glanced at Settick.
+“Maybe we’d all be better off dead,” she said.
+
+“The hell with that noise,” he retorted cheerfully. “Nobody’s better off
+dead.”
+
+“Not even the screwballs? The queers and the criminals?”
+
+“Not even them. Not in my book.” He was kneeling with one leg on her
+other bag, forcing it shut. “There’s always a chance the square peg will
+find a square hole.”
+
+“How about the people who make love to corpses? Or their own sex? Or
+their own brother?”
+
+There was a small bemused pause. “You have a morbid imagination, honey,”
+he said, smiling.
+
+“You mean you condone all those things?” she said, feeling an almost
+compulsive need to talk about it. “Murder? And sodomy? And—incest?”
+
+“No,” he said calmly. “I don’t condone. And I don’t condemn. I try to
+correct. I had a patient a few months ago—can’t remember which one, they
+all ask questions—who wanted to know about incest.” His look made her
+heart skip.
+
+“What did you tell her? Sure, go ahead? Incest is better than nothing?”
+
+“No. She wasn’t committing it, she was asking about it,” he said.
+
+“How do you know?” Sunny felt as if she were playing dangerously near
+the cliff of confession: one slip and over she’d go. Or was confession
+unnecessary? Had he already guessed? She didn’t think so, because she
+felt he would have asked her about it if he had.
+
+“Well, come to think of it, I don’t know whether she was or not,” he
+answered. “Stranger things have happened.... There you are, all packed.
+We have three hours to get the plane.”
+
+“What did you tell her, Richie?”
+
+“About the incest? She wondered if it would affect the children. Why?”
+
+“Maybe it was her own baby she was worried about.”
+
+“Maybe it was.” He stared at her. “My God, maybe it was. Why am I so
+dense about these things? Damn. Takes a woman to see through another
+woman, I guess.” He kept staring at her and she had the sudden
+premonition that he would remember at any second.
+
+She got up lightly. She was sweating nervously and longed for him to
+drop the subject. He did, at once, almost as if he knew it embarrassed
+her. If she had trusted herself she would have dismissed it with one
+last silly crack, to throw him off. But her composure was riskily thin
+and she was afraid it showed.
+
+Just don’t let him put two and two together, she prayed.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+He drove her out to the airport. They didn’t talk much until they got
+there and checked her bags and went to have a drink.
+
+“Do you really want me to have a martini?” she said.
+
+“Sure. One won’t hurt you. Might do you some good.”
+
+When their drinks came, Sunny said, “Richie, Page will find out I’ve
+gone sooner or later. I didn’t leave any note or address, but he knows
+your name. And it won’t take him long to find you, once he knows I’m not
+in New York. It might be tomorrow or a month from tomorrow, I don’t
+know. But I do know he’ll think it’s all your fault.”
+
+“Don’t worry about it, Sunny. I can handle him. If he really loves you,
+I’ll use his love to convince him. After all, you aren’t leaving
+forever. Once the baby is safely delivered and you’ve got your health
+back, there’s no reason why you can’t see him again. He wouldn’t hurt
+you, would he? Physically?”
+
+She shook her head. “I feel as if I’m dreaming,” she said. “This place,
+those big planes roaring out there. I’ve never even flown before. Did I
+tell you that?”
+
+“It doesn’t scare you, does it?” he asked.
+
+“No. I feel sort of numb. I’m glad; I don’t know if I could go through
+with it otherwise.”
+
+He took her to the gate and handed her ticket to her. She turned to
+thank him, with the wind whipping her hair, and found herself crying.
+Richie put his arms around her and held her so hard she thought he meant
+to crack her ribs. But she returned the embrace without protest. At last
+she lifted her head and said, “Thank you.” It was all she had composure
+for, but he could see in her face how much she meant it.
+
+“I wish I were free to tell you how much I love you,” he said.
+
+But she put a restraining finger on his lips and gave him a warning
+smile. “When you see my frantic husband—and he’ll be pretty frantic,
+believe me,” she said, “—will you please tell him for me that I love him
+... very much?”
+
+“I’ll tell him,” he said, as if to atone for his declaration of a moment
+before. “And remember, Sunny, no matter what happens, I’m going to
+deliver that baby. I’ll see you in a couple of months. Take care.”
+
+Sunny smiled. She went through the gate and walked to the plane, up the
+ramp, and inside.
+
+Settick stood and watched her disappear, then found her when she took
+her seat by a window toward the back, and stood with his hat in his
+hand, waving and cursing silently the name of Page Pringle, until she
+vanished in the clouds.
+
+
+
+
+                                   14
+
+
+“So you finally lost track of them, then?” Mr. Winkler asked Jack
+disappointedly, accepting a sandwich from Laura. It was after three A.M.
+In a little while the summer streets of Chicago would be light again and
+hot with the June warmth that had scarcely abated in the dark hours.
+
+“No,” Jack said. “The Rothelis called us and filled us in a couple of
+weeks ago. They were trying to find the Pringles to tell them where
+Sunny was. June thought we’d have their phone number. She told us Sunny
+was in Los Angeles. She thought Page and Sunny were headed for a divorce
+and she was pretty worried.”
+
+“Then she still didn’t know the truth? I mean, that Page was their lost
+son, Roger?”
+
+“No. She told us all she knew and we guessed at the rest.”
+
+Winkler’s face was tired but no less interested. The sandwich revived
+his energy and he listened carefully, like a student at a lecture who
+would write a paper on the subject as soon as he got home.
+
+And Jack, by this time, was speaking to him with the familiarity of long
+acquaintance; long only in hours, but deep in perception. Jack now knew
+who Winkler was. It made him feel safer and easier in relating the
+story.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Page brooded silently for four days in New York until he could stand it
+no more. His jealousy was full-blown; his loneliness made all the days
+seem gray.
+
+He stood in the middle of his living room, trying to ignore the phone.
+At last he grabbed it with a sort of sideswipe, pretending he wasn’t
+quite aware of what he was doing and that would make it all right to
+call her, just as it’s all right to do outrageous things in your dreams
+because it isn’t the real you doing them.
+
+He dialed her number, rehearsing his speech. It shocked him severely
+when the operator broke in after a couple of rings to ask what number he
+was calling. He told her.
+
+“That number has been disconnected, sir,” she said.
+
+He hung up without answering, standing perfectly still and saying to
+himself, She did it because she doesn’t want to hear from me. She did it
+because she wants me to think she doesn’t have enough money in the bank.
+She’s only trying to scare me.
+
+And Page was frightened. He rushed downstairs and hailed a cab, driving
+over to her apartment with his heart pounding in his throat. Her windows
+were dark, though it was nearly eight o’clock. Perhaps she was at a
+movie. Or out with the doctor.
+
+The small entrance hall was faintly lighted and he went up the stairs to
+her rooms with noisy carelessness. He still had a key and put it to the
+lock. But it didn’t fit. _That’s going too far!_ he thought angrily.
+
+Chagrined, he shuffled down to the basement in search of the janitor,
+whose room was behind the furnace.
+
+“Hello, Mr. Pringle,” the janitor said amiably, opening his door.
+
+“Hi. Say, I seem to have lost my key,” Page said, hoping his
+embarrassment didn’t show. “Could you let me in my wife’s apartment?”
+
+“That lock’s been changed, boy.” The janitor gave him a curious stare.
+“And anyways, she ain’t there.”
+
+Page felt like hitting him. “Where is she?” he asked.
+
+“How should I know? Just left, without no address.”
+
+“Did she go—alone?”
+
+“Had some young fella to help her. Blond, like you, but not so tall.
+Seemed to think a lot of her.” He smiled the lecherous grin of the aged
+and impotent.
+
+“Settick!” Page said.
+
+He turned and ran up the stairs with the janitor’s evil laughter
+floating after him. He raced to the nearest drug-store with a phone
+booth. In a moment he had Dr. Richard Settick’s home address in his
+pocket, and in another moment he was in a taxi on the way there.
+
+It was about eight-thirty when Richie Settick answered the ring at his
+door. He opened it with a wide friendly sweep, the way he usually did,
+and froze. He was confronted with a strange tense man whose face was
+bafflingly familiar.
+
+Page was holding himself together by a strict effort of will, as if he
+feared letting go and blowing to bits in front of this rival. For a
+moment Settick thought he had a crackpot on his hands.
+
+“What do you want?” he said.
+
+“My wife.”
+
+And Richie knew immediately who he was facing. Whatever else he knew, or
+guessed, he didn’t say. Page was trembling, and the little twitch around
+his eyes gave warning of the rumbling violence inside him.
+
+“Come in, Page,” Richie said, and such was Page’s emotional state that
+he never stopped to wonder how Richie recognized him without having seen
+him before. Richie, on his guard, stepped aside to let Page pass. He had
+expected a noisy, threatening bully. Instead Sunny’s husband was stiff
+and silent.
+
+“Where is my wife?” Page said.
+
+“She’s on a little trip,” Richie told him. “Sit down, Page.”
+
+“I want Sunny,” Page warned, ignoring Settick’s invitation with a
+darkening face.
+
+“I had to send her away.”
+
+“Don’t you understand English? Where is my wife?” Page was shaking
+visibly. Richie judged, being smaller and not having the advantage of
+anger, that he’d get a shellacking unless he betrayed Sunny. So it took
+some courage for him to declare, “I can’t tell you where she is. If you
+find her she’ll have that baby on the spot. It might kill her, Page. And
+not many babies survive such a premature birth, either.”
+
+“No one can say that for sure. You’re trying to bluff me,” Page said in
+a strong, urgent voice in spite of his shaking. He had pride, like
+Sunny, and he would not let himself come apart in front of this man she
+admired. Settick was calm and forceful, well-informed, a man to respect.
+Page could appreciate it without liking it. He was ready to hate this
+man who had persuaded Page’s wife to leave him. But he knew Sunny would
+not listen to an ordinary man. Accordingly, in spite of his bitterness,
+he was curious, and he felt no contempt for Settick.
+
+“I’m a doctor. I know when a pregnant girl is in trouble,” Richie told
+him. “If Sunny loses that baby you’ll have yourself to blame, not just
+for the baby’s death but for what happens to Sunny because of it. And
+it’ll be rough, I can promise you that.”
+
+Page watched him, suddenly recalling his mother, June Rotheli, and
+Pringle’s story of how she had tragically lost her mind when he, Roger,
+was born. Sunny might do that if she lost her child. She was a lot like
+her mother. The thought made him weigh Settick’s words.
+
+Richie watched his face work around these ideas, wondering what it was
+that made him wince, hoping his own words had made some sense.
+
+“You don’t want to kill that baby, do you?” Richie said.
+
+“I just want Sunny,” Page said, astounded to feel himself retreating a
+little. Richie felt it too and began to think Page wouldn’t spread him
+around the living room.
+
+“Then give her another few months,” Richie pleaded quietly. “Till the
+child is born and you know they’re both okay. She loves you, Page, she
+didn’t want to go. I insisted because every time she saw you she came
+all unglued. You weren’t living with her, anyway. You rarely saw her.”
+
+“And I suppose she told you _why_, you—conniving bastard!”
+
+“No, she didn’t. She just said it couldn’t be helped and you loved each
+other in spite of it.” Richie lighted a cigarette and continued
+seriously, “She talked to me quite a lot, though, when she came in for
+her examinations. I don’t think she has many problems I don’t know
+about—or couldn’t figure out. Would it help you any to know, Page, that
+I think....” He paused, then proceeded cautiously, “... I think this
+baby will be normal?” He waited, ready for a wild reaction from Page.
+
+But Page deliberately misunderstood him. “Of course it’ll be normal,” he
+said quickly. “She hasn’t starved herself _that_ much.” He covered his
+face with his hands for a moment as if he were afraid to comprehend
+Richie’s full meaning, as if his hands could hide his thoughts from the
+doctor. When he dropped them he said, “I’ll ask you once more: Where is
+she?”
+
+“If I told you you’d go straight to her.”
+
+“Do you know what this is doing to me?” Page said roughly.
+
+“You’re not pregnant. She is.”
+
+“I have to know! God Almighty, are you trying to drive me nuts?” He
+reached the doctor with one giant step, pulling him up by the lapels and
+shaking him.
+
+Richie looked him straight in the face. “No.”
+
+Page gave him a stout shove that sent him walloping into his door. But
+Richie caught him on the rebound, plowing a fist into Page’s solar
+plexus. Page hit the floor on his knees, struggling loudly for breath
+while Richie watched, unwilling to press his advantage.
+
+When Page could talk he mumbled furiously, “You’re in love with her. You
+wouldn’t do this otherwise. Damn you! Probably going to meet her
+somewhere.”
+
+Richie said nothing. When Page recovered he helped him to his feet and
+pulled him to the front door. “She’ll be back as soon as she’s had the
+baby,” he said.
+
+“I’ll find her,” Page swore, pushing the tumbled hair off his forehead.
+“If you think I’m going to wait two or three months for my wife, you’re
+crazy.”
+
+“You’re the crazy one,” Richie answered. “And you know it well enough to
+be ashamed of yourself right now.”
+
+For the second time in the past few days, the fight went out of Page. He
+loved Sunny and he had to find her. Richie loved her and he had to hide
+her. Page understood that suddenly and understanding made him quieter,
+less desperate.
+
+He looked at Settick with the clear green eyes so much like his
+sister’s, and experienced an irritated gratitude toward this man who had
+cared for her.
+
+“If I’d been with her all this time, she wouldn’t have had to turn to
+you,” he said, almost to himself. He wondered how he could admit this
+without feeling cowardly about it, or humiliated.
+
+“I wish I could hate you for what you’ve done,” he said frankly to
+Richie. “I wish I didn’t understand why you did it. I could break your
+head then with a clear conscience.” He smiled tentatively. “You think
+I’m a dangerous character, don’t you?”
+
+“You were, a minute ago.” And seeing Page collect his wits, control
+himself, made an impression on Richie. For the first time since his
+arrival, the doctor saw what Page could be like when he had himself in
+hand, and it made him jealous; not of a shadow or a name on Sunny’s
+lips; but jealous of this flesh-and-blood man facing him now and showing
+signs of civilized intelligence at last.
+
+“Does it make any difference if I say I had to avoid her? And it hurt me
+as much as Sunny?” Page shot Settick a glance. “Will you tell me where
+she is if I give you my word not to frighten her?”
+
+Richie shook his head. “All you have to do is be there, and she’s
+frightened,” he said. “I can’t take the chance. She isn’t that strong.”
+
+“I keep my word, Settick,” Page said. It was as close as he could bring
+himself to pleading.
+
+“Give her these months, Page. Give her her child safe and sound. After
+that, she’s all yours.”
+
+And Page saw that until then, she was all Richie’s; not in any
+adulterous sense, but in the sense of safe-keeping. More argument with
+the young doctor would gain him nothing.
+
+He left, wondering at his own self-control and perception. Richie
+wondered, too, if Sunny hadn’t exaggerated her husband’s difficult
+temper. Both men felt a grudging esteem for each other and in different
+circumstances they would very likely have been friends.
+
+For Page, in the trial of soul-searching and steadfast love, found
+himself changing for the better. He was not yet quite a man, but no one
+could call him a temperamental college boy any more, either.
+
+He went home and placed a call to the Rothelis, fingering the library
+notes Pat had left on his desk that afternoon. Deliberately, he dumped
+the notes into the wastebasket. It would be a while before he wrote
+anything more.
+
+Ben answered. It was the first time Page had heard his voice since he
+knew Ben was his father, and he listened with new attention, hearing
+echoes of his own voice in it.
+
+“Page! Good to hear from you,” Ben said, and Page felt a melancholy
+fondness for him. He had been so resentful against the Rothelis in the
+months since he had known the truth that it surprised him to feel love
+for them now.
+
+“Ben,” he said, anxiety making him brusque. “I’m looking for Sunny. Is
+she with you?”
+
+“Looking for Sunny?” Ben said, his tone sharpening. “What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean she left me. I mean—” He couldn’t describe the reasons for their
+separation. He couldn’t blurt out to Ben, _You’re my father_! There was
+no adequate explanation but the forbidden one. “We quarreled,” he
+mumbled.
+
+“What about?” Ben said dubiously.
+
+“I can’t explain it now. Is she there?”
+
+“What makes you think she’d be here?”
+
+“I don’t know. Don’t girls usually go home to their mothers when they
+fight with their husbands?”
+
+“Sunny wouldn’t pull a trick like that,” Rotheli answered, fully alarmed
+now. “She’s not that kind!” He seemed to be trying to convince them
+both.
+
+“Well, she’s not in New York. And if she’s not with you, I—oh God, I
+don’t know where to look.”
+
+“She’s all right, isn’t she? She isn’t sick?” Ben asked.
+
+“No, but she’s pretty damn pregnant,” Page said.
+
+“She’s _what_?” Ben Rotheli shouted over the phone.
+
+And Page remembered too late that Ben hadn’t known. Sunny made Page
+promise not to tell anyone until their problem was settled.
+
+“Page, is my daughter pregnant?” Rotheli demanded. His anger snapped
+over the wires and Page heard June cry out in the background.
+
+“Yes, Ben,” he admitted. “You know how women are when they’re that way,”
+he pleaded. “They change, they aren’t themselves. I never dreamed she’d
+... Ben, don’t be too hard on me.” He didn’t want to antagonize this
+father of his who didn’t know he was talking to his own son.
+
+Ben remembered how June had been when she was carrying her own children
+and he relented a little. But his voice was still cold when he said,
+“Well, we’ve got to find her, fast. You get in touch with the police
+there, and I’ll—”
+
+“The police? Oh God no!” Page broke in, thinking what would happen if
+publicity brought the truth out.
+
+“God damn it, Page, you do as I tell you!” Rotheli ordered him. “If
+you’re not going to get the cops to find your wife, I’ll get them to
+find my _daughter_!”
+
+“All right, all right,” Page said, deferring like a dutiful son, but
+only to quiet Ben. He would find Sunny himself, without any help from
+the police. “And Ben—if you hear from her, call me right away. I’ll do
+the same.”
+
+They ended the conversation on that agreement and Page spent a sleepless
+night, waiting for daylight and another chance at Settick. He sat on his
+bed and smoked, studying maps, trying to put himself in Sunny’s shoes.
+She hadn’t gone home. Was she across the river in New Jersey? Or across
+the continent?
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+He set out early after the doctor, only to discover that Settick made
+his hospital rounds in the morning and wasn’t in his office. Page would
+have to come back at one o’clock and sit in the waiting room, a lone
+buck in a forest of pregnant girls.
+
+No thanks, he thought. And suddenly he began to wonder if Ben had been
+lying to him. After all, Sunny had doctor’s orders not to let Page know
+where she was. Suppose she had been there at Ben’s elbow, full of
+stories about the baby dying, scaring Ben into lying? She would have
+made a convincing actor out of a wooden Indian.
+
+Abruptly, Page changed his plans and called the airport. There was
+nothing available immediately but they promised him the first
+cancellation to Chicago. Restless and worried, aware of his loneliness
+like a chronic pain, he packed and went out to wait for a plane. Six
+hours later he got a place. He never thought to call the _Sunday
+Magazine_ until he was airborne and then dismissed it with a silent
+curse.
+
+He timed his arrival in Hillsburg for nine o’clock the next morning,
+when Ben would be gone for the day. If Sunny was there it would be a lot
+easier to abduct her from her mother than her father.
+
+He drove up and parked his rented car in the Rotheli’s back driveway.
+There was no sound, no signal to warn June, who was washing dishes in
+the kitchen, that he was coming. She saw him standing in the doorway and
+gave a small shriek. A cup hit the sink and shattered.
+
+Page smiled at her, but his eyes searched the room, looking for traces
+of Sunny.
+
+“Hello, June,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” At the sound of
+his voice she began to cry. “It’s all right,” he said, dismayed at
+having to comfort her.
+
+“Page!” she exclaimed at last.
+
+He took her into bashful arms and hugged her.
+
+“Is she here? I thought she might have asked you not to tell me,” he
+said, unable to postpone the question.
+
+“I’m so glad to see you,” June wept, making him wait anyway for the
+answer. “You terrified us when you called.”
+
+“But Sunny ... is she—”
+
+“No, she isn’t with us.”
+
+His face fell. He looked so completely whipped that she put her hands
+against his cheeks, a little caress of Sunny’s that touched him. “I
+probably shouldn’t tell you ... but we got a telegram from her late last
+night. She’s fine.”
+
+“Thank God!” He leaned heavily against the wall, pulling June with him.
+It was all happening too fast. His heart labored like a bellows.
+
+“We tried to call you right away, but you weren’t home,” June said. “And
+your office this morning said they didn’t know where you were either. So
+then we began to worry about _you_.” She laughed with relief, a laugh
+like Sunny’s that made Page ache. He had never before realized how alike
+they were.
+
+“Where is she?” he said.
+
+“I can’t tell you,” June said, looking away.
+
+“Now don’t _you_ pull that on me!” he protested. “June, she’s my wife. I
+adore her. I’m going insane without her,” he cried passionately.
+
+June had thought she could tell him everything over the phone. Instead
+here he was, sweating and desperate, in her own kitchen. His eyes were
+on her like two green lights, and he clutched her arms with his hands.
+
+She wanted to tell him. She couldn’t help it. She felt the same
+attraction to him that Ben had when they met. But Sunny’s wire was
+explicit: “Don’t give Page my address. Very important.”
+
+“She said not to tell you, Page,” June apologized.
+
+“Of course she did, she’s _mad_ at me,” he said, using any argument he
+could to soften her up. “June, I’ll die without that girl. I can’t help
+it if I sound melodramatic. All I ask is a chance to talk to her, to
+explain. How can I when I don’t even know where she is?”
+
+It sounded so logical. June was sentimental and loving, and she wavered.
+Page implored her to give him the address. She heard the pain and the
+love in his voice and wished Ben were there to handle him instead.
+
+How could two people patch up a marriage if they were a country apart?
+she asked herself. Besides, Sunny was pregnant now. June knew how that
+went, how miserable you felt, how irritable and unreasonable. And how
+terribly you needed your husband.
+
+She thought of her own suffering when Roger was due and how hard she had
+leaned on Ben then, calling him names and abusing him. But he had been
+strong and patient, and her gratitude had never faded.
+
+She was sure Sunny was being stubborn and silly. Whatever the quarrel,
+it didn’t merit a divorce. And yet Sunny was setting up residence in
+another state. June knew how the young Pringles loved each other and she
+finally broke in on Page’s disjointed tirade.
+
+“Ben will kill me when he finds out,” she said uncertainly, “but I think
+Sunny needs you as much as I once needed him.”
+
+Page waited, afraid to speak for fear she would change her mind. At last
+she pointed to the telegram in a letter holder on the kitchen table.
+Page sprang across the room and grabbed it, scribbling Sunny’s address
+on a paper napkin: 4225 Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California.
+
+“Los _Angeles_! What’s in Los Angeles?” he said.
+
+“Sunny.” June smiled.
+
+“My God, the Coast.” He stashed his astonishment in a pocket with her
+address. “June, you’re a saint!” He gave her a violent hug and dashed
+out. June ran after him, startled at his odd behavior.
+
+“Page, wait! Where are you going?” she called.
+
+“To get my wife.”
+
+“But you haven’t been here ten minutes. Ben will want to see you. What
+shall I tell him?”
+
+But Page was already backing out. He waved at her and turned down the
+drive.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+June went back in the house and called Jack and Laura Mann. She hadn’t
+met them but she’d heard Page mention them and knew them second-hand
+through Sunny’s letters. She told the Manns where Sunny was and Page was
+headed, and they gave her the Pringles’ phone number.
+
+June introduced herself to George Pringle in a friendly voice, assuring
+him that Sunny was fine and Page would soon be with her. “And they’re
+expecting a baby!” she said cheerfully. “I’m sure they won’t mind if I
+tell you.” But she was surprised when her news seemed to aggravate him.
+
+“What’s she doing in California?” Pringle said, in a voice sharp enough
+to hurt June’s feelings.
+
+“They quarreled,” she said.
+
+“What about?”
+
+“Sunny didn’t say. But she’s acting foolish. She wouldn’t even give Page
+her address—”
+
+“But _you_ did? Aren’t you interfering a bit, Mrs. Rotheli?”
+
+“Mr. Pringle, I didn’t have to call and tell you any of this,” June
+replied. “And if you’re going to be unpleasant—”
+
+“Forgive me,” he said hastily. “You must understand that I’m worried.”
+
+“I don’t think you need to be. They’re in love and they’ll work it out.
+It’s hard for a man to comprehend what a girl feels like when she’s
+pregnant. She doesn’t believe it now, but her husband is the best
+medicine for her.”
+
+Pringle understood from the conversation that the Rothelis had no idea
+Page was their son. “Mrs. Rotheli, I think this is more serious than you
+realize,” Pringle began, but he couldn’t tell her the rest of it. It
+would have been brutal, unforgivably impersonal, over the phone.
+
+But he felt something had better be done about it at once. It was his
+plain moral obligation to protect Page and Sunny from themselves. If he
+could do it only by following them to Los Angeles, that is what he would
+do.
+
+He thanked June and hung up, calling O’Hare Field for jet reservations
+the moment his line was clear.
+
+“I’m going out there tonight,” he told his wife moments later. “I’m
+certain Sunny went there to escape Page and I can’t understand why he
+doesn’t take this God-given chance to let her go. I know how much he
+loves her. Lord knows it isn’t easy for the boy. But she’s done all a
+woman can to help him, and he knows how evil this relationship is.”
+
+“George,” his wife said mildly, “stay home.”
+
+“What?” He stared at her. They so rarely disagreed on anything that it
+shocked him to hear her object. “Somebody has to help them, Lucia. They
+haven’t strength to help themselves.”
+
+“Don’t you think they have more strength at their age than you have at
+yours?”
+
+He left his packing momentarily to explain, “It’s not a question of
+physical vigor, my dear.”
+
+“George, I’ve thought about this till my head ached.”
+
+“Of course you did. We agreed long ago their marriage wasn’t valid.”
+
+“_We_ agreed. You and I. _They_ didn’t.”
+
+“They are very young, very much in love,” he said formally. “You have to
+remember what that feels like, Lucia dear.”
+
+“I remember,” she murmured. “Do you?”
+
+“Why certainly. Only for a woman, it’s different. They’re not as
+reasonable as a man. They have a weaker sense of honor and morality.”
+
+“I am an honorable and moral woman, George,” Lucia said with great
+dignity, “and I believe Sunny is, too. She deserves a chance to keep
+Page if she can win him away from your stuffy principles.” She stopped,
+amazed at herself.
+
+Pringle dropped a handful of underclothes and marched to her bedside to
+stamp out the anarchy. “Lucia, do you feel well?” he said, restrained
+but not unkind. She began to cry and he added gently, “My dear, I love
+both of those children. I’d give my soul to change things, but I can’t.
+They have to be separated. They are _not_ husband and wife, they are
+brother and sister. Once you understand that, you see at once what must
+be done.”
+
+“I can’t believe she meant to leave Page forever,” Lucia said. “I can’t
+believe it’s right for us to meddle. They don’t want your help, George.”
+
+“They need it. It’s my moral duty—”
+
+“It’s your moral duty to mind your own affairs!” she cried with the
+courage of conviction.
+
+“My son _is_ my affair!” he declared.
+
+“Perhaps they can build a life together, but not if you insist they’re
+doing something dirty and terrible. Page can’t take that and you know
+it.”
+
+“That’s why I’m doing it,” he said determinedly. He looked at her clear
+bright eyes and flushed cheeks; her anger gave her the look of youth he
+had almost forgotten. He was inexpressibly shocked at her.
+
+“I lie here alone in this bed day after day,” Lucia said, unable to
+return his gaze, “and I think about that boy I love so much: how we
+alienated him with our stingy love, our cold, correct home, our speeches
+about the grand old name of Pringle.” She caught her breath. “And then I
+think what it did to him when we called and told him about Sunny. I
+don’t know what’s right and wrong any more, George. I only know in spite
+of my love I’ve lost my son. I wouldn’t care if Sunny were his own
+mother, I’d want him to have her.”
+
+Pringle finished packing, silent with heavy disapproval. “You’ll come to
+your senses in a day or two, and see that I’m right,” he said finally.
+“Have Edna call my office and tell them I probably won’t be back until
+Monday.” He kissed her cheek. But she was weeping and desolate, and
+because he loved and needed her, he sat down on her bed and held her in
+his arms. “You’re overwrought, darling Lucia,” he said tenderly. “I’ll
+call Dr. Blue.”
+
+“No. No more pills. George, it would almost make me well again if you’d
+stay home and let _them_ patch it up.”
+
+He put his hand on her forehead. “You’ll feel better after you rest,” he
+said, lowering her into the pillows. He tried to believe that it was
+merely a little fever, an excess of anxiety, that prompted her words. To
+think otherwise was to admit he didn’t know his own wife after
+thirty-four years. And that was preposterous.
+
+He kissed her once again and walked softly out of the room with his
+suitcase.
+
+
+
+
+                                   15
+
+
+“That was about ten days ago,” Jack told Mr. Winkler. “The next thing we
+knew, you were on the phone to tell us you’d seen Sunny and Page in
+California and Page was having a change of heart.”
+
+“They were driving back to Chicago,” Winkler said. “They ought to be
+here in a week or so. I suppose they’re trying to figure out how to
+break it to the Rothelis when they get here.” He shook his head.
+“Amazing story, isn’t it? The adoption and all. Hard to believe, even
+when you know it happened. It sounds like the kind of crazy switch you’d
+find in a Gilbert and Sullivan plot, only this one isn’t comical.”
+
+They all sat quietly for a moment: Jack studying his guest; Winkler
+looking at the floor as if the weird story had shaken his composure; and
+Laura watching the two men in silence.
+
+“Do you think they’ll ever forgive the elder Pringles?” Winkler asked,
+his eyes moving slowly up to Jack’s face.
+
+“If the Pringles will let them,” Jack answered.
+
+“I hope it works out,” Winkler said. “You see, I have a son just about
+Page’s age. I’ve been thinking while you were telling the story what it
+would do to me to lose his respect, his love. It must be hell for
+Pringle.” He spoke with paternal compassion.
+
+“I don’t doubt it,” Jack said with a nod.
+
+The clock sounded the half-hour. It was five-thirty in the morning, and
+the chime brought Winkler to his feet.
+
+“I have to go,” he said. “I shouldn’t have kept you youngsters up all
+night.”
+
+“Our pleasure, Mr. Winkler,” Jack said. “We enjoyed it.”
+
+“If you hear from Sunny and Page again, I’d like to know whether they’re
+all right,” Winkler said.
+
+“We’ll give you a call,” Jack offered.
+
+“You ... might have trouble reaching me. Page said he’d contact you at
+the end of the week. Can I call you then?”
+
+“Sure,” Jack said, smiling at the dodge.
+
+At the front door Winkler turned. “Thanks for the dinner, Laura,” he
+said.
+
+“I’m glad you liked it,” she answered, standing beside Jack.
+
+Winkler hesitated. “Do you think,” he said, “that Page ever really loved
+his step-father?”
+
+“I think he still does, very much,” Jack said. “It’s just a question of
+pride now. It’s hard to admit you’ve been wrong. And Pringle’s in line
+for a few apologies of his own. He shouldn’t have followed them to L.
+A.”
+
+“I guess not. He must have had had the best intentions, but ... the road
+to hell, and all that. Well!” He brought himself up straight and back to
+reality. “Thank you again. And good night.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“He’s a funny old guy,” Jack said.
+
+“Probably a lot like Mr. Pringle,” Laura agreed. “Aristocratic, high
+principles, and all. But Jack, you shouldn’t have told him—”
+
+“But, darling, I wanted to,” he said, turning around and taking her in
+his arms. Jack and Laura were about the same height, but he always made
+her feel small and feminine. In spite of her own odd nature, she loved
+him. He was her home, her refuge. And his love was her security. Through
+Jack she could understand Sunny’s need for Page.
+
+“I’m afraid someday you’ll hurt Betsy,” Laura chided. “You don’t _have_
+to tell people you’re gay.”
+
+“I had to make Winkler understand,” he said. “It was part of the story.”
+
+“It shocked him, though.”
+
+“He’ll recover.” He kissed her forehead, in a gesture as intimate as
+things normally got between them, and said, “Come on. We can squeeze in
+a nap before Betsy wakes up.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jack was expecting Page’s call, but not the very next day. He was
+startled to hear the familiar voice saying, “Jack, how are you? This is
+Page Pringle.”
+
+“How are you, old buddy?” Jack answered with a calm he didn’t feel.
+
+Abashed, Page said, “Did you know we were in Chicago?”
+
+“We knew you were coming,” Jack said. “Talked to June. How are you?”
+
+“Okay, thanks. We flew back.” Page, who didn’t deserve Jack’s
+friendliness, was grateful and surprised. He talked a little too fast to
+cover his emotions. “We damn near didn’t make it, though. Got lost. On
+the high desert.” His voice was suddenly terribly tired.
+
+“My God,” Jack said. “Are you all right? Sunny—”
+
+“I am, but Sunny’s over at Wesley Memorial Hospital. She’s in labor.
+It’s a miracle that baby didn’t come out there on the sand.”
+
+“It’s premature, isn’t it?” Jack said. Laura was hovering anxiously over
+him now.
+
+“About nine weeks. Sunny’s doctor just flew in from New York. He knows
+the case and she wanted him here for the delivery. They say he’s a damn
+good man.”
+
+“Settick?”
+
+“You know him?” Page said.
+
+“Sure. He delivered Betsy.”
+
+“That’s right, I’d forgotten.” Page couldn’t say more without making
+some kind of apology, however clumsy. “Jack ... I want to tell you—”
+
+“Forget it, boy.”
+
+“No, let me say it. I can’t look you in the eye till I say I’m sorry.
+You said a mouthful that night, and I behaved like an ass. I guess
+because you were telling me the truth and the truth was so damn painful.
+Like sandpapering a sunburn. And I know all about sunburns now.
+
+“Jack, I didn’t straighten out until Sunny and I got lost and came to
+grips with the truth for the first time. You saw it before anybody else.
+Whatever I said that night, please don’t hold it against me. I’m not the
+same guy any more.”
+
+“You’re forgiven,” Jack said. “Where are you?”
+
+“At the hospital. I want to stay as close to Sunny as I can.”
+
+“She’s still in labor?”
+
+“Yeah. Pretty rough.”
+
+“Want some company?” Jack said.
+
+“Sure do.”
+
+“I’ll be over in half an hour. With cigarettes.”
+
+“Good boy, Jack. Thanks.”
+
+“I’m coming too,” Laura said as Jack hung up the phone.
+
+“Honey, it’s turning into a damn convention. The Rothelis are with him
+and I expect the Pringles will show up later.”
+
+“This baby meant the world to Sunny, Jack,” Laura said. “If anything
+happens to it.... Well, June went to pieces over her first, and she
+might do Sunny more harm than good. I want to be there just in case.”
+Laura’s affection for Sunny had an undoubted erotic tinge. But at that
+moment she didn’t even consider it. Her concern was quite selfless. Jack
+saw there was no arguing with her and surrendered good-naturedly.
+
+They drove over to Wesley Memorial Hospital, taking a carton of
+cigarettes, apples, a pint of scotch, and a plastic pacifier for the
+baby.
+
+“Nine weeks early,” Laura mused. “That’s not too bad, you know. Betsy
+was four weeks early and she was almost six pounds.”
+
+“Yes, but you didn’t quit eating. And you weren’t lost on the desert,
+either.”
+
+She fell silent, wondering about it.
+
+They parked their red Volkswagen two blocks away and walked to the
+hospital, taking the elevator up to the maternity waiting room. They saw
+Page first, talking to a handsome middle-aged couple that Laura knew at
+once must be the Rothelis.
+
+They approached with caution. Page hadn’t warned them whether the
+Rothelis knew yet who he was and it seemed highly unlikely that they
+did. Page was badly sunburned, the skin still red across his nose and
+cheekbones; it had been cruel exposure for his fair skin, and it must
+have been as bad for Sunny’s.
+
+Page and Ben Rotheli stood up and Page gripped Jack’s hand hard with
+emotion. Jack was absorbed for a moment in matching the features of
+father and son. The resemblance was subtle. If you knew about them, you
+saw it. If you didn’t know, and weren’t looking for it, it would escape
+you.
+
+“June ... the baby?” Laura said.
+
+“Not yet,” June said, shaking her head. The strain of the wait showed in
+her eyes. Impulsively Laura put a warm hand on June’s and squeezed it,
+thinking how hard June must be trying to control herself now, for
+everyone’s sake.
+
+“It’ll be all right,” Laura said. “My little girl came early, too.”
+
+“Did she?” June said eagerly, and they launched into comforting
+woman-talk.
+
+“She’s been in true labor about ten hours,” Page told Jack. “She’s
+pretty weak after two days on that damn sand. It’s incredible how many
+pints of water you lose in that heat.”
+
+“I believe it.”
+
+“The pains started then, actually,” Page said. “But it was false labor.”
+
+“How’s it going now?” Jack asked.
+
+“Settick says she’s got a lot of natural stamina. The baby’s alive. They
+can hear its heartbeat. They’re giving Sunny injections of saline
+solution to speed things along.”
+
+“Thank God for Dr. Settick,” Rotheli said with feeling. “He took right
+over when he got here. One of the other doctors told us he was doing a
+brilliant job. If anyone can bring her and the baby through, he can.”
+
+Page nodded agreement without a show of jealousy. His opinion of the
+young obstetrician had been drastically revised when he understood that
+Sunny’s life might be in his hands.
+
+“She’s got to be all right,” he told Jack. “The baby comes second.”
+
+“You can always have more kids, Page, but you’ve only got one Sunny,”
+Ben said gently, putting a hand on Page’s shoulder. Jack realized then
+that Ben and June still did not know that Page was Roger Rotheli.
+
+“June, I’m going down for a sandwich,” Ben told his wife after a minute.
+“Can I bring you anything? We haven’t eaten since we got here eight
+hours ago,” he said to the Manns.
+
+“Go along with him, June,” Page said. “We’ll get you right away if
+there’s any news.”
+
+Reluctantly, June let herself be persuaded, largely because Ben seemed
+to need her company. She had no appetite herself. She was so tired, her
+face so like Sunny’s, that Page, watching her walk out, felt a great
+warmth for her.
+
+He sat with the Manns in silence for a minute.
+
+“Have a cigarette,” Jack said finally, offering Page the carton. “It’ll
+calm your nerves.”
+
+“Thanks.” Page opened a fresh pack and lighted one. “What I really need
+is a wake-up-and-swing pill,” he chuckled. “After that desert vacation
+and this baby business, all I want to do is lie down on the floor and
+sleep for a week.”
+
+“The Rothelis don’t know who you are yet, do they?” said Laura.
+
+“No.” He sighed a cloud of fresh smoke. “I can’t even think about that
+now. Not till Sunny’s out of danger.”
+
+“I thought we’d see the Pringles here,” Jack said.
+
+“I didn’t call them. They don’t know we’re back, and Mother’s
+bedridden.”
+
+“Still quarreling?”
+
+“Oh, that’s not it. You see, they haven’t met the Rothelis, and this
+seemed like a lousy time for it, with all of us so worried. It’d drive
+me nuts to have them on my neck.”
+
+Jack bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “How the hell did
+you get lost in the desert?” he asked.
+
+Page told him in a voice that was grim.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had arrived out in Los Angeles in the early evening and driven a
+rented car to Los Feliz Avenue. Sunny’s apartment was one of the scores
+lined up in neatly landscaped rows on the big avenue. He picked out her
+number behind a waving palm frond, and then had to spend twenty minutes
+finding a parking spot.
+
+Her rooms were on the ground floor in the back, surrounded with freshly
+watered orange day lilies, their leaves weighted with water diamonds. It
+was a perfect setting for her.
+
+Page knocked on her door and waited several minutes. He could hear her
+walk across the room finally and stop by the door.
+
+“Who is it?” she said and her voice struck joy and relief into his
+heart. But he was afraid to answer for fear she would keep the door
+locked. Then what could he do—break in a window?
+
+“Brian?” she said, sounding more alert this time.
+
+Page had no way of knowing Richie Settick’s brother’s name. He only knew
+Sunny seemed to be expecting a man and his sudden anger triggered the
+voice out of his throat. “Sunny? It’s me, darling. Page.” Silence. “Let
+me in.” Again, silence. “Sunny, can’t you hear me? Darling, let me in.”
+
+Very slowly the door opened. Sunny’s face, heart-catchingly lovely,
+gazed out. They studied each other warily. She put a protective hand
+over her stomach, Richie’s warning ringing in her ears.
+
+“How did you find me?” she said and he saw the alarm in her big eyes.
+
+“Your mother,” he said softly.
+
+She appeared shocked at this, but she didn’t question it. “What do you
+want?” she asked.
+
+“I want you,” he whispered.
+
+“Dr. Settick said—”
+
+“I know what he said. I talked to him.”
+
+“Did you hurt him?”
+
+“No. He gave as good as he got. He’s a good man, damn him. Sunny, please
+come back with me.”
+
+“To live with you?” She looked at him with yearning, resenting his
+intrusion, his threat to her child, yet knowing that if he wanted her
+back as his _wife_, she would go.
+
+“Can we talk about it?” Page said.
+
+“That’s all we’ve done. It hasn’t helped much.”
+
+“We’ve only shouted at each other,” he said. “Sunny, don’t make me stand
+out here in the dark. Anybody could hear us. I feel like a damn Fuller
+Brush man.”
+
+“You stay right where you are and tell me what you want from me, Page.”
+
+“I want to take you on a honeymoon,” he said, coming closer to keep it
+private. “We’ve never had one. I thought we could take our time and see
+the West and ... maybe settle this thing.” He hadn’t known when she
+opened that door what he would say to her. But suddenly he had found the
+words.
+
+“And fall smack into the same old ugly rut when we got back,” she said.
+“I sit at home for months while you make up your mind you can’t live
+without me. Then we meet for a few agonizing hours and yell and hurt
+each other and make dreadful, guilty love because your real name is
+Roger Rotheli. And then home I go to sit and weep for another few
+months. Or have a miscarriage.” Her voice rose and he hushed her with a
+worried stare.
+
+“You’ll have to do better than that,” she finished more quietly.
+
+Abruptly he pushed his way in, moving so fast she hadn’t time to thrust
+the door between them. He took her in his arms and kissed her. For all
+his strength and passion, he seemed like a child begging her to make up
+his mind for him.
+
+She returned his kisses helplessly. “Page,” she murmured while he hugged
+her and he shuddered at the tears in her voice. “I will not tell you
+what you should do.”
+
+“I’m not asking you to.”
+
+“Not with words,” she conceded. “You’re asking another way. But darling,
+you have to face this alone. I’ve made up my mind; now you make up
+yours. Either you take me back or you leave me. You can’t have it both
+ways.”
+
+“Help me,” he whispered into her shoulder, admitting his dilemma at
+last. “I can’t live like this. I’m so lost, Sunny. It all seems clear to
+Dad. And it seems just as clear to you. Only you’re on opposite sides of
+the fence, you two. I’m at dead center and you’re both pulling on me
+till I’m coming apart at the seams. I can’t move one way or the other.”
+
+“Climb off the fence, Page,” she pleaded.
+
+“Say you love me,” he said, searching for comfort, trying to forget
+everything but Sunny’s presence.
+
+She stroked his head and let her random tears fall unchecked. “You’ve
+known that all along, and it just makes things worse.”
+
+“Just say it, Sunny. My darling, darling Sunny. Please.”
+
+“I love you,” she said. “I love you, _Roger_.”
+
+She shocked him rigid. He stared at her to see if she meant to hurt him.
+She was bravely serious.
+
+“Good night, my darling brother,” she said, and closed the door softly
+in his astonished face.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Neither of them slept. Page, stripped of his pride and wavering between
+two identities, sat down shamelessly on Sunny’s door mat and spent the
+night watching the stars.
+
+He wanted to be up there where there were no riddles, no flesh and
+breath, no incest. Nothing but the fire-punctured dark; nothing but the
+flow of Infinity.
+
+Our love will last in spite of everything, he thought. The only question
+is, will it hurt more if we’re together or apart?
+
+But he already knew the answer. He couldn’t fool himself any longer. The
+real question was the one she threw at him as she shut the door: was her
+brother brave enough to live with her? Take his sister for his wife?
+Could he survive the horror and scorn they might have to face? Conquer
+his fear and make her the strong, loving husband she needed?
+
+He let it spin around in his head, a crazy carousel that had no starting
+place and no stopping; just endless indecision.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sunny lay on her bed and watched the moonlight slide across her ceiling.
+Perhaps, being a woman, her decision was easier than his. Her love was
+her life. It didn’t matter whether she was Page’s sister or not. Alone,
+she didn’t know who she was. With Page she did know and she was
+unafraid.
+
+Her heart dilated with love and pity for him. But if I make this
+decision for him I’ll be open to a lifetime of blame, she thought.
+Whatever goes wrong with us he can blame on me. No, if there’s any
+fault-finding, we’ll have to share it.
+
+But she went cold at the thought that he might leave her again, whipped
+by his fears.
+
+Sunny didn’t realize that Page had spent the night only fifteen feet
+from her bed until she heard him talking in the morning. His voice came
+clearly through her front door. She dropped her toothbrush and ran to
+let him in.
+
+The door opened on Page and George Pringle, and it wasn’t any happy chat
+they were having. They fell silent at the sight of her, as, she looked
+from one to the other in surprise, convinced that Pringle must have come
+along to prod Page into saying good-by to her.
+
+“Won’t you come in?” she said frostily. “I might have known Page would
+want to face his wife with a chaperone.”
+
+Mr. Pringle got the point: Sunny had not left Page out of any noble
+desire to end their illegal marriage. Silently he ushered Page inside
+ahead of him, taking off his hat as he followed. Sunny shut the door and
+turned to face them, arms folded and eyes contemptuous.
+
+“I didn’t expect this,” she said. “Page has always been brave enough to
+come calling by himself until now.”
+
+“Sunny!” Page flared.
+
+“Page had no idea I was coming,” Pringle said.
+
+“Really?” Sunny said sarcastically. “Well, you seem to have timed it
+perfectly. Congratulations. I suppose you also got my address from my
+mother?”
+
+“Don’t misunderstand, Sunny,” Pringle said. “Your mother loves you, and
+she’s very worried about you. I couldn’t tell her the truth.”
+
+“You’re too generous, Mr. Pringle.”
+
+“I know I’ve lost your affection because of this thing,” Pringle said
+regretfully. “And it grieves me. I’ll tell you the truth, though it has
+given me a great deal of pain. Lucia feels as you do, my dear: that you
+and Page should—should live together as man and wife.” His gaze dropped.
+It humiliated him to admit this, yet it might win him her goodwill.
+
+“Mother said that?” Page asked, disbelieving.
+
+“Yes. I was most unhappy, as you must realize. But I felt I had to come
+here, in spite of her objections, when I learned that Page had followed
+you, Sunny. I felt that I had a duty to help you two.”
+
+“You have a duty to leave us alone. We don’t need your help!” Sunny
+declared. “We just need each other.” Pringle at that moment was her
+worst enemy. “I know exactly what you want to tell us, as if it weren’t
+already branded on our brains: We are _brother_ and _sister_.” She gave
+the words a hard punch that made them almost unbearable to hear, and
+suddenly found herself weeping.
+
+Pringle stood alone in the center of the room, embarrassed, unsure, full
+of smothered love. He didn’t know how to proceed. He only knew he cared
+enormously for his “children” and he thought he was morally right. “I
+love you both,” he said hesitantly, trying to reach them.
+
+“Then have mercy on us!” Sunny said.
+
+“But I’m afraid you’ll end up together again.”
+
+“We haven’t made any decision yet,” Page said.
+
+“You coward!” Sunny shot at him, forgetting for a second what havoc that
+word had wreaked the last time she used it. Her eyes darted to his
+mutilated left hand. Quickly he made a fist of it.
+
+“Do you really think you can keep each other and live normal lives?”
+Pringle said incredulously.
+
+“I can’t think at all, God damn it,” Page said. “I’m paralyzed until you
+get out of here!”
+
+Pringle hesitated a moment and then went to the door. “All right,” he
+said. “But if you can’t separate on your own, I warn you I’ll do all I
+can to separate you myself.”
+
+The three of them looked at each other for a second. “The hell of it
+is,” Sunny said to Pringle through her tears, “you really do love us. I
+believe that.”
+
+“My children, I love you very much,” he said gratefully. “That’s why I’m
+here.”
+
+They watched him turn and go in silence. Sunny had always been fond of
+her father-in-law, since their first warm meeting, and she regretted the
+hard words she had spoken. Yet she had had to say them.
+
+
+
+
+                                   16
+
+
+For several moments after Pringle departed, Page and Sunny did not
+speak. Sunny was too proud and hurt to start begging again and Page was
+still too mixed up to declare himself. But Pringle had stated the
+challenge for them now, and a decision had to be taken.
+
+They were afraid of losing the fragile tie Pringle’s presence had bound
+between them, and suddenly they spoke each other’s names at the same
+instant.
+
+“We seem to have a talent for that,” Page said, smiling. He went to her
+and touched her hair. “Come with me, Sunny,” he said fondly.
+
+“Right now? Without knowing where we’re going or how we’ll end up or—”
+
+“How can we know that now, darling? We’ll figure it out while we’re
+traveling. We’ll get to know each other all over again.”
+
+She had sworn she wouldn’t go back to him until he made it formal and
+final that she was his wife for the rest of their lives. But, like her
+mother, she was made to yield. She still hoped she could bring him
+around as long as she was physically close to him.
+
+He saw her indecision and clasped her tightly to him. “Sunny, it’s the
+only way. We can’t leave the thing hung up.”
+
+And she began to understand what he wanted: a chance to test himself and
+his temper and his nerves; to test his love in different places with
+different people; to see how he and Sunny made it together, confined
+with each other in a motel room or a car twenty-four hours a day. Maybe
+it would work. If it convinced Page he could take it, Sunny was willing
+to try it.
+
+“All right,” she said finally. “But if this doesn’t do it—”
+
+He interrupted her with a kiss. She could feel him fighting himself,
+trying to keep things fraternal. But they went radically out of bounds
+in a matter of seconds. His mouth opened on hers and he began to rock
+her with his hips. He tried once more to stop, burying his face against
+her neck and shuddering with the effort. Then she heard him murmur
+helplessly, “Oh, the hell with it.”
+
+“That’s the spirit, darling,” she whispered, laughing softly. “After
+all, if it’s going to be a honeymoon....”
+
+Page swung her up in his arms and carried her to the unmade bed. He
+stretched out with her, and the weight of his big body made her groan
+with pleasure.
+
+“Oh, God!” he exclaimed, moving over. “The baby!”
+
+“Baby wants more,” she told him, green eyes twinkling. Reassured, he
+embraced her again. “Mmmm,” he whispered. “Pepsodent.”
+
+Sunny laughed again and hugged him in a spasm of pure joy. When he began
+that silly intimate teasing that always led to love, she knew what he
+was feeling and she was temporarily sure of the world.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“We’ll have to call Mom and Dad,” Sunny said later.
+
+Page looked up from the map he was examining. “They’ll only worry,” he
+said. “Let them think we’re still out here till we show up in
+Hillsburg.” He tickled her beautiful face. “When are we going to tell
+them about me, honey?” he asked.
+
+Sunny looked at the ceiling, bristling all over with alarm. “Never, I
+hope,” she said with forced calm.
+
+“Is that fair? I’m their own child, their first-born son.”
+
+“It would kill them,” Sunny said. “Page, believe me, they couldn’t love
+you more if they did know ... and the knowledge might destroy Mother.”
+
+“On the other hand, it might make her very happy,” he said. “Women are
+peculiar creatures. I can’t help it, darling, I think they ought to
+know. My step-parents know. Don’t my real parents deserve the truth at
+least as much?”
+
+“Not when it’s so painful.”
+
+“You’re exaggerating,” he said flatly, and she saw that he was not going
+to give in. But thanks to Richie Settick, he was afraid to press the
+argument. Instead he would file it away and fetch it out to fluster her
+with in a day or two.
+
+He folded the map and said, “Let’s get going, honey. I’ll help you
+pack.”
+
+She obeyed him docilely, glad it was Page giving the orders now and not
+Settick. “Poor Richie will worry himself sick when he finds out I’m
+gone,” she said. “So will Brian. That’s his brother, darling. The doctor
+I’m seeing out here.”
+
+“Well, let them worry,” Page said with heartless satisfaction. “Damn
+country is infested with Setticks and they don’t care how I worry.”
+
+Sunny made him call Hillsburg before they left. She told the Rothelis
+they would be in Los Angeles another couple of weeks, and allowed June
+to think they were reconciled.
+
+It was a good day to start a trip: clear and fair and warm. They drove
+east on the San Bernardino freeway. Page wasn’t used to the recklessness
+of Los Angeles’ drivers, and he wasted some breath swearing at them.
+
+They got off on Route 66 in the town of San Bernardino and traveled
+north over the Cajon Pass toward the beautiful high desert country.
+Sunny loved the great green mountains and blue vistas, the flat white
+tape of highway pasted over the hills, the cactus and the Joshua trees.
+
+By late afternoon they were near Apple Valley on the desert,
+thirty-five-hundred feet above sea level. The air was brittle-clear and
+cooling fast as the sun descended. Apple Valley was five miles off the
+main road, and they turned in to spend the night.
+
+They got a room and had dinner at the Apple Valley Inn.
+
+“I haven’t eaten so much in months,” she laughed. Page clasped her hand
+across the table and smiled at her.
+
+“And Settick told me the mere sight of me would give you a miscarriage,”
+he snorted.
+
+“It nearly did,” she said, sobering.
+
+“Did I make up for it?” he asked, and she nodded. They were serenaded
+during dessert by an ambulant trio who took them for newlyweds until
+they spotted Sunny’s maternity dress. Their embarrassment sent her into
+gales of laughter.
+
+Later they walked around the hotel grounds, hand in hand in the
+starlight. And then went to bed and made love and slept like winter
+squirrels until ten the next morning.
+
+They decided to skip breakfast and drive a while before they ate. It was
+clear and warm with the promise of real heat by noon. They went only
+thirty-five miles before Sunny announced she was starving.
+
+“You see? I’m a good influence on your appetite,” Page said.
+
+They stopped at the next place they saw: a little hamburger joint
+outside the town of Barstow. Sunny ordered two hamburgers and a beer.
+
+“Shouldn’t you be drinking milk?” Page said.
+
+“Not when there’s beer around. I’ll drink a quart of milk for lunch, I
+promise.”
+
+“You’re happy, aren’t you, honey?” he said, smiling at her.
+
+“Whatever gave you that idea?” she grinned.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Their breakfast was almost gone when George Pringle came in. He made his
+way toward their table, watching them with worried eyes. Sunny gasped
+when she saw him, awed by his determination.
+
+“Sit down, Page,” she told her angry husband, who was half out of his
+seat, “or I swear to God I’ll have this baby right now. In your lap.”
+
+He sat down.
+
+Pringle hesitated a second and then sat next to Sunny.
+
+“Children,” he began, but Page interrupted.
+
+“We are not children,” he said sharply. “If you’d ever get that into
+your head it’d solve half our problems.”
+
+“I thought I’d lost you for a while when you turned off 66,” Pringle
+said, avoiding for the moment the urgent subject that brought him there.
+
+Sunny put a hand on his arm. “Mr. Pringle, we won’t go through this
+again with you,” she said. To her surprise, instead of arguing he put
+his head in his hands in a gesture Page had made familiar to her. It
+dramatized the profound influence Pringle had had on his unruly
+step-son.
+
+“I couldn’t let you get away without trying once more to make you see
+reason,” he sighed, looking up.
+
+“You just make me see red,” Page retorted.
+
+“There’s no need for cruelty, Page,” his father said.
+
+“Cruelty?” Page said skeptically.
+
+But Pringle meant it and his face showed it. He looked for the first
+time like an old man. Page felt a guilty shock to realize he was not the
+only one who was suffering. He had never let himself think of George
+Pringle as a vulnerable human being like himself. He cherished the
+mental image of a cold, correct, remote man. It was an image Page had
+formed in his early childhood and one that had long since ceased to bear
+any resemblance to his step-father. It had suited Page to think he could
+lash out at Pringle without hurting him. Now the hurt was vividly
+visible and Page had a good long look at it. His shame and surprise
+quieted him.
+
+“Do something for me, Dad,” he asked. “Go back to Los Angeles and take
+the next plane home, before we end up enemies. We’ll call you when we
+get back and let you know what we’ve decided.” The affection he had
+always felt for Pringle was reasserting itself for the first time in
+many years, at this odd time and place. It shook Pringle up and moved
+him to surrender. Perhaps if he yielded now he could salvage that love
+Page still felt in spite of everything. Perhaps it was worth more than
+the strict morality he was trying to force on the younger man. Pringle
+trembled inwardly with self-rebuke. He was becoming as soft and
+sentimental as Lucia! But he couldn’t stop himself.
+
+“All right, Page, if it has to be that way,” he said with misgivings. He
+seemed too tired, too irresolute, to keep battling with them. There was
+nothing more he could do and he even sensed that he might drive them
+back together if they teamed up against him in their resentment of his
+meddling. He left them at last, proud and silent but with a noticeable
+slump in his back.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“So he left you in peace?” Jack asked Page. “Have an apple.”
+
+“It was screwy, you know?” Page said as he took the fruit. “I thought I
+hated him. The more he followed us the madder I got. But suddenly, in
+Barstow, everything changed. I felt sorry for him. And that made it
+possible for me to love him again. All of a sudden he was a human being
+like the rest of us, and miserable over my unhappiness ... trying so
+hard to save us both, as he saw it. And he stood to lose even the little
+love I still felt for him. It was a brave thing he did. A little stupid
+but brave. I didn’t know that before.” He took a bite from the red
+winesap in his hand.
+
+“When Dad caught up with us, another crazy thing happened. I felt closer
+to Sunny; more like a husband and less like a brother.”
+
+“Why haven’t you told the Rothelis who you are, Page?” Laura asked,
+huddling close to the men so the strangers in the waiting room couldn’t
+eavesdrop.
+
+“I will when Sunny’s all right,” Page said. “They should know the
+truth.” His jaw hardened and he stopped chewing his apple.
+
+“You’re right,” Jack said shrewdly. “That’s the way to get even with
+them.”
+
+“Get _even_? That’s a lousy way to put it.”
+
+“Why, hell, man, they gave you away when you were a baby, didn’t they?”
+Jack said, and Laura understood at once what he was trying to do. “They
+made you suffer, didn’t they? All these years you’ve been miserable
+because you didn’t know who you were. And what were they doing? Living
+comfortably and forgetting all about poor little Roger. What the hell,
+they have Chuckie now.”
+
+“Jack, that’s a pretty rotten attitude,” Page said stiffly. He didn’t
+recognize his own undressed desire for vengeance. He had always hidden
+it under the robes of justice and retribution, and it had looked so
+noble. Now it was parading in Jack’s words like a heartless whore on a
+streetcorner.
+
+“It’s a perfectly reasonable attitude,” Jack said with mock chagrin.
+“They ought to know what they did to you. They ought to suffer a little
+themselves. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
+
+“Well, they _did_ suffer,” Page said uncertainly.
+
+“But that was years ago!”
+
+“Jack, you’re making it sound like—”
+
+“No news yet!” Laura broke in, in an over-bright voice, and Page shut up
+as June and Ben rejoined them. They sat down next to their tense son,
+who glowered in silence at his old roommate. Jack, afraid Page in this
+temper would blurt out the truth, suggested the two of them go out for a
+drink. It was a chance to patch things up again before they got out of
+hand.
+
+Page refused at once, but everybody insisted.
+
+“Go over to Jocko’s, why don’t you?” Laura said. “It’s only a block
+away. I’ll call if anything happens.”
+
+Jack hauled Page, resisting nervously, down the main hall.
+
+“God damn it, Jack, they’ll come to get me and I won’t be here,” he
+said. “They’ll have to tell Sunny I’m out getting swacked with a
+drinking buddy. What will she think?”
+
+“She’ll think old Jack did the right thing and got you out of
+everybody’s hair for half an hour,” Jack grinned.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was late afternoon, pearly light and mild. Jack hustled his charge
+along for a block and turned him into Jocko’s. He ordered two double dry
+martinis and after a circumspect silence, put a hand on Page’s shoulder.
+“Take it easy boy,” he said. “I had no business being so rough on you
+then. You’ve got enough on your mind.”
+
+Page, in his befogged state, had forgotten his gripe. “What? Oh, sure,”
+he said, lighting a cigarette and singeing a finger in the process.
+“God,” he murmured. “She’s got to be all right.”
+
+“Women are a lot tougher than they look,” Jack said kindly.
+
+Page wiped his sweaty forehead with a damp handkerchief and made Jack
+chuckle. “If there ever was a nervous young father, Page, you’re it,” he
+said.
+
+“If there ever was a father with good _reason_ to be nervous, I’m it
+too,” Page countered.
+
+When the drinks came he emptied half his glass. Jack watched him a
+moment and said, “I have something on my mind that I probably should
+have told you sooner. Only things have been so unsettled—”
+
+“I’m too far gone for confessions right now,” Page said.
+
+“You ought to know this, though,” Jack insisted. “I met your
+step-father.”
+
+“You did?” Page turned to look at him with an interested stare. “How did
+that happen? Did you call him up?”
+
+“No, he called me. In fact he came over and had dinner with us.”
+
+“He did? For God’s sake,” Page said. “How did he know who you were?”
+
+“I didn’t ask him. The Rothelis, or maybe you mentioned us.”
+
+“What did he want?” Page asked.
+
+“Do you know anybody named Winkler?”
+
+“Winkler? No. What is this, Jack?”
+
+“Think hard. Anybody?”
+
+“Some remote cousins of Mother’s have that name, I think. But I don’t
+know them personally.”
+
+That was enough for Jack. He ran a wet finger around the edge of his
+martini glass until it sang.
+
+“Your father told us his name was Winkler,” Jack said. “I wondered where
+he picked up the name. He stayed till five in the morning.”
+
+Page frowned. “What the hell did he do that for?”
+
+“I guess he wanted us to reassure him. He’d just gotten back from
+California and he felt as if he’d failed with you. He wanted to know
+your whole story from A to Z, as if he’d never heard it. He wanted to
+know if you’d leave Sunny, and if you’d forgive him for interfering the
+way he did.”
+
+“He asked you all that?”
+
+“Not directly. He didn’t want us to know who he was. Just said he had
+run into you in Barstow and thought you were a nice young couple. And
+you told him to look us up.”
+
+“The old son of a gun,” Page said, shaking his head with amazement. “He
+must have been damn worried to do such a thing. It’s not like him.”
+
+“I didn’t think so,” Jack smiled. “I hadn’t been talking very long
+before I got the picture. He carried it off pretty well, but when he
+asked questions you could tell the main thing he cared about was how a
+father and son should get along. And whether a moral man could tolerate
+incest.”
+
+“How did he take it?”
+
+“Well, some of it hurt, all right. But he showed guts. He heard me out.
+Now and then, when it got bad, he asked the things he had to know, but
+he didn’t condemn you. Or me, either.”
+
+“Did he tell you who he was before he left?”
+
+“No. He got a bit flustered. Wouldn’t let me call him for fear I’d find
+out his real name. I’m still supposed to think he’s ‘Mr. Winkler’. Laura
+never did catch on, by the way. Shall I tell her?”
+
+“If you want to. I trust you two.”
+
+“You don’t feel bitter about him now, do you?” Jack said.
+
+“Not any more. There was so much love for us in all his bungling. Maybe
+it’s a good thing in a way that he did it. It made me realize how much I
+mean to him after all these years.”
+
+“Why don’t you call him? He doesn’t even know you’re back,” Jack said.
+
+“Sure,” Page said, looking at Jack as if it had just occurred to him. He
+left his bar stool and went to the pay phone in the back of the bar.
+
+When he returned Jack had ordered another round.
+
+“He was pretty relieved,” Page reported. “So was Mother. I don’t know
+what you said to him, Jackson, but I don’t think he feels as bad about
+things as he did. He may never approve of us—Sunny said that once—but I
+don’t think he’ll fight it any more.”
+
+“Good.”
+
+“And I called the hospital,” Page said. “It’s still going on. Ben says
+they haven’t heard any more.”
+
+“Well, bottoms up,” Jack said judiciously. “We’ll finish this one and
+head back. You can tell me what happened on the desert.”
+
+“You in a mood for horror stories?” Page said with an ironic grin.
+
+
+
+
+                                   17
+
+
+Pringle’s unexpected visit in Barstow had taken the sparkle out of the
+beautiful morning. Suddenly Page and Sunny noticed it was very hot and
+dry. They didn’t talk about Pringle, with a tacit understanding that it
+would only have led to lower spirits and perhaps a fight.
+
+“Come on,” Page said, leading her out to the rented dark blue Ford. He
+backed out toward the highway.
+
+“Let’s do something fun,” Sunny said. “Let’s go see something
+interesting.”
+
+“What’s to see, sweetheart?”
+
+She had taken a travel guide map from the glove compartment and was
+studying the territory. They drove along while Sunny mentioned various
+oddities marked on the map; old mines, great dry lakes, craters. Page
+dismissed them all as tourist traps.
+
+“Darling, let’s get off this dreary highway and see _something_,” Sunny
+pleaded. “This is supposed to be a honeymoon. Don’t let your father ruin
+this, too.”
+
+“Okay, honey, you win,” he said half-heartedly. “What’s the next stop on
+the map?”
+
+“Amboy Crater,” she said. “And Bristol Dry Lake.” He made a face.
+
+“Well, it says ‘Point of Interest’ on the map,” she said.
+
+With a sigh he turned south off Route 66 at Amboy, a scarcely noticeable
+desert town, and went a mile or two to the crater. Sunny made him stop
+so she could get out and look.
+
+The crater loomed, black and ancient, in a plateau of iron-hard rock,
+all of it weather-cracked, split, and dried like a diseased sea. It
+spread out for miles, rising about six feet above the desert floor, and
+all around the edges dead black fingers of lava rock probed the sand.
+
+“Just think, it came out of that crater once, like the sea in hell,”
+Sunny said, awed.
+
+“Gives me the creeps,” Page told her. “Come on, let’s find something
+cheerful.”
+
+“How about the Dry Lake? It’s only half a mile further,” she said.
+
+It was not much to see. Not as dramatic and eerie as the old crater.
+Just miles of flat, dry, hard-baked mud. They got off the road and drove
+around on it for a while.
+
+“Make a good race-track,” Page commented. “Gosh, it’s big.”
+
+“Only about eight miles long on the map,” Sunny said. But when she
+looked up it seemed as if they were completely surrounded by cracked
+mud. It was all one could see in four directions, except way out in the
+crystal distance where the violet mountains rose.
+
+“I wonder if anything lives out here?” Sunny asked.
+
+“Nothing with any sense,” he said. “Had enough?” And he turned the car
+around.
+
+“Where are our tracks?” Sunny said, peering over the hood.
+
+“You don’t make tracks on this stuff, it’s like so much cement.”
+
+They drove a little farther. “We’re kind of low on gas, aren’t we?”
+Sunny said, glancing at the meter.
+
+“It’s not far, honey, just a couple of miles. We’ll make it.”
+
+“We ought to be back on that road by now. I’m afraid we’ve gone past
+it,” Sunny fretted.
+
+Page had not realized how low the gas was, as a matter of fact,
+preoccupied as he was with his father. Sunny fell silent, trusting him.
+But ten minutes later Page began to notice that the terrain looked
+different. It was not as smooth as the lake bed. Rocks and clumps of
+tough weeds studded the ground. He figured he had enough gas for another
+ten or twelve miles, and glanced at Sunny beside him in the front seat.
+She was sweating freely, but she didn’t look frightened.
+
+Suddenly a sharp report jolted the front of the car. Page stopped as
+fast as he could and leaped out to see the damage. He looked under the
+hood and abruptly fell to his knees at the side of the car, trying to
+wrench a hub cap off. Sunny heard him banging and leaned out his window.
+“Can I help?” she said.
+
+“The keys!” He grabbed them from her hand and opened the trunk, coming
+forward quickly with a lug wrench. But he was too late.
+
+Mystified, Sunny said, “What’s the matter, darling?”
+
+“It’s all right,” he said, but his face was worried.
+
+He sat down in the driver’s seat, trying to wipe the wrinkles off his
+forehead. “Damnedest thing. I guess we hit a loose rock. Bounced up and
+struck the fan and bent one of the blades.”
+
+“Is that bad?”
+
+“I’m afraid so, honey. The blade sheared the radiator tubing. We’ve lost
+all our water. I was hoping to catch some of it in the hub cap.”
+
+“What can we do?” She was more scared than she wanted him to know. The
+desert is haunted with ghastly tales of the uninformed and unprepared.
+
+“I guess we can drive a way without it,” Page said. “We can’t be more
+than half a mile from that road.” And yet he knew that at some point
+they had driven out of the lake, and God only knew where they were now.
+He prayed they weren’t going around in a fatal, sandy circle.
+
+Resolutely he started up again. There was no road, no sign, no hut, no
+human being. Nothing but bigger rocks and softer sand.
+
+The sand, in fact, was becoming treacherous to drive on. Inevitably, the
+car gave a mushy jolt and began to slow down.
+
+“Is the gas gone?” Sunny said.
+
+“No. Damn sand,” he muttered. As he spoke the car sank to a standstill.
+Page gunned the motor a few times and cut it off. “No sense wasting
+what’s left,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Darling,
+don’t be afraid. We’re so close to civilization, we can’t go too far
+wrong.”
+
+“We _were_ close,” she said.
+
+He squeezed her knee and then got out. “You stay there and try not to
+sweat,” he told her. “I never let my pregnant wives pull the plow.”
+
+But his cheerful mood faded rapidly. He labored in the unblinking sun
+for almost two hours, digging tracks under the wheels, shoving while
+Sunny tried to back out, creating traction out of bath towels and
+deflated tires.
+
+“Worse than shoveling maple syrup,” he gasped to Sunny, tearing the
+shirt off his hot back. The air he was inhaling so hard felt like steam
+in his lungs. By the time they got out of the hole he was trembling with
+heat and fatigue.
+
+“Move over, sweetheart, let’s get out of here,” he said, sliding into
+the driver’s seat.
+
+“On half a gallon of gas?” she said. “Besides, all the sand looks the
+same. You can’t tell the soft from the hard.”
+
+“We’ll try another direction,” he said, heading in what he judged was a
+northerly route. “I think this will have us back on 66 in no time.” He
+could sense that she wanted to believe him, and he fell silent, afraid
+anything more he might say would only scare her. He felt his limbs
+quaking and his heart working overtime, and he didn’t know what he would
+do if they got stuck again.
+
+“You’re awfully tired, darling, I can tell,” Sunny said softly.
+
+“I’m not in shape for pushing cars across the desert,” he cracked. He
+was painfully thirsty. She must be, too.
+
+The ground became progressively rougher, with big outcroppings of rock
+here and there. Through them Page threaded a cautious trail. Sunny
+studied the map.
+
+“It shows rocks for a hundred miles in all directions,” she said. “We
+could be just about anywhere.”
+
+“That’s a big help.”
+
+“I thought you said we were going back to 66,” she said.
+
+“Well, I think we are, sweetheart. But I’m not sure.”
+
+“Oh, Page,” she whispered and he took her hand and held it hard, trying
+to encourage her. “At least the sun’s going down,” she said bravely. “It
+won’t be so hot.”
+
+Then the engine coughed and there was a grinding wrench along the
+underside of the car. Page stopped and opened the door in almost the
+same motion. He dropped to his knees in the sand and slid under the
+motor to see what had happened. Moments later he emerged, dusty and
+splattered. Sunny didn’t dare ask him what he had found.
+
+“Well, we’ve run over a goddam rock,” he said angrily. “There’re so many
+after a while you just don’t notice them.”
+
+“It can’t be too bad,” she said hopefully.
+
+“No. It just pierced the crankcase housing, that’s all.”
+
+“Can you fix it?” Her voice was small and scared.
+
+“All the oil has poured out. Also, the motor’s had it, without water.
+I’m afraid this buggy is finished,” he said. He spoke matter-of-factly,
+but for the first time since he realized they were lost, he was
+genuinely frightened.
+
+Wearily he climbed up on the seat beside her. “We shouldn’t have rented
+this car, we should have bought it,” he said. “At least we could collect
+the insurance.”
+
+She burst into tears. “Page,” she wept, and he took her in his arms.
+“What will we do?”
+
+“Rest. And save our strength. Did we bring anything to eat? Or drink?”
+
+“Nothing,” she said. “Not one crumb. And I even thought of asking you to
+pick up a six-pack of beer in that lunch place.”
+
+They thought about the cold wet beer for a moment and then he said with
+a vigor he didn’t feel, “In the morning I’m going to try to walk back.”
+
+“And leave me here in this wilderness?” she cried, terrified. “Darling,
+you’ll get lost. We might be fifty miles from the road.” She clung to
+him in a panic, but he only held her, unwilling to give up the idea.
+
+Hungry, thirsty, exhausted, they huddled together in the car while the
+vast world of hot rocks and sand around them began to cool.
+
+“Let’s try to sleep,” he said. “Here, honey, get in the back seat and
+lie down. You can use that blanket in your bag.”
+
+“I’d rather have an air conditioner,” she said. “What about you,
+darling? Where will you sleep?”
+
+“Under the car, I guess,” he said, covering her.
+
+“Aren’t there snakes?” she asked.
+
+“If there are, they’re cooked.” He took her hand. “I’ll be all right,
+sweetheart. You go to sleep.”
+
+She lay in the uncomfortably short back seat and tried to rest, while
+Page sat up for a while, wondering how to get them out of there. His
+overpowering worry was Sunny. How well could she bear up under that
+deadly sun?
+
+Before he crawled under the car to sleep he leaned into the back seat
+and kissed her face tenderly. “Darling,” he whispered. “My love. Sleep
+tight.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the first sign of light Page sat up to watch the dawn. It was warm,
+with the temperature near ninety. The sun came out early, climbing up
+the sides of the distant hills. It surprised Page when he first saw the
+brightening sky. He had expected the sun from another direction. Sunny
+awoke in time to see his consternation.
+
+“What’s the matter?” she said.
+
+“The sun ... the damn thing does come up in the east, doesn’t it?”
+
+“Ordinarily.” She stared at him.
+
+“Then we’re headed west,” he said. “_Not_ north. Back to L. A. God! If
+we keep on going pretty soon we’ll reach the ocean.”
+
+“Or a lemonade stand,” she said wistfully.
+
+He smiled at her. “You’re a good girl, Sunny,” he said. He spoke with
+such love that she bent and kissed his hair as he sat on the ground. His
+neck was scarlet and throbbing hot.
+
+“Page, you got burned yesterday,” she said with concern.
+
+“Not bad,” he lied. But his scalded skin had been robbed of water and
+oil, and from neck to waist he was a painful red.
+
+Sunny lifted her head and gazed around the sand. “What are we going to
+do?” she asked.
+
+“We’re going to get out of this damn oven,” he said, thumping the rear
+fender as he shoved himself to his feet. “Before it bakes us to a turn.”
+
+She climbed out and shook herself carefully.
+
+“How do you feel?” He was hyper-conscious of her condition.
+
+“I’m all right, darling,” she said. She couldn’t start the day by
+telling him how thirsty and faint she was. She felt a kick in her
+abdomen and was momentarily overwhelmed with an uprush of love and
+anguish for the poor little creature she was carrying. Her fate was his.
+She would want to die if the baby didn’t live.
+
+Page took her hand and led her to an outcropping of rock some forty
+yards from the car. The short walk made her tired. He settled her there,
+spreading the electric blanket under her to keep her off the sand, and
+sat down beside her.
+
+“We ought to have some shade here for most of the morning,” he said,
+squinting at the high-rising rock. “In the afternoon we can move around
+to the other side.”
+
+“What do we do at noon?” she said.
+
+“We fry,” he answered briefly. He scanned the area with tightly narrowed
+eyes, standing up to look around. He couldn’t sit there on that sand and
+wait for the world to come rescue him. He had to do something.
+
+In less than an hour they heard the buzz of a plane.
+
+“God damn! Of course! I should have thought of that,” he cried, running
+back to the car. He wrenched the rear view mirror off its bracket and
+jumped out, holding the mirror toward the sun. A series of bright
+flashes resulted, but the plane, cruising over twenty thousand feet in
+that mountainous country, proceeded eastward indifferently.
+
+Sunny discovered a package of gum in her purse and when Page came
+dejectedly back with the mirror, she shared it with him. It took them
+some time to soften it in their dry mouths, but the sugar tasted
+wonderful. Page took only one stick.
+
+Sunny saved the rest. “Three sticks of Doublemint,” she said. “All our
+worldly goods. It makes me feel like crying.” The tears began to fall,
+and Page put his arms around her.
+
+“Oh, I’m all right,” she said, ashamed of herself. “I guess it was
+seeing that plane. Those people up there, so cool and comfortable.
+Eating a big breakfast and looking out the window at all the damn
+rocks.”
+
+“There must be a lot of air traffic around here,” Page said. “Hell, the
+big army bases, the commercial flights, private parties. I’m going to
+pile up a mess of stuff in that clear space in front of the car and the
+next time one goes over I’ll light it. Maybe it’ll fire up bright enough
+to catch somebody’s eye. I’ll have to use your clothes, honey. Okay?”
+
+“Anything,” she said. She leaned back weakly against the rock shelf. It
+was hot in the shadow, the temperature rising steadily through the
+nineties. She looked at her watch: not quite nine A.M. Where will we be
+when it’s nine in the evening? she wondered. Oh, God, please save us.
+All three of us.
+
+Page spent the next hour building a pyre out of their suitcases, their
+clothes, and a spare tire from the trunk. Afterward he found the towels
+he had used to get the wheels out of the sand and made an S with them.
+He walked over to Sunny and squatted beside her, wiping his sweaty face
+with a grimy cloth. “Sunny, I need the blanket,” he said.
+
+“What for?” she asked, rolling off it without protest.
+
+“I’m making an S O S in the sand over there. If they see the fire,
+they’ll come low enough to read the letters.”
+
+He took out the pen knife he carried in his change pocket and, with
+Sunny’s help, cut the blanket into several strips. Sunny held it taut
+while Page sawed through the material.
+
+“That should do it,” Page said a half-hour later, gathering up the long
+wool streamers and heading for the S made of towels. Sunny started to
+follow him but a sudden hard cramp sent her back to the ground.
+
+For fifteen minutes, while Page worked on the distress signal she sat
+motionless, paralyzed with the pain. Her instinct recognized it. She had
+never had a baby before, but she knew that she had just had a labor
+pain.
+
+She leaned against the rock, grateful for the shade, and told herself,
+_I will be calm_, over and over. Maybe it will go away. The books talk
+about false labor. I’ll sit here and take it easy.... If that little
+mite comes out here, it won’t live five minutes.
+
+It didn’t occur to her that she wouldn’t, either. Her whole being
+revolved around that baby. Sunny had a lot of sense and a great desire
+to save her child. She forced herself to lie down on the sand and remain
+quiet. Time passed, one straggling second at a time, but the cramp did
+not repeat itself.
+
+When Page came back she told him nothing.
+
+“That’s it, darling,” he said. “Save yourself.”
+
+“You, too,” she murmured. “Lie down, Page.”
+
+He sat instead. They were both stunned with the sky-rocketing heat.
+
+“How hot do you think it is?” Sunny asked. Little streams of sweat were
+trickling into her ears and down her breasts and arms.
+
+“Seems hotter if you talk about it.” He scanned the shiny blue sky,
+shading his eyes with his left hand.
+
+Page estimated it was well over a hundred degrees by then, but didn’t
+tell her so. “There might be some moisture left in the radiator,” he
+said. “Give me your hanky, I’ll soak it up.”
+
+“If there is, it’ll be hot enough to brew coffee,” she said.
+
+Page left her briefly. The heat pierced the soles of his shoes and
+traveled up his legs like shock waves, and the sun felt hot enough to
+melt his hair. He returned on shaky limbs with a pitiful small dampness.
+“Suck on it,” he told Sunny. “It’s all there was.” He stroked her
+cracking lips with it. They had not eaten or drunk now for twenty-four
+hours.
+
+Sunny would have insisted on sharing the moisture with him had it not
+been for that cramp. Now she felt an obligation to be selfish.
+
+Shortly another plane began to drone toward them. Sunny sat halfway up,
+searching the sky.
+
+“There it is,” she said. “Quick, light the fire.”
+
+“Too high,” he said, shaking his head. “Probably a jet.”
+
+Sunny lay down as the plane passed, too faint to lower herself
+carefully. Page watched her drop back with worried eyes. He knelt and
+wiped her forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. The rising heat made
+her face pink, but it was not a healthy color.
+
+“I might find a little water in these rocks somewhere,” he said. “There
+are mineral springs in the desert sometimes.”
+
+“Don’t leave me,” she whispered, frightened. Her worst fear was to die
+abandoned on the sand.
+
+“I’ll just go a short way and whistle so you’ll know where I am,” he
+promised. “Darling, I’ve got to try something. You need that water. It
+isn’t ten-thirty yet.” He didn’t need to remind her of her empty stomach
+or the dry fuzz forming on her tongue.
+
+After a tired struggle with herself she said, “Keep whistling.”
+
+“I will.” He kissed her, bending over her with his hands planted in the
+sand. His burned lips scratched her skin lightly. Then he got up and
+walked. In twelve minutes he was back.
+
+“God. It’s a furnace out there,” he said.
+
+“Find anything?”
+
+“A few scraggly cactus plants. I tried one. Tasted like rotten vinegar.”
+He stretched out beside her in the narrow margin of shadow they had left
+as the sun sailed up the sky toward high noon.
+
+Page made seven or eight trips altogether, whistling to comfort her. But
+he came back from the last search staggering from the furious heat. He
+looked at the yellow world prostrate under the sun, the savage sun that
+plainly meant to murder them. And he hated it illogically as though it
+had a human conscience.
+
+Sunny was sitting up, huddled against the last few planes of shady rock.
+Already sunlight was slanting down the steep western slope and on the
+east there was no shadow at all.
+
+Noon. The sun’s hour of hours.
+
+Page dropped to his knees, panting. One swallow of water and he thought
+he could move mountains. He couldn’t leave Sunny here in the blaze of
+the hammering heat. Her eyes were clenched shut and her face was taut.
+
+“Darling,” he said from a sandy throat.
+
+“No water?” she whispered.
+
+He shook his head, taking her in his arms. She half-collapsed against
+him. “I’m so thirsty,” she admitted out of her weakness.
+
+“Where’s that gum?” He fumbled in the purse and pulled out a stick.
+“Here, honey. It’s not wet but there’s a little sugar in it.”
+
+“I’m so dry,” she murmured.
+
+“Try. Come on.” She worked on it for some minutes and finally it began
+to yield. It tasted pathetically good. She chewed all the sweetness out
+of it and then swallowed the whole lump. Perhaps the hunger pangs could
+be fooled for a minute.
+
+“I’m going to take you back to the car and we’ll lie underneath it, till
+we’ve got more shade here,” he said.
+
+She let him pull her unsteadily to her feet. He started out, guiding her
+slowly and carefully. But about halfway to the car she suddenly folded
+in the middle. He caught her and carried her the rest of the way, laying
+her on the sand when he got there and pushing her under the car. Then he
+slid in beside her.
+
+Page put a hand on Sunny’s leg, close beside his, but their mutual heat
+was unbearable and he had to remove it. The pulsing air swirled and
+waved up from the desert floor, liquid orange with heat. It crushed
+their chests and stuffed their burning noses and drained the vital
+fluids from their flesh.
+
+Another plane went over. Page scrambled out to look.
+
+“It’s pretty low,” he called, and ran over to the bonfire site, lighting
+the inflammable clothes first. They caught at once and Page stepped
+back. It seemed insane to add even this small heat to the radiant
+desert, but it couldn’t be helped.
+
+The plane was small, probably private, and not impossibly high. An alert
+pair of eyes, studying the desert floor, might catch that fluttering
+light.
+
+But it was only a matter of minutes before Page realized they hadn’t
+seen. They were going on.
+
+He watched them go, fighting off despair. The fire had reached its peak.
+There was no way to save it now for another try. He stood with his head
+in his hands—the Pringle gesture Sunny knew so well—and tried to compose
+himself for her sake. He had been in tight places before, but always by
+himself, and always with a way out.
+
+He crawled under the car again. “It’s two-thirty,” he told her at last.
+“When the sun gets a little lower I’ll take you back to the rock. Could
+you chew another piece of gum?”
+
+“No,” she whispered.
+
+He didn’t press her, but he was afraid her mouth would be so dry that
+even the tiny jot of sugar in the gum would be inaccessible to her
+before long: so much powder on her tongue.
+
+“We might as well go now,” he said.
+
+Carefully, he dragged Sunny after him, out from under the car, and saw
+at once that she was dangerously weak. There was no possibility of her
+walking back to the shade of the rock. The safest way to move her was to
+pull her, and Page fashioned a cloth sled out of the blanket strips in
+his S O S. He laid her on it tenderly and towed her as fast as he could
+force himself to move over the sand to the rock.
+
+He fell down beside her in exhaustion and slept for a while. When he
+awoke it seemed as if centuries had passed. He lifted his head, only to
+feel an alarming dizziness come over him. He lowered it at once and a
+few minutes later tried again. It was better this time. It was still
+daylight, still stupefyingly hot. Five minutes after three. The terrible
+sun stuck jealously in the sky.
+
+The rock Page leaned against rose twelve or thirteen feet from the
+ground. It was a bad shape for climbing, but new hope made him get up
+and try.
+
+The thing had a number of sheer walls and a couple of rough ones, with
+few spots for secure footing or handholds. Page chose the best side and
+started doggedly up.
+
+It seemed to the eyes like a short way to the top, but to his limbs and
+lungs it was a taxing struggle all the way. Page fell back twice before
+he collapsed on the sharp summit. The burning stone cut his midriff.
+Quickly he lifted himself up for a look, dizzy again with the climb and
+the endless blasting heat. He straddled the thin ridge and looked
+around.
+
+Rocks and sand ... rocks and sand ... black rocks and yellow sand....
+The car, the broken S O S, the pile of useless ashes where the fire had
+been. It didn’t look promising.
+
+He climbed down, letting himself fall most of the way into the soft
+sand. Sunny was a strange flushed color, breathing noisily, lying quite
+still. He thought of Richie Settick. Perhaps Sunny was weaker than Page
+wanted to believe. He needed to hear her voice.
+
+“It’s after four now,” he said. “Sun’ll go down soon.”
+
+Her lips began to work and he leaned very close to hear her. “This is
+hell,” she said with the merest flutter of breath behind her words. “The
+sun never sets in hell. You have to look at your mistakes in broad
+daylight for the rest of eternity. You have to burn straight through
+until you’re pure.”
+
+“I’m going to get you out of here,” he said. “Sunny, do you hear me?”
+
+“It’s too late,” she moaned.
+
+“My God, darling, what do you mean? We’re alive, aren’t we?”
+
+“It doesn’t matter, Page,” she said. He had to read her lips to grasp
+her meaning. She made almost no sound. “The baby....” She put a hand
+across her stomach. “I think it’s ... dead.”
+
+He was stricken silent. After a tortured pause he said, “How do you
+know?”
+
+“Doesn’t move.”
+
+“That doesn’t mean it’s dead. Sunny, I won’t let you give up. Sunny,
+Sunny, I love you so,” he said. “Darling, this isn’t any supernatural
+punishment we’re going through. If I weren’t such a stupid jerk we
+wouldn’t be here, and I’m going to do something about it.” She smiled
+wanly and tried to quiet him but he said, “No, I have to tell you now,”
+and she knew he meant there might not be another chance. So she listened
+in silence.
+
+“Sunny, there isn’t any right or wrong any more,” he said. “There’s only
+life. And love. To live is right, to die is wrong. Nothing else makes
+sense. There is no logic but love. No morality but survival.”
+
+He kissed her captive hand and spoke again with his mouth moving against
+her skin. “Darling, all I understood these past few months was that you
+were my _sister_. When I knew that, it was as if you stopped existing as
+a wife. You were my own flesh and blood and everything else came second:
+love, happiness, the baby—everything. But I was wrong, Sunny. And I
+damned near ruined both our lives.”
+
+She was so moved and heartened to hear him talk this way that she found
+herself almost willing to hope again for a miracle. Her eyes, green
+drops in her tired face, remained fastened on him.
+
+“Now that I know where I was wrong, the rest falls into place,” he said,
+putting his head down in the sand next to hers. “... I climbed the rock
+here,” he told her. “But everything looks the same. Just a few more
+rocks to the north. That’s the only—” He stopped talking, feeling a jerk
+of pressure in her hand. “What, honey?”
+
+“66—is north,” she whispered.
+
+“Yeah, but how far? A day’s walk? Two days? I can’t leave you that
+long,” he said.
+
+“You must have seen the lava bed ... the black rocks....”
+
+“No, the bed looks like a big strip of dusty tar. This was just more
+stones.”
+
+“But the stones—get thicker—near the bed. The crater—”
+
+“Sunny, we’ve left that lava bed maybe thirty or forty miles behind us.”
+
+“Check the map. There’s another bed,” she panted.
+
+“Another one?” He came to life, lurched to his feet, and weaved back to
+the car. The map was still on the front seat. Page opened it, moving and
+seeing somewhat like a drunk. His eyes were unfocussed for a moment, but
+he finally found Amboy Crater where they had turned off the big highway.
+He ran a finger slowly in a westerly direction, the way they must have
+taken. The terrain was represented as rugged and rocky. And sure enough,
+maybe thirty-five miles from Amboy, lay another lava bed: a long thin
+one with its own crater, which intersected Route 66.
+
+“My God, we must have crossed right over it. I never even saw it,” he
+said to himself. If that mass of black rocks to the north was really it,
+they might be as close as three or four miles to 66. Or as far as ten
+miles. Either way, it seemed suddenly possible to reach it.
+
+Page looked up at the sky. The sun was sliding down the western side
+toward the blue peaks. He judged the temperature to be still well over a
+hundred degrees. In another two hours, without the pitiless sun up
+there, he might be able to start walking—if that was in fact the lava
+bed ahead. But in the fast-falling desert dark he might also lose his
+way, and lose Sunny too.
+
+He stared northward, balancing his chances. We can’t live through
+another day, he thought. I have to do it now, while I can still see.
+
+“I’m going up to the highway,” he said in her ear. “You were right, that
+bed can’t be far. I’m starting now, so we can get you out of here this
+evening. You can’t take any more sun tomorrow. Do you understand?
+Sweetheart, don’t be afraid. I’ll be back before you know it.”
+
+“Go,” she murmured, unprotesting. “I’m in labor.”
+
+Page couldn’t disguise the shock and alarm on his face. “Dear God! I
+can’t leave you now. You can’t have that baby alone, Sunny.”
+
+“Pains ... still far apart,” she said laboriously. “Won’t be for a while
+... hours, maybe. Phone Settick.” It hurt to talk; she was afraid of
+triggering another cramp.
+
+“I’ll get an ambulance and call the doctor,” he said, recovering himself
+a little. “There must be a good hospital in Barstow. You’re going to be
+all right, darling.” He kissed her mouth. “When we get out of here—I’ll
+never leave you again,” he whispered.
+
+She watched him rise, tying her white handkerchief around his neck. He
+set out after one last look at her, wrapping a towel around his head
+like a turban.
+
+Page walked, as nearly as he could judge, straight north. He thought of
+nothing but Sunny ... Sunny, his wife ... alone and sick and terrified
+in the small shade of a rock. He thought of the pains she was
+experiencing, and the baby.
+
+Every fifty yards or so he turned back to look at her big brown rock.
+The car soon disappeared from view, and little by little the rock sank
+with it. Ahead he searched for the low black shelf that would mark the
+border of the lava bed.
+
+He stumbled forwards in this manner, half afraid his heart would
+collapse like punctured plastic beneath his ribs. It was about seven
+o’clock, with the sun nearly hidden at last behind the hills, when he
+saw the headlights of a car.
+
+Page stood blinking at them in a near-stupor. At first he thought he was
+gazing at a mirage. They seemed to be coming right toward him, though
+they were still far away. But abruptly they swerved and headed east.
+
+“No! No!” he croaked. “Over here!” For a sickening instant he thought
+his first and last real hope had evaporated. But another pair of
+headlights materialized about where the first had, followed by several
+more in quick succession. And then some coming from the east and
+traveling west.
+
+“The road!” He fell on his knees and wept. And suddenly lifted a
+bewildered head. Where was the lava bed? He rose shakily to his feet and
+turned around twice before he saw the black table to the east.
+
+It must be the second bed, all right. We came back so far we overshot
+it, he thought.
+
+He ran forward to the highway, dropping the towel as he went. It had
+only taken him, weak and lost as he was, three hours to reach the road.
+Sunny couldn’t be far behind him at that rate.
+
+
+
+
+                                   18
+
+
+“The car that finally stopped was a beat-up ’34 Chevy,” Page told Jack
+in the cool softly-lighted bar. “Had an old desert rat in it named
+Norcross. He took charge. Fed me sandwiches and tea from his food box.
+Stopped some guy in a station wagon and sent him back to Barstow for an
+ambulance.
+
+“He knew that desert like his own hand. Drove in on a dirt road just
+east of the lava bed—the one I was looking for and missed—and found
+Sunny in forty minutes. She drank a quart of that tea. He made her take
+it in small doses. I swear I wonder what would have happened if we
+hadn’t gotten to her so fast.” His face was drawn as he thought of it.
+
+“It was a miracle, and that’s the word for it. Norcross drove us back to
+66 and the ambulance picked us up there a few minutes later.”
+
+“How did you get Settick so fast?” Jack asked.
+
+“We got Brian first. The guy who got the ambulance for us called him in
+L. A. He got out to Barstow in a private plane. But by the time he
+arrived Sunny’s pains had remitted. She wanted to come back to Chicago
+and have the baby, and you couldn’t talk to her about it. I never saw a
+girl so set on anything in my life. There weren’t any other symptoms yet
+and she swore she’d make it back. Brian was against it at first but she
+told him she wanted her mother. And she wanted Richie to deliver the
+baby. She promised him, or something, and she was convinced if he didn’t
+she’d lose the baby. He could never have made it all the way to Barstow
+but Brian called him in New York and they arranged to have him leave
+that night for Chicago.
+
+“I think the worst fear Sunny had was that the baby would die. That was
+why she wanted June, and no other doctor but Richie. Brian said it might
+make the difference as to how well she pulled through it herself, so we
+hired a hospital plane and flew back here last night. Richie was waiting
+for us.”
+
+“Turned out to be an expensive honeymoon, didn’t it?” Jack said.
+
+“You said it,” Page agreed. “But if she makes it, it’ll be worth every
+damn penny. Come on, boy, it’s been over thirty minutes. I want to get
+back.”
+
+Jack slid off the bar stool and they walked out into the early evening
+together. “So you brought her straight to the hospital then?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, and called the Rothelis. They came in about five this morning.”
+
+“You still think you’re going to tell them who you are?”
+
+“Let’s not get started on that again, Jackson. You’re too good a friend.
+I don’t want to lose you twice.” He walked in silence for half a block
+and then he added, “It’s not as selfish as you think. I mean, they’ve
+been looking for me all these years, too, just the way I’ve been looking
+for them.”
+
+“And here you are, a member of the family twice over. What a handy
+arrangement.”
+
+“Spare me the humor,” Page said.
+
+“Sorry.”
+
+“It’s my decision, that’s all. Not yours.”
+
+“Yours and Sunny’s,” Jack said. “Is Brian Settick still here?” he asked
+while they waited for the elevator.
+
+“No. He delivered us safely to Richie and flew back. It was damn nice of
+him to come all that way with us.”
+
+“What about Richie?” Jack said as they entered the elevator.
+
+“This is his vacation. A little earlier than he planned, but....” They
+looked at each other. “I know,” Page said quietly. “He’s in love with
+her. But he’s in there saving her life and maybe my child’s. I can’t
+feel too bad about the guy.”
+
+Jack smiled at him with a new respect.
+
+They went directly to the maternity waiting room where Ben and June and
+Laura greeted them.
+
+“Still no news?” Page said, disappointed.
+
+“Not yet,” June said. “One young man came in ten minutes ago to say it
+wouldn’t be long, and everything’s still all right.”
+
+Page sat down wearily next to Laura. Jack stood by the door for a minute
+and finally said, “I can’t stand the suspense. I’m going to mosey around
+a while.”
+
+They hardly paid him any attention.
+
+Jack went out with an idea of getting the truth on Sunny’s condition. It
+was possible that the nurses and others were trying to soften things for
+her relatives. He looked around the halls, joshed with the nurses at the
+central desk, and tried to pump them for information. But they were
+evasive.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+After fifteen minutes he decided it was no use and started back toward
+the waiting room. He was nearing the door when he saw a young man, blond
+and stocky, pulling a white surgical cap from his head as he hurried
+toward the room from the opposite direction. Jack stopped him at the
+door.
+
+“Excuse me,” he said. “Dr. Settick?”
+
+“Yes,” Settick said impatiently, reaching for the door. Jack caught his
+arm.
+
+“I’m Jack Mann. Laura’s husband. You delivered our daughter, Betsy.
+Remember?”
+
+Settick looked up at him then. “For God’s sake,” he said with a tired
+smile, and gripped Jack’s hand. “I sure do remember. What are you doing
+here?”
+
+“Came to hold a friend’s hand,” Jack said with a smile.
+
+“Well, how are you? How’s Betsy? She must be quite a young lady by now.”
+
+“Sure is—and we’re all fine.”
+
+“Jack can you hold on a minute?” Settick said. “I have a difficult case
+here and I want to tell her family—”
+
+“Sunny Pringle?” Jack interrupted.
+
+Richie, about to enter the waiting room, turned again to gaze at Jack.
+“You know her?” he said, surprised.
+
+“That’s why I’m here. Page is an old buddy of mine.”
+
+The doctor rubbed his forehead, frowning, and his expression alarmed
+Jack. “No kidding,” Richie said. “Maybe you’d like to give them the
+news, then. I’m pretty beat.”
+
+“Sure,” Jack said. “How’s Sunny?”
+
+He watched Settick’s face and experienced abrupt relief when he smiled
+again.
+
+“She’s exhausted, but she’s okay,” Richie said.
+
+Jack hesitated. “A million thanks, doc,” he said at last. “I speak for
+her family, too, especially Page.... Then I guess the baby came?”
+
+“Yes, it came.” He spoke quietly, obviously holding himself in.
+
+“No go?” Jack asked, almost afraid to know.
+
+“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Richie said. “There’s some hope. Quite a bit,
+in fact. It’s pretty small, only three and a half pounds, and
+dehydrated, but we’re going to keep a twenty-four hour watch. You know,
+Sunny’s had problems all through this pregnancy....” He hesitated, not
+sure how much Jack knew.
+
+But Jack nodded. “I know all about it,” he said.
+
+Richie gave him a fleeting glance of surprise. “Well, _that_, and its
+coming so early.... I wouldn’t want to say anything for sure.”
+
+“Boy or girl?”
+
+“A boy. I think she wanted a boy. She never said so, but when I told her
+I wish you could have seen the look on her face. She looked the way she
+did the day I told her she was expecting.” He smiled to himself, and
+Jack understood. That was one fine intimate moment Settick had shared
+with Sunny; probably the last. And it had happened while he was
+delivering another man’s child to her.
+
+Jack felt a strong sympathy for him. Settick had no way of knowing that
+Jack knew his feelings for his favorite patient. And Jack had no
+intention of humiliating him with the knowledge. But the sympathy
+communicated itself to Settick and he opened up a little.
+
+“He isn’t deformed?” Jack asked.
+
+“No, he’s perfect. Just so damn tiny, and I don’t know how strong he is.
+Any little kid who can live through that desert and a premature birth
+must be pretty tough, though. We can’t feed him for a little while yet—I
+don’t think he could take it. But I want to get him started on water as
+soon as I can. He needs the fluids badly.”
+
+A little silence fell and Jack took advantage of it to press a question
+that had made him apprehensive for many months. “Doc,” he said, speaking
+cautiously. Richie, lost in himself, looked up. “What do you think—about
+talking to Page and Sunny?” Jack said. “It’s a hard thing to ask you,
+but somebody’s got to and they’ve had an earful from me.”
+
+“Talking to them? What about?” Richie said.
+
+“You know what about,” Jack said simply. “I wouldn’t ask you otherwise.”
+He saw from Richie’s face that he understood and was on his guard. All
+the doctor had to go on was Jack’s word that he was Page’s friend.
+
+Jack pulled him to the wall out of the stream of corridor traffic, and
+spoke with hasty urgency.
+
+“The incest, Doc,” he said. “Let’s not beat around the bush. Page was
+the one who fought it, the one who feared an abnormal child and all the
+rest. If you’d give them just five minutes—”
+
+“They’d resent it,” Settick objected. “I’ve stuck my nose too far into
+their business as it is.”
+
+“One more inch,” Jack said.
+
+“He wouldn’t leave her now, would he?” Richie said. “With the baby and
+all?”
+
+“What if they lose the baby? Somebody’s got to get to him before that,
+if it happens.”
+
+“But he’s jealous of me. I mean—” He stopped himself, but Jack shook his
+head.
+
+“You’d be surprised what a big boy he’s getting to be,” he said with a
+grin. “He can take it. Do this for them, Doc. Sunny would always
+remember it.”
+
+Richie turned away for a minute of self-argument. “Would it save the
+marriage?” he said. “Because that’s the only justification for it. Sunny
+doesn’t know I know about her and Page. And I tried to tell Page once,
+but he didn’t catch on.”
+
+“It might be the only thing that could put Page on the right track
+permanently,” Jack said.
+
+Another pause, this one briefer, and Settick said, “Okay. I’ll do it for
+Sunny.”
+
+Jack clapped him on the back.
+
+“You don’t mind telling her family about the baby?” Settick said.
+
+“Not a bit.”
+
+“Thanks. Tell them they can see her for a minute when she gets to her
+room. I wouldn’t let them ordinarily till she’s rested, but she needs
+her mother. And Page. The baby’s in the nursery if you’d like a look.”
+He started to walk away, but Jack called him.
+
+“Richie,” he said. “I’m glad you got here in time. Page said Sunny was
+determined to get back here for you.”
+
+“I’m pretty glad myself,” Settick said. And then he turned and walked
+off down the hall.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jack entered the waiting room, walked over and sat down, and looked at
+everyone. Page was brooding in silence, the others conversing quietly.
+
+“It’s a boy,” Jack said. They all looked up slowly and suddenly June
+gave a gasp and clutched Jack’s arm.
+
+“What?” Page cried as the words registered in his head. Jack smiled.
+“It’s a boy. Sunny’s fine.”
+
+“And the baby?” they all asked together.
+
+“He’s very small,” Jack said. “Three and half pounds and Settick says
+he’s had a hard time of it. But he’s perfectly formed and he has a
+chance. He’s in the nursery now.”
+
+“Oh, my God,” Page said. A heavy pulse was visible in his throat. June
+cried freely and so did Laura. Rotheli was speechless with joy and
+relief.
+
+“I ran into the doctor in the hall,” Jack explained. “He was beat to the
+bricks. Told me to tell you the good news.”
+
+“Can I see Sunny now?” Page said, springing up and heading for the door.
+
+“Calm down, old buddy,” Jack said, chuckling. “What would she do with a
+nervous nitwit like you in her room? The nurse’ll come get you when it’s
+time. Relax boy, she’s okay.”
+
+They filed up to look through the nursery windows.
+
+“Look at all the babies,” Jack said. “Makes you realize what they mean
+by ‘population explosion.’”
+
+Laura shushed him and they walked along looking for name-tags on the
+plastic bassinets.
+
+“Here he is!” Rotheli exclaimed. He had gone off to investigate on his
+own, and called them from the end of a corridor where he was looking
+through the glass into a special room for the premature babies. Page
+rushed up, followed by the others.
+
+“Lord,” he said, astonished by the impossibly small baby in the
+incubator. “Is that all?”
+
+“Is that _all_?” June cried, amused and dismayed both, as Laura and Jack
+joined them.
+
+“He’s so wrinkled. He looks like the map of Asia,” Page said.
+
+“He’s absolutely beautiful,” June whispered.
+
+“He’s absolutely bare, too,” Page said. “What’s the matter with these
+damn nurses? The poor kid will freeze to death.”
+
+“He’s in an incubator,” Laura said with a smile. “It’s body temperature
+in there.”
+
+“Well, doesn’t he need diapers like the rest of them?” Page asked.
+
+“After two days on the desert?” Jack grinned.
+
+“He’s too little to stand dressing yet,” Laura said gently. “He’s okay,
+new papa. They know better in there what to do with him than you do.”
+
+A young nurse came in and hung a card reading: “Baby Boy Pringle” on the
+end of the incubator, and then, seeing the crowd outside the window, she
+smiled at them. Jack pointed at Page, who went red with the first flush
+of fatherly pride.
+
+“Hey,” he said, turning curiously to Rotheli. “She just put that sign
+up. How did you know it was our baby?”
+
+“He looks—well, a little like both of you. God, I remember when I first
+saw Roger,” Rotheli said nostalgically. “I must have told you about
+Roger, Page. He was our first. We lost him.” His eyes were fixed on his
+grandson with a wonderful expression.
+
+Page stared at him. “Was—Roger that little?” He had been going to say,
+Was _I_ that little? The near miss made him shaky.
+
+“Not _that_ little, but he was small, and had those same eyes....”
+
+“The most beautiful eyes,” June whispered, surprising them all with this
+recollection salvaged from sickness. Page watched her, fascinated, the
+way children are, to hear his own mother speak of him with such love in
+her voice. He cherished every word and never afterward forgot it. “You
+watch,” June said. “This one will have eyes like that when he gets them
+open. Great big dark blue eyes that dominate his whole face. Like two
+plums pressed in a cookie. So bright and sweet.”
+
+Page wanted to embrace her. Here he was, a man and a father, with the
+living proof of his virility in that bassinet, and he wanted to put his
+arms around June and selfishly tell her everything and be mothered.
+There was nothing of revenge left in his feelings at all. But he
+responded to Jack’s tug on his sleeve and got hold of himself. Jack had
+been keeping an eye on him and he could see what was building up.
+
+Page looked back at his infant son: so small and homely, face screwed
+up, chest working, small fists clenched tightly. He felt love and hope
+and fierce anxiety all at once.
+
+“I have to see Sunny,” he said. “I _have_ to.”
+
+“You think you’re tired,” Jack reminded him. “Let the poor girl catch
+her breath.”
+
+Moments later a nurse came to fetch Page. But when the others tried to
+tag along she held up a hand to stop them.
+
+“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Usually we only let the fathers in. Dr.
+Settick wants to see them together for a minute. Mr. and Mrs. Rotheli?”
+
+Ben nodded at her.
+
+“I’ll come for you when the doctor is ready. Your daughter is anxious to
+see you. She’s been through quite a lot, you know. I don’t know how long
+you’ll be able to spend with her today. Mr. Pringle, you come with me.”
+
+She went off with a starchy rustle and Page rushed after her. Jack
+called after him, “Keep in touch, boy!” but Page was too distracted to
+hear.
+
+June turned and told Jack, “I’ll tell him for you.”
+
+Page went directly to Sunny’s bed. He leaned over her, pausing for a
+moment to look at her and reassure himself, and then kissed her very
+gently. He didn’t even notice Richie Settick in a corner of the room.
+
+“Darling, you’re wonderful,” he whispered. “I’m so proud of you.”
+
+She was weak and quiet beneath her falsely healthy sunburn, but
+profoundly happy. She knew the whole truth about the baby’s chances, but
+she knew the scope of Richie’s ability, too, and her hopes were strong.
+
+“Did you see him?” she asked. “How does he look? Is he in an incubator?”
+
+“Yes. He looks like the future president of the United States,” Page
+laughed. He kissed her again while she smiled at him and would have kept
+on kissing her, but Richie cleared his throat and Page looked up
+suddenly.
+
+“Sorry to butt in,” Richie said.
+
+Page turned to face him. “Don’t apologize,” he said quickly. “That’s my
+department.” He held out his hand.
+
+Richie came over to take it but added uncomfortably, “I have one more
+thing to say to you. You may not feel so apologetic afterwards.”
+
+“You’ve earned the right to speak your mind,” Page told him. “Shoot.”
+
+Sunny stiffened a little. She hadn’t expected any speeches from Richie
+and for a dread moment she imagined him confessing his love for her. She
+watched him anxiously.
+
+“I wanted to say this to you now,” Richie said, “before I have to leave.
+Before we know for sure how things will turn out for the baby, and all.”
+
+“Say what?” Page said. Sunny tried to interrupt but Settick silenced
+them both with a wave of his hand.
+
+“This isn’t easy for me—or for you,” he said self-consciously. “But I—oh
+hell, I don’t want to sound like a pompous idiot. I just want you to
+know that I—I understand what the problem is between you two.”
+
+He stopped a moment and looked at their faces, both turned toward him
+with amazed attention. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen you
+together,” he went on quietly. “You look a lot alike.”
+
+Sunny’s mouth dropped open and Page made a sudden move as if to break in
+on the doctor. But something in Settick’s expression stopped them and
+they let him finish.
+
+“I don’t know whether it’ll make any difference to you—what I’m going to
+say,” he continued. “I figured the whole thing out months ago, Sunny.
+The incest thing. It wasn’t your fault I did. You were too unhappy to
+keep secrets very well.
+
+“Page—if you’ll forgive me—there’s only one thing wrong with your wife.
+And I don’t mean the fact that she’s your sister.” The Pringles stared
+at him. “I mean the fact that she’s afraid of losing you. If she knew
+your marriage was secure for the rest of your lives, she’d be a well
+woman right now.
+
+“I know why you objected to the marriage, Page, and I respect your
+reasons. God knows I’m not passing judgment. I only want to make you
+see, if I can, that the reasons don’t stand up any more. Sunny’s life is
+at stake, and maybe your sanity. Don’t worry about the baby. I’m going
+to watch that child day and night if I have to stay here a month.
+Whatever happens, I can assure you of this much: there’s not a damn
+thing wrong with his heredity. If he makes it he’ll be strong and sane
+and healthy.”
+
+There was a little silence while Richie girded himself for the last and
+toughest thing to say. Sunny and Page waited intuitively for him to go
+on. Settick walked to the door and put his hand on the knob. At last he
+turned back and added, “I can’t tell you to go back together. I can only
+ask you to, and recommend it ... not as a ‘professional man,’ but as a
+friend.”
+
+He smiled a little. “For God’s sake, Page, don’t let her go. Don’t ever
+let her go.”
+
+The two men looked hard at each other and then Richie left them alone
+together.
+
+
+
+
+                                   19
+
+
+Jack and Laura were permitted to see Sunny in the evening. It wasn’t the
+usual hospital procedure, but Sunny wasn’t the usual hospital case, and
+Settick had arranged a few privileges for her. Anything that would keep
+her spirits high was granted, and the Manns were near the top of her
+list.
+
+When they arrived, she had just wakened from a long nap and was talking
+intimately to Page. She looked beautiful in spite of the harsh burn on
+her face when she turned to greet them, and Laura felt a catch in her
+throat as she bent to kiss Sunny’s cheek.
+
+Sunny took her hands with affection and thanked Jack for nursing Page
+through the delivery.
+
+“You look great, honey,” Jack said. “And so does the baby.”
+
+“Does he?” She beamed. “They won’t let me see him till tomorrow. He
+can’t be moved tonight and I can’t get out of bed.”
+
+Jack and Laura obligingly launched into friendly praises of little
+Pringle, talking with the comfortable closeness of long acquaintance,
+until Jack finally said, “I can’t wait any longer, Page. I have to ask.
+What did you do about the Rothelis? Did you tell them who you are?”
+
+It was Sunny who answered him. “When they came in this afternoon they
+were so happy, so relieved,” she said.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her parents had chatted with her and Page for a little while. Sunny was
+tired but full of Demerol, a synthetic derivative of morphine, that made
+her unnaturally talkative. Her parents didn’t keep her long—just enough
+to reassure themselves she was all right. Before they left, Ben asked
+what they planned to name the baby.
+
+Sunny and Page drew a blank. They hadn’t talked about it since the happy
+night Sunny revealed her pregnancy to Page and he suggested calling the
+child Ben, after her father. After that they dropped the subject as if
+to mention it was to put a hex on the child.
+
+Sunny, thinking fast, said, “‘Baby Boy Pringle,’ just like on the card,”
+and they laughed. But Page broke in and took over.
+
+“We’re going to call him Roger, Ben,” he said.
+
+And the laughter stopped abruptly. Ben looked at his son-in-law with
+disbelief at first and then a slow grateful smile spread over his face.
+He put his arms around Page and gave him a bearhug that made Page groan
+and chuckle all at once.
+
+“My God!” Ben exclaimed, savoring it at last. “It’ll be like a chance to
+watch our own Roger grow up. You have no idea how much they look alike.
+Page, you didn’t do this just for us? You don’t have to bribe us to
+babysit, you know.”
+
+“I did it for all of us, Ben,” Page said.
+
+And Ben, oppressed suddenly with the memory of his first son, went to
+Sunny’s bedside. “I want you to understand something, honey,” he told
+his daughter. “There’s something your mother and I never told you. Right
+now, with everything happening the way it is—I feel as if you ought to
+know. It’s about our Roger. You see, he—didn’t die when he was a baby.
+We had to give him out for adoption.”
+
+He threw June a hasty glance to see how she was taking it, but she
+nodded at him to go on.
+
+Sunny, taken aback at the confession and wanting to make it easier for
+her father, said at once, “I know, Dad.” And bit her lip, realizing too
+late that in his view, she couldn’t possibly know.
+
+“You know?” he repeated, shocked.
+
+“I mean—you never said he _died_, Dad. You only said you _lost_ him.
+Never in all these years did you tell us he died. Chuckie and I figured
+out years ago that something else might have happened to him.”
+
+Ben stood gazing irresolutely at her for a minute until June said, “It
+was done through our doctor. He gave Roger to a fine family. A man and
+his wife who’d wanted a son for years and could never have one of their
+own. We never knew them, but the doctor told us they were wonderful
+generous people and they’d bring him up with love. That was the most
+important thing.”
+
+“Yes, of course,” Sunny said softly. She was afraid she would start
+crying if she said any more.
+
+“We had to do it, Sunny,” Ben said. “Your mother—”
+
+“I know, Dad.”
+
+“It was the only tragic mistake I think we ever made in our marriage,”
+Ben went on. “We’ll never stop wondering where he went, what happened to
+him. But in a way I think it’s just as well we don’t know. He might not
+want to know us, he might resent us, he might even disappoint us. I wish
+him much happiness, wherever he is. But now that we have Page in the
+family....” He smiled at him. “We’ve got a son.”
+
+For a moment Sunny felt the shattering confession close to the surface,
+and she watched Page tensely, holding her breath. But Page had seen his
+parents looking at his own son a little while before, and he knew he was
+as close to them as he would ever be. The desire to confront them with
+the truth had dissipated when they were confronted instead with his
+child. He would never tell them now.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Then they never really lost Roger at all,” Laura said softly. “I’m so
+glad, Sunny. So awfully glad.”
+
+“Have the Pringles seen the baby yet?” Jack asked.
+
+“June and Ben are going over to their place tomorrow for lunch. It’ll be
+their first meeting,” Page told him. “Looks like you called things
+right, Jackson.”
+
+Jack ignored the compliment. “Are you planning to go back to New York
+one of these days?” he said.
+
+“Damn right,” Page said. “I don’t know what the _Sunday Magazine_ will
+want to do about me. But I know what _I_ want to do: stay in that town
+and write.”
+
+“Alone?” Jack said, glancing at Sunny.
+
+“Are you kidding? With three mouths to feed instead of two?”
+
+And Sunny laughed at him the way she used to when Page was courting her,
+and kissed his hand.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“What if they lose little Roger?” Laura asked Jack going down in the
+elevator at the close of visiting hours.
+
+“They won’t, if sheer love can keep him alive,” Jack said. “If not ...
+it’ll be bad, but they’ll have each other. And I have the feeling Page
+is willing now to have more children, whatever happens.”
+
+“Do you think they’ll be happy?”
+
+“Do you doubt it?” he said.
+
+“Page is a funny guy, Jack. He never actually said she was his wife now,
+in so many words. And a scandal could still hurt him.”
+
+“Could hurt anybody, sweetie,” Jack said, putting a hand on her neck and
+tickling it lightly. “But not half as much as a divorce. I think they
+could face a scandal all right, if they ever had to.”
+
+Laura turned to smile at him. “Well, they’ll never have to on my
+account,” she said. “No one will ever get that story out of _me_.”
+
+He knew she was scolding him gently and he said, “You mean ‘Mr.
+Winkler’? He was Page’s step-father, honey—George Pringle.”
+
+Her mouth fell open and he hugged her as the elevator door opened on the
+ground floor, laughing at her surprise.
+
+“The elder Pringles are not fools, after all,” he said. “And neither are
+the younger Pringles. They’ll make it.”
+
+
+                                THE END
+                   of an Original Gold Medal Novel by
+                               Ann Bannon
+
+
+
+
+                           Blood of the Grape
+
+   ROSE was old before she was thirty, searching for the right man
+   but a sucker for the wrong one.
+
+   GINNY was jailbait with big scared eyes, fifteen years old and
+   already running from the law.
+
+   NITA was a Spanish spitfire in high heels who saved her energy
+   for fast living when the sun went down.
+
+   MITCH was the hiring boss, and ex-pro football punk who gave out
+   small jobs in return for large favors.
+
+                              Wild Harvest
+
+                         by Stephen Longstreet
+
+   A bold, earthy story of the girls who work the fields under the
+   California sun, by the author of THE CRIME, THE PEDLOCKS, etc.
+
+                                ONLY 35¢
+
+                               GM #S1068
+
+                     Gold Medal Books are available
+                     wherever paperbacks are sold.
+
+   If your dealer is sold out, send 35¢ plus 10¢ for postage and
+   handling to Gold Medal Books, Fawcett Publications, Inc.,
+   Greenwich, Conn. If order is for five or more books, no postage
+   or handling charge is necessary. Order by number and title. No
+   Canadian orders.
+
+
+
+
+                           AN EXPLOSIVE NOVEL
+                       A POWERFUL MOTION PICTURE
+
+   She was as lush as the countryside, as fertile and as hard to
+   tame. She was a sharecropper’s daughter, and at a ripe eighteen
+   she’d already put a price on herself.
+
+                           Desire in the Dust
+
+                          by Harry Whittington
+
+   And now Harry Whittington’s best-selling story of backwoods
+   passion has been brought to the screen in the big new CinemaScope
+   picture starring Raymond Burr and Martha Hyer.
+
+                                ONLY 25¢
+
+                                GM #1050
+
+                ON SALE NOW WHEREVER PAPERBACKS ARE SOLD
+
+   If your dealer is sold out, send 25¢ plus 10¢ for postage and
+   handling to Gold Medal Books, Fawcett Publications, Inc.,
+   Greenwich, Conn. If order is for five or more books, no postage
+   or handling charge is necessary. Order by number and title. No
+   Canadian orders.
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical
+and punctuation errors as well as variations in hyphenation were
+silently amended. All other changes are shown here (before/after):
+
+   [p. 33]:
+   ...  huge picture window looking out on Lake Michigan. Sunny ...
+   ... a huge picture window looking out on Lake Michigan. Sunny ...
+
+   [p. 67]:
+   ... “You rather have the baby than me, is that it?” he said ...
+   ... “You’d rather have the baby than me, is that it?” he
+       said ...
+
+   [p. 75]:
+   ... and earful of Page’s escapades over the years and never ...
+   ... an earful of Page’s escapades over the years and never ...
+
+   [p. 80]:
+   ... “Am it talking as if I didn’t?” ...
+   ... “Am I talking as if I didn’t?” ...
+
+   [p. 89]:
+   ... restrained at first, but Laura’s warmth and concern shined ...
+   ... restrained at first, but Laura’s warmth and concern shone ...
+
+   [p. 105]:
+   ... him because he’s damn fairy!” ...
+   ... him because he’s a damn fairy!” ...
+
+   [p. 148]:
+   ... he ushered Page inside ahead of him, talking off his hat ...
+   ... he ushered Page inside ahead of him, taking off his hat ...
+
+   [p. 167]:
+   ... thumping the rear fender as he shoved to his feet. “Before ...
+   ... thumping the rear fender as he shoved himself to his feet.
+       “Before ...
+
+   [p. 171]:
+   ... He shook his head, talking her in his arms. She
+       half-collapsed ...
+   ... He shook his head, taking her in his arms. She half-collapsed ...
+
+   [p. 171]:
+   ... underneath it, till we’ve got more share here,” he said. ...
+   ... underneath it, till we’ve got more shade here,” he said. ...
+
+   [p. 178]:
+   ... “You still think you’re going to tell them you are?” ...
+   ... “You still think you’re going to tell them who you
+       are?” ...
+
+   [p. 181]:
+   ... “You know what about,” Jack simply. “I wouldn’t ...
+   ... “You know what about,” Jack said simply. “I wouldn’t ...
+
+   [p. 190]:
+   ... Vin Packer ...
+   ... Ann Bannon ...
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78780 ***
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+   <!-- TITLE="The marriage" -->
+   <!-- AUTHOR="Ann Bannon" -->
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78780 ***</div>
+
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<div class="centerpic">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter blurb chapter">
+<p>
+It should have been the happiest night
+of their lives—because of Page’s new
+job and the baby Sunny was expecting.
+But then the long distance phone
+call had come....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny sat in tense silence, holding herself
+together by sheer force of will.
+Page stood motionless, his back to her,
+his head bowed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page?” she whispered. “What is it,
+darling? Did your step-father tell you
+who you really are?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He told me,” Page said bitterly. He
+turned to his wife and saw the fear on
+her face. “He told me you and I are
+through, Sunny. It’s the same as if we’d
+never been married at all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+THAT WAS WHEN THE TERROR BEGAN—THE
+NIGHT THE WORLD FELL
+APART AND TURNED TWO LOVERS
+INTO FRIGHTENED STRANGERS.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter also chapter">
+<p>
+Other Original Gold Medal Books by
+Ann Bannon
+</p>
+
+<p class="list">
+ODD GIRL OUT<br>
+I AM A WOMAN<br>
+WOMEN IN THE SHADOWS<br>
+JOURNEY TO A WOMAN
+</p>
+
+<p class="seal">
+The Gold Medal seal on this book means
+it is not a reprint. To select an original
+book, look for the Gold Medal seal.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<h1 class="title">
+The Marriage
+</h1>
+
+<p class="subt">
+An Original Gold Medal Novel
+</p>
+
+<p class="aut">
+by ANN BANNON
+</p>
+
+<p class="pub">
+GOLD MEDAL BOOKS<br>
+Fawcett Publications, Inc., Greenwich, Conn.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter impressum chapter">
+<p>
+Copyright © 1960 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First Printing, December 1960
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All rights reserved, including the right to
+reproduce this book or portions thereof.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All characters in this book are fictional
+and any resemblance to persons living or dead
+is purely coincidental.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Printed in the United States of America
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-1">
+<a id="page-5" class="pagenum" title="5"></a>
+1
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Jack Mann answered the phone with a yawn, as if he
+were expecting his mother-in-law. But it was simply contented,
+end-of-the-day fatigue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He picked up the receiver and smiled at his pretty
+young wife, Laura. She was combing their daughter’s hair,
+getting her ready for bed. Betsy was a lovely child, delicately
+blond and appealing, like her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a still, soft evening, early summer in Chicago,
+and pleasant weather.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hello?” Jack said into the phone, coming down from
+the yawn with a comfortable sigh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hello? May I speak to Jack Mann, please?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Speaking.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a male voice and unfamiliar to Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mr. Mann, my name is Winkler.” The voice was cultured,
+a little shy. “Some friends of yours asked me to
+call....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh God, Jack thought. He’s visiting town and wants a
+free sack. Or worse, a free girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura Mann looked up to see her husband’s comical
+dismay. “Who is it?” she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack shrugged. “What friends?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Pringles. Sunny and Page,” Winkler said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack Mann came to astonished attention. “Page Pringle?”
+he said, and Laura’s face, too, became tense with
+interest. She forgot Betsy’s hair and watched Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-6" class="pagenum" title="6"></a>
+“Is he all right?” Jack asked. “Where is he?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, he’s fine,” said Winkler. “I talked with him just
+two days ago. He says you were roommates at the University
+of Illinois for a year.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s right. He signed up for my math course, and
+when I passed him he offered me a bunk. We ended up
+good friends. But ...” Jack’s face wrinkled into a mass
+of worried lines. “I’m surprised to hear he mentioned
+me to you, after the set-to we had last time we met. My
+wife and I have been damn worried about him—and
+Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’re out in California, in Barstow. On a honeymoon,
+they said,” Winkler told him. “Should be back
+here in Chicago in a week.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack, listening to the strange voice, felt himself getting
+careful and suspicious. Who the hell was Winkler? Sunny
+and Page Pringle were Jack’s friends, arguments or no,
+and there was a lot about their lives and their marriage
+that a stranger would have been stunned speechless to
+learn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the most curious marriage in all Jack’s wide
+knowledge: shocking, illegal, passionately faithful, even
+wildly wonderful at times. Some miracle had held it together,
+but there was no way of telling for how much
+longer. It seemed to Jack, whenever he saw Page and
+Sunny, that the bonds of their love were about to snap
+and send them spinning apart for the rest of their lives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who are you, Mr. Winkler?” Jack asked frankly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Winkler, like Jack, became wary in his turn. “I
+live here in Chicago,” he said. “I work here, and....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And?” Jack prompted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mr. Mann, this is pretty forward of me, but I wonder
+if I could meet you? If you’d care to have dinner with
+me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just a minute,” Jack said, covering the receiver. “Some
+guy who says he knows the Pringles and they told him
+to look us up,” he whispered to Laura.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, ask him to dinner with us tomorrow,” she said.
+Husband and wife gazed uncertainly at each other for
+a moment. Winkler could be a blackmailer, a detective
+or a guy with a grudge, as well as a friend. At last Laura
+<a id="page-7" class="pagenum" title="7"></a>
+made up her mind for both of them. “If it’s about Page
+and Sunny Pringle, I want to hear it,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Jack invited him.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Winkler’s cautious voice sounded almost relieved.
+“Thanks, Mr. Mann; I’ll be there,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack hung up, giving Laura a wry grin. “Well, now
+we’ve done it,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
+“Who the hell could he be?” He walked toward Laura,
+catching Betsy on the way and hoisting her into his arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Didn’t he give you a clue?” Laura’s lips were parted
+with curiosity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just that he met the Pringles in Barstow, California.”
+He sat down and released his daughter, who scampered
+out of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Damn it, honey, do you suppose those two kids
+worked it out?” Jack said. “Went back together in spite
+of everything?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It doesn’t sound like Page,” Laura answered. “But
+still, the way he loves that girl is something. It seems to
+be a case of head against heart. Only I always thought
+Page was two-thirds head.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He thought so too, till he fell for Sunny,” Jack said,
+lighting a cigarette. “I never saw a kid so much in love.
+And being married to her only made it better. Gosh, life
+is goofy. You’d have thought that was the world’s ideal
+marriage. Two handsome, intelligent people, madly in
+love, charming, ambitious, happy. They couldn’t miss.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That just made it tougher for them when everything
+suddenly went to hell,” Laura said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yeah. They didn’t know about each other when they
+married. At least we knew about us, honey. We knew the
+worst. Maybe we figured we couldn’t last and when we
+did, it came as a wonderful surprise.” They smiled at each
+other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here we are, safe and comfortable and indecently
+happy,” Jack went on. “If I could just teach you to squeeze
+the toothpaste from the bottom.” She laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Couple of queers,” he said, speaking the word gently,
+without malice. “And we made it. The Pringles barely had
+seven months before the sky fell on them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-8" class="pagenum" title="8"></a>
+Laura shook her head with pity. “I still think they
+could make it work,” she said. “They have a tough thing
+to live with, but Sunny’s ready to try. If Page could
+only—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page is the problem child. He always was,” Jack
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Problem? Or child?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A little of both. And in a crisis, a lot of both,” he
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe this thing will force him to grow up,” Laura
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe. If he has the guts to go back and live with
+Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lord, she’s beautiful,” Laura remembered. “I don’t
+see how he can keep his hands off her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hang on, doll,” Jack laughed. “Just because <em>you</em>
+can’t—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never touched her!” she protested indignantly. But
+his doubtful grin made her add, “Well, not like you think,
+darling. I never made a pass at her. You know, the kind
+you make when you feel like bed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You never felt like bed with Sunny Pringle?” Jack
+teased. “Come on, honey, don’t put me on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura pulled her poise around her like a shawl. “Sunny’s
+a wonderful girl,” she said. “She is also the prettiest girl
+I ever saw in my life. And to make it all perfect, she’s
+in love with her husband.” She spoke ruefully enough
+to make him chuckle again. He couldn’t help kidding
+this wife he treasured, but he did it with obvious love
+and she never resented it. Their relationship was odd,
+but satisfying to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I just held her,” Laura admitted. “I comforted her
+when she hit the dumps. I even kissed her hair. Like a
+sister. You show me a sister who could be any more
+proper than I was!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll show you a sister who’d have kissed more than
+her hair, that’s for damn sure,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack, you talk like a jealous husband.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Which I am,” he said softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She relented and went over to his chair, going behind
+to massage his shoulders. He relaxed with a sigh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-9" class="pagenum" title="9"></a>
+“I know you are,” she said. “You’re never noisy about
+it, but it hurts you to see me with a woman. Jack darling,
+sometimes I think you ought to find somebody, too. Just
+for now and then, for a release. You wouldn’t feel so
+possessive about me, then. It’d make you happier.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m as happy as I can stand to be,” he said, caressing
+her hands. “I have you and Betsy. And I’m through
+horsing around with pretty boys forever. When you hit
+forty you look too silly chasing the teen-agers. All I
+want now is my family.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She smiled down at the top of his brush cut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And if I have to be a little jealous ... well, what the
+hell. It’s a small price.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She gave his head a fond shove, dislodging his heavy
+tortoise-shell glasses. “Okay, have it your way,” she said.
+“Just explain one thing to me. How come two inverts
+like us can make a marriage work, and two normal
+people like Page and Sunny can’t?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I could explain that, I’d write a book.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura was a lesbian. But like all lesbians, she couldn’t
+escape her femininity. She loved Jack Mann in every
+way but one, and she would never leave him. Her love
+had given her the courage to bear him their child. She
+admired his mind, enjoyed his company, and needed
+him. No other man would ever touch her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack gave her her head with the women she wanted,
+but she never abused his confidence, nor exposed him and
+Betsy to her occasional crushes. That part of her life was
+completely separate from her home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For Laura and Jack Mann, home, love, and marriage
+were inviolate. Their life together hadn’t been easy to
+build, and they were proud of it. It made the Pringles’
+crack-up all the more sad and dramatic to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you and I had found out about ourselves what Page
+and Sunny found out—so suddenly—<em>after</em> they were married,”
+Jack mused. “Honey, I’m not so sure I could have
+taken it any better than Page did. It was that bad.” He
+ditched his cigarette in an ashtray by the chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you ever know anybody named Winkler?” she
+asked him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will tomorrow night,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-10" class="pagenum" title="10"></a>
+“What does he want to tell us? That Page and Sunny
+are going to stick it out?” Laura said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Think it over,” Jack said. “If he can tell us that, he
+knows the whole damn crazy story.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He couldn’t!” she cried. “Almost nobody knows.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If he doesn’t, I’ll bet my last dollar he wants us to
+tell <em>him</em>,” Jack said. “And that gives me an idea.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“An idea who he is?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he only winked at her.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-2">
+<a id="page-11" class="pagenum" title="11"></a>
+2
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Winkler, tall and reserved, inclined his silver head and
+listened, absorbed, while Jack talked. He was kind and
+friendly, almost ceremoniously polite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Manns had greeted him earlier in the evening with
+misgivings. But he seemed more afraid of them than they
+of him, and it made them anxious to reassure him. Jack
+was naturally gregarious, Winkler naturally shy, so it was
+inevitable that Jack should take over the conversation.
+He spoke of Page and Sunny Pringle, answering Winkler’s
+questions about the safe, innocent side of their lives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page was a good-looking boy,” Jack said. “Over six
+feet, blond, clean-cut. It’s a lucky thing, too, considering
+how he met Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura kicked him under the table, the way she did when
+he spoke too warmly of other men, and poured Winkler
+some more coffee to distract him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He seemed very intelligent,” Winkler told Jack. “It’s
+hard for a stranger to judge, though, and I only talked
+with him for a little while in the restaurant where we
+met. He seemed to need somebody to talk to and I was
+there. Later he said he wanted you to know that the things
+you told him during your argument were beginning to
+make sense now. He said you’d know what he meant.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack nodded. “Where did you meet?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was a little hash house in Barstow. On Route 66.
+He was with the loveliest girl I ever saw. His wife?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny,” Laura said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-12" class="pagenum" title="12"></a>
+“I’m surprised he asked you to come here,” Jack
+said. “I didn’t think he had much respect for me after
+that fight.” Laura gave him a warning frown, and he got
+up to get the Cointreau and liqueur glasses. While he
+poured, Winkler asked awkwardly, “Why was it a good
+thing Page was so handsome when he met Sunny? Didn’t
+she like a plain face?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It wasn’t the face,” Jack said. “It was the rest of
+him. He was stark naked.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Winkler blanched a little. He had all the earmarks of
+a lawful upright man; a good man, but one with ordinary
+tastes and ordinary morals.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Could I hear the story?” he said. “I asked for it, and
+I won’t condemn it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s pretty rough, Mr. Winkler,” Jack said candidly.
+“And we don’t know you. I wouldn’t want the Pringles
+hurt.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They never will be, not by me,” Winkler said with a
+strange intensity that impressed Jack and Laura. Laura
+tried to shoot her spouse a strong “no” look, but Winkler
+had already persuaded him. She saw it coming and she was
+right. Jack would tell him, even though he was a stranger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or perhaps Jack, shrewd and intuitive with people, saw
+what Laura missed: that Winkler had known Page and
+Sunny somewhere before and that his feelings for them
+were warmer and deeper than he admitted.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The way Page met Sunny was simple and slightly shocking.
+She was a fair-haired, spirited girl with a lovely
+face. She was a college freshman and hadn’t learned to
+handle her emotions yet, but she had the willow-limbed
+grace and softness that men admire, and enormous charm.
+Her eyes were a double-take true green, and she had been
+“Sunny” ever since the first pubescent boy had noticed that
+kindling smile of hers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was mid-October, an Indian summer afternoon, smoky
+and golden and warm enough to work up a sweat. Sunny
+was playing baseball at Lake o’ the Woods with her
+sorority, fielding badly but enthusiastically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Toward the end of the game she plunged through the
+underbrush at the edge of the field, chasing the ball, and
+<a id="page-13" class="pagenum" title="13"></a>
+there was Page. He was standing on the strip of beach
+bordering the lake, laughing and drying himself roughly
+with his flannel shirt. He was bare as a winter tree and he
+saw Sunny at the same moment she saw him. There was
+a startled silence and then the friend with Page, who was
+Jack Mann, his roommate, said, “See you later, children.
+You won’t be wanting a chaperone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page threw his shirt on the ground and stared at Sunny.
+“Come on in,” he said softly. “The water’s fine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny threw him an enchanting smile. “I lost my ball,”
+she said, embarrassed but fascinated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack spotted it as he retreated from the scene and
+tossed it to Page. Page held it out, daring her to come
+and get it. And Sunny, with her heart beating hard and
+making her breathless, walked up to him and held out
+a bold hand. He dropped the ball into it, while she looked
+him up and down to show off her sophistication. But
+she discovered, with a bright blush, that she hadn’t any.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed and she turned and ran, clutching the ball.
+But at the bushes she looked back. “You’re beautiful,”
+she cried. He kept laughing, watching her until she disappeared
+through the bushes and back to her game.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They met once again that day, when Page and Jack
+walked past her group on the way to Page’s ramshackle
+runabout. Jack climbed in while Page approached Sunny,
+who was cooking a wiener to death while she kept her
+eyes on him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m Page Pringle,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How do you do?” Sunny answered solemnly. “I’m
+Sunny Rotheli.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They smiled at each other. “Your hot dog is burning
+up,” he remarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She snatched her stick out of the fire and flipped the
+dog over her head into the leaves. “Oh!” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He touched her fair face with his hand. “I’ll call you,
+Rotheli,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You do that, Pringle,” she said, half irked and half
+infatuated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page gave Jack a crazy ride back to town.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+They got off to such a fine start that it seemed like a
+<a id="page-14" class="pagenum" title="14"></a>
+pre-destined romance, if there are such things. They made
+a perfect couple, in a wonderful old-fashioned way, complementing
+each other. They even looked perfect: two
+blond heads, two pairs of green eyes, two quick smiles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You look like an old married couple,” Jack commented.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you know about old married couples?” Page
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Jack, who was a good bit older than his undergraduate
+friend, insisted it was true. Page and Sunny took to
+each other in a way that seemed almost chemical, adopting
+each other’s gestures and expressions with a sort
+of passionate admiration. For those first few months the
+affair was fast and thrilling, even slightly delirious.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Their first date was a careful game of hints and titillations
+and sudden sweet impressions. He liked her voice,
+the firm lines of her body, her warmth. They would both
+have preferred to sit and look at each other without speaking,
+but they felt the necessity to impress each other with
+talk and were afraid to be quiet—until late in the evening
+when silence unexplainably became possible ... and lovely,
+and intimate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were sitting in Page’s car—“Bucephalus,” he
+called it, the rumbling warhorse. The cold autumn air
+touched them through a score of cracks in the doors and
+windows and made them pull closer together for warmth.
+Page put his arms around her and blessed the weather.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You feel so sweet,” he told her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not sweet,” she objected. “That’s for little girls.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How old are you, little girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Eighteen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s pretty old.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sighed. “All right, seventeen, but only for six more
+weeks. And I know my way around, which I would have
+thought you’d notice. How old are you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Twenty-eight. I’m a vet. Korea.” He kissed her neck,
+rubbing a hand in her bright hair, and then pulled away
+slightly to see her face. She was serious about “sweetness”
+being for children. But she had it, and in spite of her best
+efforts it showed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-15" class="pagenum" title="15"></a>
+Page could just begin to glimpse it as he held her in
+his arms and felt her pulsing against him in the dark. That
+was when the welcome silence fell, and neither of them
+worried about it. It was good to sit there and just hold
+each other, feeling each other’s breath or the tickle of a
+moving eyelash. So good that Page felt a curious sense
+of foreboding when Sunny’s closeness began to excite him.
+He almost wished it wouldn’t happen; not this fast, anyway.
+He held her tenderly, trying to control it, and
+wondered why in the name of reason he should feel a
+singing in his head over this pretty girl, superficially like
+so many other pretty girls he had known.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I want her to be perfect, he thought. I’m afraid she’ll
+disappoint me. Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m afraid I’m
+not good enough for her, good enough at love to satisfy
+her. And having challenged himself on a very touchy
+point, he kissed her ardently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She reacted with a moan of pleasure that told him she
+had been restlessly waiting for it. It was almost too much.
+She went after his mouth like a bounty-hunter on a hot
+trail and he said, “Hey! Slow down, honey. Don’t rush
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her face had a familiar determination and he asked,
+“Sunny, are you a virgin?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Heavens, no!” She was insulted. But she stopped pulling
+on his collar and trying to kiss him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He let her discomfiture build a moment and then
+lifted her face and said, “It’s all right. I don’t mind. It’s
+a nice change.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think I’m lying!” she exclaimed. “Page, I’m <em>not</em>
+a virgin. Oh, I’m not trying to brag, I think that’s crude.
+But you have a right to know the truth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then tell me the truth.” He said it gently, smiling, and
+offending her again with his fatherly attitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the feel of his big arms around her softened her
+up a little. “Well,” she said reluctantly. “I’ve done everything
+else <em>but</em>.” She could feel him laughing silently at
+her and with an angry jerk she started to get out of the car.
+But he pulled her back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, honey, don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to laugh.”
+But he was still laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-16" class="pagenum" title="16"></a>
+She struggled for possession of her hands, to give him
+a good whack, but he wouldn’t give them up. And suddenly,
+to her dismay, she felt a strong erotic spasm in response
+to his superior strength. At once she stiffened. She
+wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of exciting her, not
+when he didn’t play fair. In a small voice she asked,
+“How did you know I’m a virgin?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You laid it on too thick, Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Laid what on?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The sophistication bit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment she thought she might cry with humiliation.
+And then laughter spilled over in her and saved her.
+“I must look like an idiot,” she said, embracing him again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s so much about you I don’t know,” Page said.
+“I want to know everything.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not at all exciting,” she said naïvely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The hell you aren’t.” She could tell from the way he
+was breathing that she had said the wrong thing again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, my <em>life</em> isn’t exciting,” she corrected herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is now,” he said and she felt his firm, cool hand
+slip under her sweater. Beneath his strong fingers she felt
+a melting delight and suddenly the famous riddle of life
+seemed dazzlingly clear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She yielded to him just to see what it was all about.
+And the brief surrender became permanent, a lifetime
+commitment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pushed her head back on the car seat, kissing her,
+catching her hands again and making them do strange
+things in strange places. She gave up trying to stop him
+then, from that night forward. The feel of his hard male
+body moving against her brought her to life all over and
+made her need him terribly; need things she had never
+even tried before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Page who restrained her; Page who made her
+hands do what her body was aching to do instead until
+she began to cry with frustration. It had been an electric
+shock to her that she could feel like this about a man;
+about <em>this</em> man; and she couldn’t be content with going
+only halfway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, please,” she begged, but they had petted too
+ardently; it was too late. He collapsed beside her, answering
+<a id="page-17" class="pagenum" title="17"></a>
+her with sleepy kisses. When he came to himself
+somewhat, he wiped her wet cheeks with his fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny?” he whispered, surprised. “Did I hurt you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish you <em>had</em>,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Darling, I couldn’t. Not like this. When it happens
+I want it to be right: a beautiful thing in a beautiful
+place. You deserve that. I’m no animal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It should have been tonight,” she said, quivering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” He amazed himself. With any other girl he would
+have demanded it, but he didn’t want it that way with
+Sunny.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think I’m a born whore, don’t you?” she said
+tearfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A born angel is more like it,” he said, holding her
+tightly. They both felt reckless and strange, loath to leave
+each other but faced with a curfew. Almost strangers and
+almost lovers, they looked at each other by the light of
+the street lamp outside, and said simultaneously, “I love
+you.” The coincidence of it startled them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page buried his face in her shoulder. “And I don’t even
+know you,” he marveled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will,” she promised happily. “After we’re married.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-3">
+<a id="page-18" class="pagenum" title="18"></a>
+3
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+“I don’t know what made me say it,” Page said, crushing
+his cigarette in an ashtray and walking nervously around
+his room. “We said it together. ‘I love you.’ It was the
+damnedest thing.” He clapped his hands against his sides
+and let himself fall on the couch next to Jack Mann. “Help
+me out, Jackson,” he said. “I don’t want a passionate
+romance with a freshman virgin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have something against freshmen?” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’m not in love with her, for one thing. I just
+said I was. You know, the moon and the rest of it. She
+smelled so nice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never saw you in such a hurry to back out of an
+affair before. No matter <em>how</em> she smelled.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never worried about an affair before.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s obvious you’re nuts about the girl,” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The hell!” Page snapped. “She wants to get married.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good for her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You louse!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hang on to her, boy,” Jack advised. “She’s a rare one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page got up and paced around again. “Well, what do
+you do if you’re in love with a girl but you don’t want
+to marry her?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack shrugged. “Live with her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page grimaced and gave up.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+But if Page complained, he was also intrigued with the
+idea of letting himself get hooked. He didn’t want to be
+<a id="page-19" class="pagenum" title="19"></a>
+married, it was true. But he didn’t want to be in love
+either, and that was already a lost cause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was not fooled. He was a sharp student of humanity.
+He had to be: it was part of his self-defense.
+Any man who feels for other men what Jack Mann felt
+has to guard himself carefully. He watches his tongue,
+which might slip; his hands, which might wander; his
+wisecracks and lies, and guards his feelings with a tough
+sense of humor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The virtue of Jack’s abnormality was that he understood
+people instinctively. He knew Page, and nothing Page
+could say would hide from Jack his love for Sunny.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+By the following spring, Sunny Rotheli was no longer a
+virgin. But it had all been accomplished in a beautiful
+place at a beautiful time: a starry evening, a rich, perfumed
+hotel room, a dime-store diamond. Sunny had felt
+a wistful nostalgia for the drafty auto and the cold October
+moon, but it couldn’t be helped. She had enough
+sense to realize she was special to him and that he would
+not take her there where he had made love to so many
+other girls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their infatuation did not abate, although Page kept
+hoping the thing would burn itself out from sheer overheating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Sunny, all that mattered now was to get Page
+to propose. She tried everything: teasing, threats, even
+subversion. She complained to Jack and tried to promote
+sabotage from behind the lines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But while Page would admit to any poetic excess of
+passion, he wouldn’t propose marriage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Live with me, then,” Sunny said mournfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t ask you to do that,” he protested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You aren’t asking me, you worm!” she said. “I’m
+asking you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Somebody has to protect you from yourself,” he said.
+But the truth was he had promised himself a year or two
+of travel after college. He had seen Korea in the Marines
+and it wasn’t his idea of a pleasure cruise. Now he dreamed
+of Europe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had a little money and a lot of wanderlust saved
+<a id="page-20" class="pagenum" title="20"></a>
+up. He was sure he could write, and he was going to prove
+it in a Paris garret, find a rich older woman to keep him,
+become noticed and influential, and come home to claim
+Sunny in triumph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Actually, beyond the daydreams, he didn’t know what
+he wanted to do, except give himself a champagne playtime
+before he settled down to the beans-and-gravy of
+earning a living. He meant to earn the living with his
+typewriter, with words. And he might even take Sunny
+at her word: make her his mistress and dispense with the
+marriage bit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as Jack kept telling him, Sunny was the kind of
+girl you marry and consider yourself damn lucky to have
+caught. She would make a poor and moody mistress but
+a sensual and loving wife. She needed security with one
+man. After that she’d be all loving and giving, like Sunday’s
+child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you know about women?” Page would blow
+off at Jack when they discussed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like ’em,” Jack said with a cynical amusement he
+couldn’t share with Page. Loneliness was the abiding condition
+of Jack’s life. It was the reason a close friendship
+like the one with Page meant so much to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like them too. But that doesn’t mean I understand
+them!” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hell, you don’t like them. You just love them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like Sunny,” Page restored.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Sunny. She’s the one you’re going to marry. That’s
+the one woman a man has got to like as well as love,”
+Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks, Dorothy Dix. Why don’t you write a column
+on the subject? You’d make a mint.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Damn right I would,” Jack said. “I’d have every old
+maid in the country sending me sachets.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Including Sunny Rotheli,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She won’t be an old maid. If you turn her down like
+the ass you are, somebody else will grab her fast.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be through school in June, and by God, I’m taking
+off,” Page said, gazing out the window. “I’ve planned it
+for two years. Once you’re married, you’re stuck with
+furniture and drooling babies and a jealous wife. And eight
+<a id="page-21" class="pagenum" title="21"></a>
+hours of brown-nosing a day to support the whole ugly
+mess. No thanks, man. Not for me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not even with Sunny?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not for a while.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“He meant it, too,” Jack told Winkler. “Came June
+that year and he promised Sunny he’d be around all
+summer. She lived in one of the Chicago suburbs, Hillsburg—west,
+on the Burlington line.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Winkler was motionless listening to this story that had
+started out like so many classic college romances and
+had turned slowly into something so frighteningly different.
+He was fascinated and repelled at the same time
+by the brilliant little man talking to him. Jack was too
+calmly frank about himself; so frank he confounded
+Winkler, who found that he had become the helpless
+audience of a sort of modern ancient mariner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So Page went back on his promise, and didn’t see
+Sunny?” Winkler asked when Jack paused for a drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He took off for Europe,” Jack said. “He was afraid if
+he saw her once more he wouldn’t go. It was then or never.
+But the poor guy outfoxed himself. He was even unhappier
+over there than Sunny was back here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did Sunny do?” Winkler said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What could she do? Went back to school for two more
+years. She didn’t see him again until the summer before
+her last year in college. I had gone to New York by that
+time, but they told me about it later. Page had just started
+to work for the Chicago <em>Tribune</em>. Decided to use his
+writing ability in journalism.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was Sunny still in love with him?” Winkler asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. Oh, she got engaged to some hometown guy,
+and she might have married him. It shook Page up to
+find that ring on her finger. He proposed to her on the
+spot ... gave her such a rush she couldn’t turn him down.
+But when she said yes, neither of them suspected their
+marriage would end up the horrifying mistake it did.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-4">
+<a id="page-22" class="pagenum" title="22"></a>
+4
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+It was Sunny who noticed Page’s car first, parked in her
+family’s back yard. Nobody but Page would drive a
+crumbling runabout like that one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page Pringle!” she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s that?” her father asked, pulling his car in beside
+Page’s heap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The <span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grande passion</span> of two years ago,” said his wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They found him in the kitchen. The thermostat in the
+refrigerator had gone haywire and, finding all the food
+frozen, Page had started out to fix it. Sunny’s little brother,
+Chuckie, gave him admiring help. Page had gotten sidetracked
+and carved six bloody half moons out of an icy
+tomato for Chuckie when Sunny and her parents caught
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The motor in the refrigerator droned on in the background.
+He had forgotten to turn it off and it was working
+gamely to chill the whole kitchen. Page and Sunny looked
+at each other, afraid and relieved, intensely affected by
+the sight of each other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was just fixing the ice box,” Page said clumsily. It
+was a declaration of love. He hated his shuffling embarrassment,
+but she caught his hands and saved him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cripes,” said Chuckie with the traditional disgust of
+the young for romance. “Show me about the tomato,
+Page.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Meet my family,” Sunny said, and introduced them.
+<a id="page-23" class="pagenum" title="23"></a>
+He turned willingly to shake hands, welcoming the chore
+he used to think of as the first step down the aisle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Because this time he was sure; this time it was for
+keeps. He had been around the world now, and the world
+had only one Sunny. He was certain, with the confidence
+of his youth and their mutual passion, that she was still
+his. He had the pressure of her hands and the look in her
+eyes to prove it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lord, he thought, I want her right now. He stared
+overlong until Ben Rotheli, her father, cleared his throat
+and offered him a beer. They went into the living room
+with Chuckie trailing behind, his hands full of melting
+tomato chunks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page couldn’t keep still. “Sunny, you look wonderful.
+Just great,” he said impulsively and interrupted Ben’s
+description of a double play. Rotheli laughed and so did
+Sunny.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not very subtle, am I?” Page grinned, turning red.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Everything in the refrigerator is ruined,” June Rotheli
+announced, coming in from the kitchen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, my God, it’s all my fault.” Page got up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They brushed it off good-naturedly but he insisted on
+taking them out to dinner. “Let me get back in your good
+graces,” he said eagerly, and they smiled at him and liked
+him. Page could hear echoes of Sunny’s laugh in her
+mother’s and it made him like June Rotheli immensely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chuckie got a good start on a case of hero-worship that
+night. Anybody who could saw a frozen tomato apart and
+spoil all the food in the refrigerator and take the whole
+family out to dinner in one day was a very superior man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went home to Hillsburg after dinner and sat on
+the front porch for a while. Page had been prepared to
+tolerate his future in-laws. Instead, he liked them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He put his arm around Sunny, coasting on the porch
+swing, and fed her peanuts. Chuckie sat at his feet, infatuated
+as small boys often are. Page noticed how fond
+of his son Ben Rotheli seemed. Not that a man doesn’t
+take special pride in a son, but this was a relationship close
+and warm beyond the usual. Often, as he talked, Ben’s
+hand came in touch with his son’s shoulder as if to say:
+“This is my boy, my brains, my bones, my immortality.”
+<a id="page-24" class="pagenum" title="24"></a>
+It wasn’t the easiest attitude for a small son to bear,
+though Chuckie took it pretty well in stride.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the phone rang Chuckie jumped up to get it. But
+it was for Sunny. He came back to the porch to call her
+and his face wore an impish grin. “It’s Ralph,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bed for you, mister,” Ben Rotheli told him as Sunny
+went in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be over tomorrow, Chuckie,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll have to go somewhere else,” Chuckie said.
+“Ralph will be here. Maybe we could go fishing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe we could throw Ralph in the lake,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chuckie laughed and Ben and June shooed him in the
+house, following him in a tactful move that left the porch
+to Page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Sunny came back, they were alone with the fireflies
+and the sounds of a summer night. Alone with two years
+of love to catch up on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like your family, honey. I didn’t think I would,” he
+said. “Your dad is awfully fond of Chuckie, isn’t he?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.” Sunny plucked at a loose thread on her skirt and
+Page admired her passionately in silence, his hands moving
+carefully on her arms. “We’re a mixed-up family,” she
+added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does it make you jealous? Girls are supposed to be
+jealous of their fathers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” She laughed. “I understand why, you see. Dad
+and Mom lost a baby: their first. A son. He would have
+been quite a bit older than me. So when Chuckie came,
+years later, he seemed like a second chance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did the first one die at birth?” Page kissed her neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He lived a little while, but they lost him at about three
+weeks.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did he die?” Page didn’t care especially about
+it but he was afraid to blurt violently, “Darling, marry
+me!” the way he wanted to. It might scare her off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never knew how it happened,” she said of her lost
+brother. “They never come out and say he died; it’s as
+if the words would hurt too much. So I’ve gotten the habit
+of saying they <em>lost</em> him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother can’t talk about it at all. She was sick before
+he came, and, afterwards she had a nervous breakdown.
+<a id="page-25" class="pagenum" title="25"></a>
+Cracked up completely. She couldn’t even leave the hospital
+for almost a year, and it was ten years before the doctor
+let her try again. She got me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Must have been rough,” Page said. “Darling, you smell
+like roses.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was. They named him Roger. It’s too bad they gave
+him a name—makes him seem too much like a real
+person.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Were they sorry you were a girl? What kind of perfume
+is that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Mother came back to life and nearly spoiled me
+... Chanel Number Five.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why didn’t they name Chuckie ‘Roger’? Does Chanel
+smell like roses?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because Mother was afraid of the name. No, you nut,
+it’s an aldehyde scent. Strictly chemical. Your smeller’s
+confused.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Honey, I don’t care what it is, you smell like roses.” He
+turned her head and kissed her forehead reverently, and
+then her cheeks and nose, and then his lips parted over
+hers and he touched her soul with his tongue. Her response
+was as hot and knowing and loving as he had remembered,
+and he held on to her urgently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, Sunny,” he murmured. “You’re my whole life.
+I knew it back in school but I wouldn’t admit it. Darling
+Sunny, thank God it’s not too late. You haven’t changed.
+I was so afraid—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You!” she cried suddenly, giving him a hard shove.
+“You worm!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He leaned back, startled, unwilling to release her. “I
+know I’ve been gone a while—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Two whole years! And I was just getting over you,
+damn you!” she said, throwing her arms up across her
+breasts and glaring at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me what an ass I am if it’ll help,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What an ass <em>you</em> are?” she said dismally. “<em>I’m</em> the ass.
+Sitting here like Heaven’s own fool and letting you—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Letting me what?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She pushed his groping hands away again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me; let me hold you. Oh God, Sunny ...
+Sunny....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-26" class="pagenum" title="26"></a>
+“I have a date with Ralph tomorrow,” she said curtly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll drown him for you. Chuckie and I are going fishing.
+I’ll drown the bastard.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It made her laugh and the laughter took her over the
+line to tears. Not too far from a mild hysteria, she held
+out her left hand to him. He caught it gratefully and
+kissed it and his lips met full on a cold hard stone. Surprised,
+he lifted his head and saw for the first time the
+grim flash of a diamond. He looked at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ralph’s?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny nodded. “And he’s such a nice guy,” she said
+tearfully. “Such a good-natured, dependable, rich....”
+Her voice climbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Okay, skip the torture treatment,” he said, still gripping
+her hand as if it were keeping him from a fall over a cliff.
+“Somehow I thought—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d sit around on that fine little duff of mine you
+admire so much and wait for you? Oh, Page, <em>did</em> you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess so.” He grasped her other hand to crush with
+the left one. “Sunny, marry me. Marry me!” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ask me, don’t tell me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked at her, hope dawning all over his face. She
+wasn’t shocked. She wasn’t even surprised. If she hadn’t
+loved him so deeply she would have laughed at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you marry me?” he asked, softly and obediently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not yet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It took Page several seconds to realize that she had said
+“Yes.” Qualified, but still “Yes.” When he did, he yanked
+frantically on the diamond ring, muttering, “Damn, damn,
+damn!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you trying to break my finger?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, just the ring. Sweetheart ...” he stopped long
+enough to ask ... “when? Next week?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Page—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But my mind’s made up. I can’t wait any more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She listened open-mouthed, too overcome by his brazen
+love to throw her two long years of lonely waiting at him.
+“I’m a fool to marry you at all,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You said yes, didn’t you?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked away and he saw her tears then, shiny trails
+on her faultless cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-27" class="pagenum" title="27"></a>
+“Do you love me?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would I say yes if I didn’t?” She spoke with shame.
+She had meant to punish him when he came back—<em>if</em> he
+came back. And here he was, providentially dumped at her
+feet; hers to tease and torture till he knew exactly what
+she had been through. And what was she doing? Falling
+into his greedy arms like a good-hearted little whore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I just want to hear you say it,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love you. That’ll be two bits,” she said bitterly. And
+suddenly, in her words, he recognized what grief she had
+spent on him, what dragging hours of regret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t make it up to you, can I?” he asked, pulling
+her head down on his shoulder to cry. “Darling, can you
+believe I’m as sorry about that damn trip as you are?
+It didn’t prove a thing—except that I can’t live without
+you, and maybe that makes it worth something. Please,
+baby, please—tell me you love me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haven’t you humiliated me enough for one night?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not trying to humiliate you, you lovely, lovely
+girl. I’m trying to make you understand ... forgive me
+... take me back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The last time I saw you, you were driving away in
+that crazy car of yours, shouting, ‘Next weekend, honey.
+Look for me.’ Well, I looked, all right. That was a long
+weekend, Page. It lasted two years.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you hate me, Sunny?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course I hate you!... Darling ... darling....” She
+was crying still. “I hated you enough to think I could
+marry Ralph. I <em>had</em> to hate you. It was either that or
+keep on loving you, and hating didn’t hurt as much.” She
+sighed and blew her nose on a tissue. “Now my family
+wants me to marry Ralph. They like him; they know him.
+But who is Page Pringle? Just a guy who broke their
+daughter’s heart.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought they liked me. They were so nice to me
+tonight.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What else could they do?” she said and worried him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’re wonderful people,” he said. “I want them on
+my side.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What about <em>your</em> parents?” Sunny asked. “How do
+they feel about this?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-28" class="pagenum" title="28"></a>
+“They don’t know about it yet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I don’t know about <em>them</em>,” she said. “I get the
+feeling you don’t want me to. I don’t think you even
+have a family. You just sprang full blown out of a beer
+bottle one day, with a full head of foam. Tell me about
+them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When you tell me you love me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll tell you when I’m good and damn ready!” she
+flared, and he bent her firmly against him and kissed her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll tell me now,” he said. “Say it! Please say it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she heard the pleading in his voice her self-righteousness
+dissolved and she whispered, “I love you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love you, <em>Page</em>,” he told her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love you, I—I—oh, God, Page, I <em>do</em>. Isn’t it awful?”
+She felt her tears rush up again and cried impatiently,
+“What’s your mother like? A fishwife with marcelled
+hair?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was kissing her, but she struggled free and clamped
+her arms over her breasts again, turning her back to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on,” she said, trembling. “Make with the family
+history. If I have to return Ralph’s ring and take you
+instead, I want to know what I’m getting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean heredity and all that? I’m not an epileptic,”
+he groaned. “Or a bleeder. Or a compulsive criminal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was trying to zip her skirt shut while he talked and
+he was trying to stop her. He won. She felt too undignified
+wrestling with him and covered her bosom again instead.
+“Come on, darling. Job? Money?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Exasperated, he sighed, “I’m writing. For the Trib.
+I’ll be the best damn journalist in this country in a few
+years, and you’re going to be my wife. And you’ll be
+glad I made you marry me. And you have the most
+beautiful goddamn neck and you smell like roses and
+oh, honey, honey, I can’t talk, don’t make me talk, all I
+want is—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page Pringle, if you touch me there again I’ll put on
+a chastity belt and give the key to Ralph!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, that bloody bastard!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page!” She turned to look at him with angry reproof,
+but burst out laughing instead. Her arms loosened and
+<a id="page-29" class="pagenum" title="29"></a>
+he caught her up with an almost bone-cracking strength
+that left her breathless for a moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She kept begging for information about his family,
+tormenting him by talking in and over and around his
+kisses, but he had said his stubborn last word on that
+or any other subject until one-thirty in the morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was holding her then, protecting her from the cool
+air and treasuring the closeness of her; bothered only by
+one question: the sort that dogs a man in love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny?” he said, too casually. “Did you ever—I mean—do
+this with anybody else? I mean—it’s okay, you were
+engaged to Ralph, after all.... Not that I expected you
+to be faithful to me all this time while I was roaming
+around.... But, well, I mean—<em>did</em> you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She let him work his way through this painful speech
+and then she kissed him gently and intimately and whispered,
+“You’ll never know, my own darling worm. Never.
+Suffer, Page.” It was a time-honored female tactic and
+it worked. He did suffer, and he never knew the truth.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-5">
+<a id="page-30" class="pagenum" title="30"></a>
+5
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Ralph was informed abruptly of his new status when
+he came for Sunny the next day and found Page glaring
+at him over an afternoon beer like a caveman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ben and June Rotheli were deeply concerned, but it
+was Sunny’s decision and they stayed out of the fracas.
+Even so, had they guessed how fast the wedding was
+coming up, they would have objected sooner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had to be grateful, at least, that Sunny had
+informed them of the time and place. “I suppose that’s
+really something, these days,” Ben said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I’ve always dreamed of a white wedding for her,”
+June lamented.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny tried to reassure them through several long nights
+of family argument. “Dad’s been telling all my boyfriends
+for the last three years he’d pay them a thousand bucks
+to elope with me,” she smiled. “So he wouldn’t have to
+finance a big wedding.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not even Sunny wanted it done quite so fast. They
+were to be married in Wheaton, the DuPage county seat,
+just as soon as the blood tests were dry and the license
+legal. She was too much in love to resist, but she was too
+sensible not to worry. It amazed her when her father,
+Ben, unexpectedly announced to his wife, “What the hell,
+June. We got married in a hurry, too. And it worked out.”
+Sunny threw her arms around him gratefully while June
+raised martyred eyes to the ceiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ben sounded confident, but he was wondering at himself.
+<a id="page-31" class="pagenum" title="31"></a>
+In the few short days he had known Page he had
+begun to like him, respect him far more than the run of
+Sunny’s beaux. Why? Because he loved Sunny so whole-heartedly?
+Because he got along with Chuckie? Because
+he was friendly and honest? Sure, all that. But something
+else, Ben thought. Maybe he reminds me a little of myself
+at that age. Maybe that’s it. There’s a bit of egotist in all
+of us. We can’t help liking the people who like us, who are
+interested in the same things, who might even resemble
+us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+June had to surrender. Everybody was on Sunny’s side,
+even Chuckie, and the wedding came off as planned.
+Sunny wore a pale gold dress that matched her hair, and
+Page found himself actually tremulous at the sight of her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why couldn’t your family come?” she asked him unhappily
+as they were driving to Wheaton. “I wanted to
+meet them so badly. There won’t be anyone there but
+us and my family.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know. They sent you their love and all,” he said
+uncomfortably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And all,” she echoed with resentment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother is sick,” he told her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How sick?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Housebound. And Dad’s out of town. Couldn’t make
+it back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For your wedding?” she said. “His only son?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t make a fuss, honey. This is our wedding day,”
+he said. Moments later, stopping for a red light, he bent
+to kiss her, but she wouldn’t give him her lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll smudge me,” she said, prim and miffed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he was too happy to complain. “Sunny, sweetheart,”
+he said. “My almost wife.” The line of cars began to honk
+behind them and he stepped hard on the gas. The sudden
+acceleration made her laugh and dispelled for a minute
+her secret doubts and fears.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The ceremony was quick and simple. June cried and
+Ben Rotheli, watching from behind the couple, felt a
+strange aching loneliness for the son he had lost so long
+ago: his first child, Roger. He couldn’t have explained
+it, having known the child a mere three weeks. It had
+<a id="page-32" class="pagenum" title="32"></a>
+been hard for him to shift his hopes to Chuckie; hard on
+Chuckie too, feeling so much expected of him. Ben tried
+not to let it show.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, looking at the broad back and blond hair of his
+new son-in-law, Ben felt a swell of affection. Perhaps, in
+a way, Page could take Roger’s place. Roger would have
+been about this age, and Ben wanted to know Page much
+better, wanted him to like him. And so he indulged in a
+pride and fondness that were rather special.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Page was blissfully happy. He had been two years
+making up his mind to this marriage and he had no
+misgivings. For Sunny, there were minutes of quiet fear
+when she realized how little she actually knew of Page,
+how much she was relying on their mutual love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But they were short minutes, swallowed up in the sheer
+joy of being married to the one man she had always loved
+and wanted above all others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They took a small furnished apartment in Chicago. It
+was cramped and plain, but they loved it. They went to
+the movies, bought modernistic ashtrays, soaped each
+other and made love in the shower. It was all wonderful,
+all so normal: pure sunshine and fun with no clouds of
+calamity visible on the horizon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The only thing that bothered Sunny was the mystery
+of Page’s parents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess they disapprove of me, hm?” she said once,
+needling him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How could they when they don’t even know you?” he
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do they know <em>of</em> me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly. They know I’m married.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You said they lived here in town. Can’t we drop in on
+them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” he said quickly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would they kick me out?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It isn’t that, honey. It’s just—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just that they hate you? Or me, or us, or <em>something</em>.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They love me, they’re very proud of me. But my life
+with them is over, now. I’m yours, not theirs. They’ve had
+me for the past thirty years. The hell with them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-33" class="pagenum" title="33"></a>
+Sunny was shocked at the way he spoke, but she was
+afraid to press him further on the subject.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Page and Sunny spent only one month in Chicago, for
+Page was being transferred to the <em>Tribune</em>’s New York
+office. They spent most of their spare time packing and
+visiting the Rothelis. But finally, a few days before their
+departure, Sunny demanded, “Let me meet your parents,
+Page.” She felt it was then or never.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked up from the fried egg he had been tranquilly
+enjoying, his breakfast obviously ruined. “No,” he said,
+and forked half a yolk into his mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m their daughter-in-law, and I want to know them.
+They’re my family now, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He put down his fork and they argued, briefly but
+fiercely. Sunny forced the issue. “All right!” Page shouted.
+“They’re just a pair of kindly gray-haired squares and
+you’ll be bored to tears. But if we don’t go, you’ll imagine
+all sorts of horror stories.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now you’re being reasonable, darling,” she beamed.
+But when he sulked at her she added, “Is it a feud between
+you, or something?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” he said. “We’ve just drifted apart. I feel badly
+about it. I’m not what they thought I’d be when I grew
+up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did they think you’d be?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The President. What else?” He gave her a rueful grin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went over on a Sunday afternoon three days later.
+Page was nervous and Sunny, taking her cue from him,
+started chewing her nails. She began to realize how much
+she wanted the Pringles to like her, the way her parents
+liked Page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She followed Page into one of the modern glass-faced
+buildings on the Outer Drive, north of the Loop, and took
+the elevator up. A maid showed them into the Pringles’
+spacious living room, which had a marble fireplace and
+<a id="corr-2"></a>a huge picture window looking out on Lake Michigan. Sunny
+had pictured a pair of gloomy hermits living in faded
+Victorian gingerbread and speaking in whispers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead, a vigorous, tall man, aging but with straight
+<a id="page-34" class="pagenum" title="34"></a>
+back and strong shoulders, came into the room, smiling,
+and held out his hand to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must be Sunny,” he said as, speechless, she gave
+him her hand to shake. “I’m Page’s father. I’ve been asking
+him to bring you over ever since the wedding. I’m so
+pleased to meet you at last.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nonplussed, Sunny could barely say, “Thank you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Pringle mixed them cocktails, speaking easily as he
+did so. “You must have been a lovely bride,” he told
+Sunny, serving her a martini. “I’m sorry we had to miss
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We missed <em>you</em>, Mr. Pringle,” Sunny said faintly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page had not spoken a word, not even a greeting, since
+they had entered the apartment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,” Mr. Pringle said. “But Page didn’t let us
+know in time. I was in Canada on business when he wired
+me ... the day of the wedding.” His eyes were on his
+son, who looked away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see,” Sunny said softly, taking refuge in a sip of her
+drink. Anger, resentment, and curiosity all boiled within
+her. It was as if Page were deliberately trying to alienate
+them all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fifteen minutes later they went in to meet Mrs. Pringle,
+who was propped up in bed, dressed in a pink mandarin
+bed jacket. She was a handsome woman in her sixties, a
+perfect match for her husband, to judge by appearances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She held out a gracious hand to Sunny. “My dear, how
+lovely to meet you at last. I must say, you’re just as
+beautiful as Page said you were.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charmed and astonished, Sunny stammered her thanks
+and sat down at the bedside. She was utterly unsure of
+herself by now. But Mrs. Pringle did most of the talking
+while Page stood at attention at the foot of her bed, remote
+and cool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will forgive us for not attending the wedding?”
+Mrs. Pringle pleaded. She was rather formal, but in an
+anxious way that tried to please, as if Page had warned
+her Sunny was a difficult person. “I rarely leave this bed
+any more,” she apologized.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I understand,” Sunny said warmly. “Page told us you
+were ill.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-35" class="pagenum" title="35"></a>
+“I see as much of life as I can from here,” Mrs. Pringle
+smiled. “Not much, but enough to occupy me. I don’t
+mind being alone half as much as most people would.
+You see, before we got Page, I was quite a loner, by
+choice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Before you ... <em>got</em> Page?” Sunny repeated, confused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. I guess it’s all in your nature. Some like solitude,
+some don’t. Page was a great joy to us, though. He was
+just tiny when we got him. He never knew any other
+family.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny’s mouth opened slightly. “He—didn’t tell me,”
+she whispered. She had to force herself not to turn and
+stare at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh!” Mrs. Pringle paused a moment, plainly afraid
+of offending her son. But the fat was in the fire. She had
+taken it for granted that Page would have told his wife
+so fundamental a fact about himself. “Well, George and
+I always wanted a boy,” she said restrainedly. “That’s the
+nice thing about adopting, you can choose your favorite.”
+She laughed, a small flustered sound, and Sunny pitied
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was no crime to be adopted. What earthly reason did
+Page have for keeping it secret?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was a very good baby,” Mrs. Pringle said nostalgically.
+“I wish we could have gotten another. I would
+have liked a brother for Page. Are you an only child,
+Sunny?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. My brother Chuckie is eleven now. And my parents
+had another son, before I was born, but I never knew
+him. He died.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, we intended to adopt another
+before my health gave way. But after that we couldn’t, so
+we’ve had to concentrate everything on Page. I hope we
+haven’t spoiled him for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like him the way he is,” she said. But her anger
+sparkled on the surface of her words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon for New
+York,” Mrs. Pringle added. “Will you write to us, Sunny?
+Page never will.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“With pleasure, Mrs. Pringle.” Sunny could hardly keep
+<a id="page-36" class="pagenum" title="36"></a>
+her eyes off Page now, and he stared sullenly out the bedroom
+window.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+A half-hour later Sunny rode down in the elevator with
+her silent husband, and not until they were in the car
+and on their way home did she say, “All right, Page. I
+love you and I’m your loyal wife. But I don’t like being
+lied to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He knew the storm was coming and he wanted to keep
+calm, explain things temperately to her. He lighted two
+cigarettes, passing one to Sunny. “I just can’t get along
+with them,” he said. “It’s a long story.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve got plenty of time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Sunny, damn it, in the first place, I’ve always
+been sort of ashamed of being adopted.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re nuts!” she said. “That attitude went out when
+Freud came in. Some of the nicest people I know—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure, sure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“—are actually proud of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you let me tell you!” he said, suddenly so upset
+that she shut her mouth and began to worry about his
+driving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You see, with most parents who adopt kids, it’s different.
+They tell them about it, even before the kid understands
+what it means. He grows up knowing everything.
+It’s nothing new, it doesn’t scare him, and he comes to
+comprehend it gradually.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But with me they waited till I was twelve years old,
+an only child, brought up in a formal household, stiffly
+disciplined, afraid of his mother and father. And then I
+found out the truth by accident. Otherwise they never
+would have told me.” He spoke resentfully and made her
+feel he might be at least partly justified.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did it happen?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The family doctor let it out. The adoption had been
+arranged through him instead of an agency because it
+was faster, and my parents trusted him. So he knew
+about it from the start. Doc Blue....
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I went in in the fall for a school check-up when
+I was twelve. I’ve never known if he let it slip on purpose,
+I think he did. I think he thought I had a right to know,
+<a id="page-37" class="pagenum" title="37"></a>
+and my Dad hadn’t told me.” Page slowed up for a red
+light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He measured my height,” Page said, speaking uncomfortably.
+“I asked him if he thought I’d be as tall
+as my father.... He’s six-two. And Doc Blue just
+grabbed the opportunity. He said, ‘You can’t always tell,
+Page ... unless you know a boy’s ancestry.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I started to fill him in on the Pringles. I was up to
+my ears with my illustrious forebears. But the doc interrupted.
+He said, ‘I know your Dad is proud of his
+family, but you ask him about it ... where you fit in.
+I don’t think he’s told you everything.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He stuck his neck out, didn’t he?” Sunny said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yeah. But Dad had promised him at the time he
+adopted me that he’d tell me the truth. So Doc Blue felt
+he had a duty to speak up. He thought I should know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I went home and asked Dad ... and he told me, all
+right. And told Doc Blue to go to hell. He’s never forgiven
+him, not to this day. Hates his guts, though I have the
+feeling Mother would have relented after a few years.”
+Page laughed unpleasantly. “You can’t mention Doc Blue’s
+name in front of Dad. Poor Mother. Blue was always her
+favorite, and I know she misses him. But she wouldn’t
+dare go near him without Dad’s approval, and she’ll never
+get that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your father didn’t seem like such a tyrant.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is, though. The kind women love to be dominated
+by,” Page said candidly. “It wouldn’t show so much to
+you. He’s sixty-seven and you’re only twenty. But when
+he was young he never had to chase the girls. They chased
+him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page spoke with secret admiration and Sunny sensed
+that in spite of his resentment, he still had a lot of unadmitted
+love for the man. “But he was absolutely faithful
+to Mother, and his principles and his family heritage.
+Family meant more to him than Mother or me or his life.
+Than anything!” Page took a corner on squealing wheels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your father loves you, darling, he’s proud of you,”
+Sunny said. “It shows in his face. And your mother, too.
+They said some fine things about you, and they weren’t
+acting. You must have known that all these years.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-38" class="pagenum" title="38"></a>
+He threw his cigarette out the window and his face was
+pale and tense. “Sure they love me. They’re stuck with
+me. But the day I discovered I wasn’t a born Pringle I
+spoiled it for them. As long as nobody knew but them, they
+could damn near convince themselves I was really their
+flesh and blood. But once <em>I</em> was in on the secret—once
+I questioned my identity, my Pringle ancestors—the illusion
+was wrecked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had to be arrogantly sure of myself, a Pringle to
+my finger-tips. How else could Dad turn me into a carbon
+of himself? And that’s what he wanted a son for.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My father loves Chuckie a little that way,” Sunny
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A little. I know, I saw it. But not like Dad loved me.
+I was an obsession. Besides, Chuckie is Ben’s own child.
+He sired him and he loves him for himself. Not because
+he’ll give some kids the name Rotheli some day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I tell you, Sunny, my parents spent many bitter years
+blaming each other for not being able to have their own
+child. For having to settle on some stranger’s issue to
+carry on their name. For sending me to Doc Blue when
+he turned out to be a black-hearted traitor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But they were so—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So charming, so nice! I know, God, I know. They’re
+even nice to me! Their borrowed bastard, who exploded
+their selfish little daydream by finding out he had alien
+blood in his veins.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny listened to him with an aching heart. “Did a
+family name really mean all that to them?” she asked.
+“Couldn’t they go on loving you after you knew? They
+certainly love you now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know. I’ve made things pretty hard for them,”
+Page said. “I hated the whole mess, I hated my ignorance.
+I hated being a nobody without a name or a family.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<em>They</em> were your family. You should have been grateful.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They were my room and board. I was their immortality.
+It wasn’t a fair trade,” he retorted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, did it ever occur to you how they must have
+yearned for a child, how they must have adored you when
+they got you? Maybe their motives weren’t the purest, but
+<a id="page-39" class="pagenum" title="39"></a>
+nobody’s are. If they hurt you, you’ve gotten back at
+them. Can’t you call it quits?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was only a name to them. <em>Their</em> name.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re more than that now. Surely even you can see
+that.” She turned to face him as he pulled the car into
+their carport and turned off the motor. “Darling, I’d
+hate to think, if <em>I</em> ever wronged you somehow, that you’d
+hold it against me the way you have against them. It
+scares me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You could never hurt me like that, sweetheart.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By mistake, by accident, I might,” she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They took my childhood away from me. My name.”
+His voice was hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is your real name?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know.” His face was sad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do they know?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sighed. “No. Doc Blue wouldn’t tell them. They
+gave him several thousand bucks and a promise never to
+contact my real parents. He gave the money to my real
+parents, and me to the Pringles. I was bought and sold
+for hard cash, Sunny. And my own name got lost in the
+shuffle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Pringles couldn’t take your name away from you
+if they never had it to give,” Sunny said. “They only had
+one name to give you—their own.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It hurts me to use it,” he said. “I’m a man without a
+past or a heritage. I wish I had a real name to give you,
+Sunny. A real father to know and love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have, if you weren’t so blind stubborn!” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anybody could have brought me up. I’d make just as
+good a Smith as a Pringle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny crushed her cigarette. “If Doctor Blue knows
+your name,” she said thoughtfully, “why don’t you get
+it from him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve been trying to since the day he let the cat out of
+the bag,” Page said, his hands limp on the rim of the
+steering wheel. “I’ve begged him, offered him money,
+threatened him. Even broken into his office and gone
+through his papers. <em>And</em> been caught at it. He’s immovable,
+a sickeningly honorable old son of a gun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know, you’re more fanatical on the subject of
+<a id="page-40" class="pagenum" title="40"></a>
+family than the Pringles,” Sunny said. “Maybe they cured
+themselves by giving you the disease.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, they exposed me to it long enough,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re a grown man, Page!” she said. “Make your
+own name now, your own place in the sun.” She was full
+of pity and love, and disappointment in him. “A name is
+just a label, darling. It doesn’t matter half as much as
+the man himself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A name is a history, a home, everything,” he said
+unhappily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe your real parents were sad, ugly people who
+couldn’t have done half the things for you that the
+Pringles—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To hell with the Pringles! I’d rather love my own flesh
+and blood, no matter who, than grow up a stranger in
+borrowed luxury. And I’ve been a stranger there since I
+was twelve, Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve made yourself a stranger,” she exclaimed. “You
+big dumb <em>nut</em>. Page, I’m actually ashamed of you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He slammed his fists against the wheel and the horn
+barked accidentally, startling her.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-6">
+<a id="page-41" class="pagenum" title="41"></a>
+6
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Jack and Laura were sitting with Mr. Winkler in the
+Manns’ living room after dinner, while Jack narrated the
+story. “Page made himself unhappy, it’s true,” Jack said.
+“The Pringles were ready for the peace pipe years before
+he was. But they had made the cardinal mistake that
+adults can make with kids. They made him feel, right or
+wrong, that they only loved their name. Not him. They
+loved the idea of a son and heir, not the son and heir
+himself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, he and Sunny moved to New York, then,”
+Winkler said. “Were you and Laura married?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. They looked us up right away. Even took an
+apartment near us on East Fifty-second. Sunny was upset
+about this thing when they first arrived, but everything
+went so well for them that she soon relaxed. Used to sit
+and gab with Laura. They hit it off right away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And Page was really happy. Always smiling. Loved his
+work, loved his wife. And he was making ‘Pringle’ his
+own name at last. Nobody there knew his family, so the
+name was more his own than it had ever been before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He kept on with the Trib and did very well. When
+I look back, those first months in New York seem like
+a sort of reprieve,” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reprieve from what?” Winkler leaned forward on his
+elbows, hands hanging between his knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re a good audience, Mr. Winkler,” Jack grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-42" class="pagenum" title="42"></a>
+Winkler shrugged, suddenly shy again. “You’re a good
+talker,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, around Christmas everything was going beautifully
+for them,” Jack resumed. “We saw them then at a
+party we threw, and they were the happiest couple there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But it wasn’t long after that this whole crazy tragedy
+blew up in their faces. Hard to believe, but it sure as hell
+happened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Winkler’s cigarette burned forgotten in the ashtray
+beside him.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+It was one of those red-and-green gatherings that stud
+the Christmas season. Most of Jack’s guests were straight.
+He didn’t like to mix many gay people into his parties.
+He had renounced the painful homosexual adventures that
+used to fill his life before he got married, and it made
+him feel socially clumsy and anxious when the old gay
+crowd turned up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides, no one in his office crowd knew he was an
+invert, and he wanted to keep it that way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were plenty of drinks, carols, and conviviality.
+Laura turned out all but the Christmas lights and candles,
+and the rooms took on a multi-colored jukebox glow.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Sunny, full of laughter, was the center of the carol singing.
+Her voice was small but true, and pleasantly husky.
+She sat on the sofa, crowded in by admirers, and sang
+“Santa Baby” and “The Christmas Song” to warm applause.
+Page was enough of a bridegroom to get foolishly
+jealous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was too popular, too beautiful, with her radiant
+smile and the smooth skin of her breasts showing down
+to the line of a daringly cut dress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That thing is too damn low,” he growled, but she
+stuck her tongue out at him and he either had to laugh
+or be laughed at.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a night for costumes. One of the guests was a
+well-pillowed Santa Claus. One came dressed all in white
+bunny fur, just for the hell of it. And later in the evening
+somebody climbed into a grass skirt Jack had brought
+back from a trip to Hawaii, and favored them with a hula.
+<a id="page-43" class="pagenum" title="43"></a>
+He made a lei of a Christmas wreath and rigged up a pair
+of glass ornament breasts which generated a lot of hilarity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page, still grumping, muttered to Jack, “I hate that
+kind of stuff.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What stuff? Hulas?” Jack said. They were standing
+together by the wall watching the performance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<em>Men</em> doing hulas.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I don’t know,” Jack said, laughing. “He’s not half
+bad. You’re just mad because everybody wants to lay
+Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page lit a cigarette. He knew he was high and not very
+cogent. He directed his anger at the dancer, who was
+enjoying his innocent transvestitism as much as his audience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know why people think that’s so damn funny,”
+Page said. “He probably gets a secret charge out of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on, old buddy, I’ll doctor your drink,” Jack said
+and led the way to the kitchen. Page followed him on an
+off-balance course through the swinging door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No more of that sweet junk,” he said, grimacing at
+the eggnog. “Gives you a rotten hangover.” He handed
+Jack his glass and Jack handed it back with a couple of
+inches of whiskey in it. Page tasted it critically and then
+turned to his host. “You look uncommonly sober for this
+hour of the night,” he said with disapproval.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am. I’m on the wagon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What? Goddam. Are you sick?” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Laura cured me,” Jack told him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, get that damn hula dancer on the wagon with
+you. Cure him and he won’t make such a horse’s ass of
+himself at the next party.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Still worried about Sunny’s dress?” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, the hell with Sunny’s dress. It’s <em>men</em> in dresses I’m
+worried about.” Page hiccoughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, I didn’t know. Shall we dance?” Jack said, and
+laughed at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, shut up.” Page finished half his drink in one gulp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack knew perfectly well that Page was straight. He was
+also tight, and aggravated, and men in skirts were handy
+whipping boys. But it surprised Jack that his old roommate
+could be so harsh on the subject.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-44" class="pagenum" title="44"></a>
+“I’m no fairy,” Page declared, “but that pansy in the
+grass skirt—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“—is married and has four kids,” Jack informed him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lots of fags get married to fool their friends,” Page
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How would <em>you</em> know?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page threw up his hands in a gesture of comical disgust.
+“I heard it somewhere,” he said. “You don’t think I know
+anything about a lousy queer first-hand, do you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It hurt Jack, but it was an old familiar pain; one he had
+long since learned to tuck under his heart to heal at
+leisure. It joined a battalion of old scars and his face
+showed no sign of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack understood better than he ever had how deep
+Page’s conformity went. Page wasn’t worried about his
+masculinity; that had never been a problem to him. He was
+worried about being different. He had been raised in a
+conservative home where old-fashioned morals and conformity
+were prime virtues. Then he suddenly found out
+the family he was supposed to honor wasn’t his at all.
+The morals he respected included lying. And his comfortable
+conformity had been painfully stripped from his back,
+like a suit of clothes. He stood exposed, without a name
+or identity. At that moment, conformity became very dear
+to him. He wanted to be like everybody else with a family
+all his own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the odd balls in this world, he had little but
+contempt for them. And a small secret awe for the few
+who could be deliberately different and still respect themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But nobody had ever asked Page if he wanted to be
+different. Instead he grew up a member of a minority
+group, in spite of himself. When he thought of orphans
+and adopted children, he thought of the huge neglect they
+suffered, the rare love, the vague pity of charitable ladies
+fussing over them. And he classed all adopted children
+among the orphans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack watched him in silence a moment. “Next you’ll
+be telling me <em>I’m</em> queer,” he said wryly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page laughed and clapped Jack on the back. “Okay,
+<a id="page-45" class="pagenum" title="45"></a>
+boy, you win. It’s that eggnog I was drinking. I should
+know better.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I still say it was Sunny’s bosom that got you started,”
+Jack said. “If Laura had a bosom like that I’d never
+complain about anything again, so help me.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Jack and Laura saw the Pringles often, especially after
+Jack learned he was being transferred back to Chicago.
+It was a promotion to his home office, and he felt he owed
+it to Laura and Betsy to go. But he hated to leave New
+York. They gave him three months to make the move.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny, homesick for Hillsburg and Chicago, spent a lot
+of hours with Laura swapping information and feminine
+chatter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go see Page’s family if you get a chance,” she pleaded.
+“They’d be so happy to hear about us first-hand.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We will. Why doesn’t Page ever talk about them,
+Sunny?” Laura asked. “I asked him about his father once
+and he said the strangest thing. He said, ‘I don’t have a
+father.’ I told him everybody has a father and he said,
+‘Everybody but me.’ What does that mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny tried to explain it to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t get it. What does he want from them?” Laura
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He wants to turn back the clock thirty years and stay
+with the worms who had him in the first place.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura laughed. “<em>Were</em> they worms?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe not. But they’d have to go some to beat the
+Pringles. I’m hoping Page will get over this when he has
+a son of his own.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura, stooped over a suitcase, straightened up and
+stared at Sunny. “Hey!” she said. “You’re not—?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny smiled. “I wasn’t going to tell anybody so soon,”
+she said. “I’m not really sure yet. I just know, like you
+do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura came over and took her hands. The warm firm
+grasp gave her a quiet shiver of delight—the kind Laura
+so often experienced in contact with lovely women. “Sunny,
+I’m so happy for you,” she said. Up until that moment
+Laura had both admired and feared Sunny a little. People
+<a id="page-46" class="pagenum" title="46"></a>
+so beautiful sometimes inspire a sort of timidity in others,
+and Laura was naturally shy. But now, with the sharing of
+this secret, Laura felt close to her. She had the courage
+to touch Sunny, even to hold her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does Page know yet?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. He’ll go into orbit when he finds out,” Sunny
+laughed. “He’s been after me since our wedding day
+to do this.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When will you tell him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The minute I’m sure. I have to see a doctor first.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“See Dr. Settick,” Laura said. “Richie Settick. He
+delivered Betsy and he’s the greatest. I’ll give you his
+address.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was going to ask you,” Sunny said, pleased. “I don’t
+know any doctors here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura was thinking of Jack’s incredulous reaction to
+the news that Laura was carrying their child. But for
+him, older and with a sexual abnormality to fight, it had
+seemed like a real miracle. It gave him a soaring feeling
+that a normal man, sure of his virility, would never
+know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura sat down on her bed next to Sunny and put her
+arms around her. “You should have seen Jack’s face when
+I told him he was going to be a father,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny’s laugh brought her slim, smooth body even
+nearer Laura’s. What Sunny thought she was doing there
+in Laura’s arms she didn’t say. But it didn’t seem to alarm
+her. She submitted to a shy, sisterly kiss from Laura—a
+kiss that scarcely mussed her shining hair—and then
+pulled away with an easy motion and said, “Got any
+maternity clothes I can borrow?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Plenty,” Laura said, and the regret she felt at the lost
+contact did not show in her voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She never did discover what Sunny thought of that
+indiscreet caress. She was only grateful that it didn’t
+interrupt their friendship. Sunny was one of the good
+things in life that Laura would never possess, and Laura
+had the sense to see it early and keep the relationship
+platonic. Sunny’s love was given for the rest of her life
+... and given to a man.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-7">
+<a id="page-47" class="pagenum" title="47"></a>
+7
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Dr. Settick had been practicing in Manhattan for about
+six years. He was in his thirties, stocky and good-looking,
+full of good-humor. He had managed to avoid marriage,
+though some of his obstetrics patients made a habit of
+proposing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” he told Sunny, “if that’s not a baby in there,
+you’ll make medical history.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She hugged herself with a happy laugh. “Thank you,
+Doctor!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t thank me. I had nothing to do with it, I’m
+sorry to say,” he told her with a grin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went home that evening ready to tease Page frantic
+before she told him the news. But when he got home he
+cut her off with big news of his own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, don’t say a word!” he said as he came in the
+door. “Guess what?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was my line,” she said as he carried her into
+the bedroom and lowered her into the pillows. “You
+couldn’t have been promoted again? Back to Chicago?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He fell on top of her, laughing. “Better!” She began
+to squirm under his weight and to wonder if it would
+hurt the baby. “They want me to write my own column.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stopped wiggling. “Darling! The Trib?” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, the <em>Sunday Magazine</em>. Almost two million circulation.
+Imagine, honey—a magazine. I get a byline and my
+picture, every damn week of the year. One of their editors
+<a id="page-48" class="pagenum" title="48"></a>
+has been following my feature stuff and liked it. We’re
+in New York a half year and this happens. I knew this
+was my town. Goddam!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What will you write about?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whatever comes into my head. You, for example. You
+inspire me.” He gathered her in his arms and kissed her
+triumphantly. “Oh, baby,” he murmured. “If it weren’t
+for you, I’d never have gotten this. Or if I had, it wouldn’t
+have meant anything. Nobody in the world matters to me
+but you. You make everything so right, Sunny. I’ll write
+every word for you. That way I know it’ll be good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt a few tears coming on; the kind that take a
+smile beyond its natural borders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re ashamed of me!” he exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You should be ashamed of yourself, making your wife
+cry,” she said, laughing at the same time. “As a matter of
+fact, I had something to tell you, but I don’t think I’d
+better. So much good news would be bad for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Try me.” He got up and went into the kitchen. “How
+about a toast? Scotch or whiskey?” he called.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Scotch,” she answered, sitting up and feeling her
+abdomen with new care.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Honey, let’s call your family,” he said. “Your dad
+would love to know. He’s been great to me, as if I were
+part of the family.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you are, goofy,” Sunny said, leaning against
+the kitchen door and accepting her drink from him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To us,” he said, lifting his glass. “My favorite people.”
+They clinked glasses and drank, watching each other, too
+happy to feel sensible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, honey,” he said, overcome with her beauty, her
+love for him. “Honey baby, I love you so.” He pulled
+her tight to him and moved against her, slowly, rhythmically,
+guiding her hand in an intimate caress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She responded with pleasure; subjecting herself to his
+will with sensual delight. And then, equally feminine, she
+took advantage of his mood to whisper, “Let’s call your
+family, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t spoil it,” he said softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My father isn’t the only one who cares about you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-49" class="pagenum" title="49"></a>
+“Nothing doing.” He dropped her hand. “Dad would
+take it for a peace treaty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s earned it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page finished his drink, ignoring her. “Oh God, I forgot.
+You started to tell me something. What was it, honey?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She let herself be sidetracked, too excited to keep still.
+“Your charming wife ...” she said seductively, and kissed
+his mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My charming wife,” he repeated, grabbing her again,
+“has been elected Miss Dill Pickle in Pratfall, Indiana.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” She grinned at him. “I’m going to make you the
+happiest man in the world next August.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s wrong with now?” Suddenly he stiffened.
+“What? <em>Sunny!</em> My God! Are you ... expecting?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.” She glowed at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you sure?” His voice dwindled to a whisper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dr. Settick says so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s he?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My obstetrician. Laura recommended him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’d better be the best damn—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, darling. This is too much.” He put his arms
+around her, so proud and amazed that his voice cracked
+like an adolescent’s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you weren’t such a good writer and such a good
+husband,” she told him, “you’d never have gotten us into
+this mess.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Some mess,” he said ardently. It was a long time
+and a lot of gentle kisses before either of them moved.
+“And it won’t be any poor little unwanted bastard, either,”
+Page said. “This is the most wanted baby anybody ever
+had. My child. My son. How can I wait till August?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s call Hillsburg,” she said. “Just think, Chuckie will
+be an uncle at the tender age of eleven. He’ll love that!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, let’s not call tonight,” Page said. “Tomorrow you
+can tell the whole world, but tonight I want just us to
+know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was touched by the idea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If it’s a boy we’ll name it Ben,” he said. “Your dad
+will bust his buttons.” He led her back toward the bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, it’s a girl, I can tell. And your dinner’s burning
+<a id="page-50" class="pagenum" title="50"></a>
+up on the stove. We’ll name her Katherine and call her
+Kate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The hell with dinner,” he said, easing her down on the
+bed. “And Kate is too old-fashioned.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He undressed her with hands that adored her lovely
+fresh body, her fragrant curves and slopes, her warmth.
+He pressed his big hands together side by side on her
+little belly, smothering it, and said in an awed tone, “God.
+Think how tiny it is. How alive.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She reached for him and pulled him down on top
+of her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Honey, no. I’m too heavy,” he protested anxiously, but
+she smiled and silenced him with kisses.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+They planned to call the Rothelis the next night at six,
+but chance fouled their neat timing; chance or fate, heaven
+or hell—whatever controls these things. This was the night
+for the sky to fall and shatter their lives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At five minutes to six, their phone rang. It was George
+Pringle, Page’s step-father. Sunny came in from the kitchen
+and picked up the phone. Page, looking at the paper, saw
+her look at him cautiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My parents?” he guessed aloud. She nodded, speaking
+fond trivialities into the receiver. He could tell she was
+worried about what he would say to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What the hell, he thought. I’ll tell them the news. This
+is no night for harsh words. Maybe Sunny’s right, it’s
+time to sign the treaty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He surprised himself. He hadn’t planned any reconciliation.
+But he was full of a new self-assurance, a gratitude
+that took in the whole world. The Pringles’ call happened
+to come at a lucky time. He could talk to his step-father
+man to man now, and he would.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took the phone Sunny held out to him and whispered,
+“Don’t worry, honey, I’ll be nice to him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she shook her head. “Your father’s worried about
+something. He didn’t call you just for a chat. He has too
+much pride for that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was right. Page frowned at her as he spoke. “Dad?”
+he said in a friendly voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The elder Pringle answered at once and the words
+<a id="page-51" class="pagenum" title="51"></a>
+seemed to tumble out of him pell-mell, more breath than
+voice. “Page, my son, I have something to tell you. You
+remember—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sorry, Dad, I can’t hear you very well,” Page said,
+wondering if his mother had taken a bad turn. “You
+sound like you have bad news.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I’m afraid—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then let me give you our good news first. We were
+just going to call you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were?” Pringle was frankly skeptical, and it made
+Page feel guilty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Two things,” Page said. “I’m going to do a column
+for the <em>Sunday Magazine</em>. Got the offer yesterday. Byline,
+picture, and all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Silence. Page frowned again. “Dad? What do you think
+of that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m delighted for you, Page,” his father said in a
+curiously weak voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, if that doesn’t get you, how about this: Sunny’s
+going to have a baby! In August.” Another queer silence.
+“Dad, for God’s sake!” Page said irritably. “Don’t you
+hear me?... Dad, are you there?” The irritation verged
+suddenly on alarm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, Page, I’m here. Are you <em>sure</em> about Sunny?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure I’m sure. She saw the doc yesterday.... Well,
+<em>say</em> something. Say it’s great. Say you’re happy for us.
+Or aren’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dad, tell me, is something wrong?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My boy, I have to tell you this. I’d have given anything
+in my life to spare you, especially now,” Pringle said.
+“But you must be told. I mean, now that Sunny—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Told what?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, you’ve got to believe me—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, damn it, <em>tell</em> me!” Page demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny felt a sharp foreboding, seeing the concern on
+Page’s face. She sat down in an easy chair where she could
+follow the talk. Page began to pale as he listened to his
+father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You remember Dr. Blue?” Pringle was saying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure I remember him,” Page said. And in a sudden
+<a id="page-52" class="pagenum" title="52"></a>
+sick flash, away in the back of his frightened soul, he saw
+what was coming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, your mother wanted to see him again. She has
+for some time, as you’ve guessed. She trusts him, and
+lately, with you gone and our life so restricted, she
+wanted to patch things up a bit.” He related these old
+problems awkwardly. “We talked it over and I decided
+if it would cheer her up a little, it was worth calling him
+in. Let bygones be bygone. I’m not a man to carry a
+grudge to my grave.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” Page said, seized by a wish to hang up, to stem
+the stream of words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was glad to hear from us,” Pringle went on, “and
+he came to see your mother yesterday. They had a lot
+to talk about. They talked mostly about you, Page. Mother
+told him you were married now. To Sunny Rotheli....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh.” His tongue felt sticky dry. “Well, I’ll bet he was
+glad to hear I’ve settled down. He had me figured for a
+burglar when he caught me in his office that time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page,” his step-father said in a trembling voice.
+“There’s no way to break this to you gently. I—I....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dad ... did he tell you who I am? Do you know
+who I am, Dad?” That had to be it. Page felt himself
+shaking, and Sunny, watching him, shook too. Her hands
+were knotted in her skirt, soaking the cloth with her
+perspiration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pringle cleared his throat. “You are Sunny’s brother,”
+he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Four words. They shot across the wires like electric
+darts and paralyzed Page. He stood gripping the phone,
+staring stupidly at the floor, unable to make sense. “I’m
+what?” he said faintly at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are Sunny’s brother. You are a Rotheli. You
+were christened Roger Rotheli. Page, do you understand
+me? Sunny is your <em>sister</em>.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page went dead white. His jaw slackened and he turned
+slowly to stare at Sunny. “That’s impossible,” he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It seems the Rothelis had a boy,” Pringle said, “some
+years before they had Sunny. I guess you know that.
+Sunny even mentioned it to your mother and me. They
+<a id="page-53" class="pagenum" title="53"></a>
+had a little boy named Roger. He came just nine months
+after they were married. It was in the Depression, and
+Ben Rotheli was out of work. June was very sick, frail
+and emotionally upset all through the pregnancy. They
+hadn’t planned to start a family for several years. But
+the thing happened anyway and that, on top of their
+money worries and her bad health, nearly finished her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She had a drastic mental breakdown. Didn’t even know
+her husband for a while, and when he brought the baby
+in to show her, she tried to throw it at him. She thought
+it was a doll. When he swore it was hers she became
+hysterical and accused him of lying. She said it couldn’t
+be hers because she’d never had a baby and anyway she
+hated babies and that one most of all. Ben tried to show
+her the baby’s eyes, because they looked so much like
+hers, but she wouldn’t listen.” He paused. “That was you,
+Page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ben wanted to keep you. He tried to figure out a way.
+But he didn’t have a dime, and he couldn’t stay home
+and care for you while he was out job-hunting. June was
+too sick even to know her own baby, much less love him
+or tend him. Every penny Rotheli could borrow went to
+pay hospital bills. He didn’t even have enough to feed
+himself more than a couple of cans of beans every other
+day. The baby had to be farmed out to a welfare agency
+the first few weeks.... Page? Do you hear me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hear....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, at the time this happened, Ben was living in a
+tiny basement apartment just off North Clark Street, not far
+from where we were. Dr. Blue had delivered you and he
+was taking care of June. It looked doubtful that June
+would ever recover her reason. As you know, Dr. Blue
+had been our family doctor for years, and he knew how
+much we wanted a son. Of course we didn’t know the
+Rothelis or anything about them then. We’ve still never
+met them, or known your real name till now. But when
+you were born, Dr. Blue came to us. He had talked it
+out with Ben, and promised him you’d have as loving
+and kind parents in us as it was possible to find.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We wanted a boy desperately, and we were willing to
+pay generously for him. And Ben was just as desperate to
+<a id="page-54" class="pagenum" title="54"></a>
+find good loving care for you in a private home. That
+came first with him. But he was also hopelessly in debt.
+I think if there’d been the least chance June might have
+come out of it and been able to raise you herself, Ben
+wouldn’t have signed the adoption papers. But you couldn’t
+speak the word ‘baby’ in her hearing. It was that serious.
+And he was afraid she would end up a charity case in
+the city hospital psycho ward—practically a guarantee
+she’d never recover. Her condition looked permanent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, there we were with several thousand dollars in
+our hands to pay up all his bills. All June’s hospital bills
+and drugs and doctor’s fees until she was completely
+recovered. To us it was a small price in exchange for the
+son we wanted, and the money would never be missed. To
+Rotheli, it was a hand up out of the hellhole. He sacrificed
+the baby he didn’t know for the wife he loved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dr. Blue drew up an agreement. In addition to the
+financial arrangements, both sides agreed never to try to
+contact or know each other. The doctor refused to help
+us until we all signed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“June was sick for almost two years, and in and out
+of the hospital after that for the next four and a half. You
+were in second grade by the time your mother was a well
+woman, Page; by the time she could have cared for you
+herself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a long silence between adopted son and step-father.
+Finally Pringle spoke again in a voice weary and
+near to breaking. “My dear son,” he said. “I know how
+you must feel—how impossible this seems. It just couldn’t
+have happened—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But it did, thanks to you,” Page broke in irrationally,
+pressing a hand over his mouth to crush the sobs. He had
+not wept since he had first learned of his adoption so
+many years ago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All the records tally,” Pringle said. “We checked them
+immediately, of course, over and over. There’s no way
+out of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No way. You’ve ruined our lives. You ruined mine
+years ago and how you’ve ruined <em>ours</em>,” Page cried out
+so bitterly that Sunny shuddered, hugging herself with
+fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-55" class="pagenum" title="55"></a>
+“My boy, would you rather I hadn’t told you?” Pringle
+was shaken with grief, fully as much as Page, but Page
+was too stricken to realize it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m <em>not</em> your boy!” he said fiercely. “Oh, God! Nothing
+makes sense any more. I suppose you’ve told the
+Rothelis.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No one knows but us and Dr. Blue,” Pringle assured
+him. “If I had known Sunny was pregnant....” He
+stopped, uncertain himself what he would have done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You would have told me just the same,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s imperative that you separate now,” Pringle said.
+“You aren’t blaming us for this, are you, Page? You can’t
+imagine how we’ve suffered over it. I would have gone
+through hell to spare you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why didn’t you, then!” Page was incapable of logic.
+“You didn’t have to adopt me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps you hate me now,” Pringle said sorrowfully.
+“But later you’ll understand Page, there are urgent things
+to settle. If Sunny is really pregnant, she must get an
+abortion.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now you want me to murder my own child!” Page
+cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page! Stop it!” Sunny said, horrified.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your child is the product of incest,” his step-father
+said, and the word tolled in Page’s ear like a death-knell.
+“I’m certain Dr. Blue will help us. He has to share the
+responsibility for this thing. Get Sunny on the earliest
+possible flight to Chicago, and—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haven’t you done enough?” Page said. “Every time
+I come near you something rotten happens. This is the
+end. You just let <em>me</em> figure this out!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, wait! Listen to me!” Pringle said, but Page
+slammed the phone down and pulled the cord out of the
+wall. He flung it into a corner where it landed with an
+ugly clatter.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-8">
+<a id="page-56" class="pagenum" title="56"></a>
+8
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Sunny waited in tense silence in the chair, holding herself
+together by sheer force of will.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page stood motionless in the middle of the room with
+his back to her, his head in his hands. “Page?” she whispered,
+afraid her voice might unhinge him. “Who are you,
+darling? Did your father tell you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned and walked into the bedroom. She followed
+to find him pulling open his dresser drawers and throwing
+clothes on the bed. Sunny took his arms and made him
+look at her. Her face made him cry again, briefly and
+harshly: her beautiful, sensitive face. Suddenly he caught
+her to him, holding her in arms made powerful with
+misery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, you must tell me. You always wanted to know
+who you are. Was it so awful?” She spoke to him soothingly
+as his mother might have.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead of explaining he picked her up and put her one
+last time on the bed, meaning to leave her. But he gazed
+down at her and found he couldn’t move. He had been
+so warm and ready for love, so enchanted with her before
+the call came and blasted his life. It was beyond his
+courage to tell her and then walk out and leave her forever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead he sat down and tried to open his mouth and
+declare that he was her brother. <em>Roger Rotheli.</em> That the
+father-in-law he loved and admired was his own father.
+His tongue refused to move.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-57" class="pagenum" title="57"></a>
+He sat there beside his wife and felt the utmost love
+he had ever felt for her, and the deepest despair. He
+leaned down and kissed her brow, afraid of her sweet
+mouth. And abruptly, to his helpless dismay, was consumed
+with a raging desire for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<em>Just once, before she learns the truth</em>, he told himself in
+anguish. And without a word he took her. For Sunny, his
+sudden furious love-making was a nightmare. His hands
+that had been so gentle were hard, his lips bruised her,
+his tears terrified her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Weeping and tremulous, she gave herself and prayed
+that her tenderness, her fright, her very flesh, would calm
+him, bring him back to sanity. But when it was over he
+simply lay across her, a dead weight, and said nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny held him tightly and murmured, “Page, my
+darling, whatever it is, we have to face it together.” He
+turned his face away so she couldn’t see it. “My darling,
+my love, nothing in this world can whip us as long as we
+have each other,” she told him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One thing,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was your father a ... an evil man, Page? A criminal?
+Or sick?” She spoke as she might have to an ailing child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page rose suddenly and began pulling his clothes together.
+“No,” he said. He zipped up his pants and put
+his jacket on and started out of the room, not daring
+to take time to collect his clothes. He felt he had to leave
+at once or he would want her again. It was a nightmare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page!” Sunny cried, running after him into the living
+room. “For the sweet love of God, <em>tell</em> me!” When he
+opened the front door and turned to face her like a man
+taking permanent leave of his woman, she gave a little
+scream. “Tell me,” she demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, I—I—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You what? Page, are you trying to destroy me? You
+<em>what</em>?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stood with fists clenched, eyes wild in a flushed
+face, only half dressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m your brother,” he said in a weird, strained voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again a fateful silence struck the room. Page hesitated,
+waiting for her to faint. He would catch her, put her on
+the sofa, and sneak out before she regained her senses.
+<a id="page-58" class="pagenum" title="58"></a>
+It would be cowardly but easier. He dared not stay under
+the same roof with her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she didn’t faint. She only stood gazing at him while
+her face, that had been in the ruins of despair, slowly
+took shape again. A great wave of trembling went through
+her and subsided. Like Page, she lost her voice entirely
+for a minute ... an inherited trait they shared in emotional
+moments. When it came back she said, “You are
+<em>Roger</em>? My brother, Roger, who <em>died</em>?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded, ready to bolt. For a second they stared
+incredulously at each other, as fascinated as they were
+appalled. Sunny absorbed it bravely, better than he had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, shut the door and come here,” she said. Her
+voice was still quavery but she showed no signs of fainting.
+The blood had left her face and her eyes grew wide like
+green flowers above her white cheeks. But he wouldn’t
+come near her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t stay, Sunny,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can’t stay?” It didn’t make sense at first.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I commit the foulest kind of sin every time I look
+at you,” he said. “Now that we can’t ... I mean ... I
+want you terribly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, are you absolutely <em>certain</em>? There’s no mistake?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Doc Blue told Mother when he learned your name.
+The records verify it. Good old Doc Blue ... my evil
+spirit,” he said acidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny sat down on the arm of the sofa and Page moved
+to leave again, but she stopped him. “You can’t go!” she
+cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t stay, that’s for sure,” he said grimly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But where will you go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Manns’, I guess.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What will you tell them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My God, that’s right.” He slapped his face with one
+hand. “I can’t tell any of our friends.” The enormity of it
+hit him brutally and he drew the hand over his grimacing
+face. “I guess I’ll have to get a hotel room somewhere.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, darling,” Sunny said, in better control of herself
+now, “did it ever occur to you that it’s too late for that?
+There’s no point in leaving me now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-59" class="pagenum" title="59"></a>
+“I’m pregnant with your child. You can’t do any more
+harm. It’s all been done. Does it matter then if we still
+make love?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was so shocked that he took a few steps toward
+her, his face screwed up with the effort to understand
+her. “Are you trying to tell me we should go on living
+together, as if this hadn’t happened?” he said. “Is <em>that</em>
+what you’re saying?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny was taken aback by his disgust. She looked down,
+unprepared for this turn. “Darling, that baby was conceived
+in love and innocence,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We aren’t innocent any more, Sunny. Neither is our
+love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love you so much,” she said miserably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re in love with your brother,” he said, still stunned
+by it. “It’s evil now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Evil!” The word made her reel; she was frightened by
+his revulsion for the situation. “I can’t be ashamed of my
+love for you, no matter what you call it!” she flashed.
+“I won’t apologize for falling in love with you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We don’t have to apologize for it, we have to do something
+about it,” he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What? Stop loving each other?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Separate,” he said miserably. “God, Sunny, I’ll never
+stop loving you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then stay with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He threw out his hands at her. “You’re my <em>sister</em>, can’t
+you understand that? I’ve found my name at last. I’m
+your brother, I’m a Rotheli.” Just the thought of it shut
+him up for a second. “And you’re sitting there suggesting
+that we go on as if we were normal, ordinary, wholesome
+lovers! It’s unbelievable!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All his ideals: normality, wholesomeness. How could
+he face the world without them?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, you talk about us as if we were diseased!” she
+shot back at him. “Were we degenerates when we married,
+when we made love to each other? Does just knowing it
+debauch us somehow?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Only if we stay together,” he said, “and keep on
+committing an act we know now is criminal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!” she said with the ardor of a woman fighting for
+<a id="page-60" class="pagenum" title="60"></a>
+her love. “I’ll never accept that, Page. I can’t believe a
+love like ours is anything but good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, now you <em>have</em> to believe it,” he said. “It’s dirty
+and it’s wrong, Sunny. The sooner you face it, the less
+grief this will bring us both.” He seemed to be struggling
+to convince himself as much as her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The sooner I face what? The baby in my arms—your
+baby? How do I explain him away? What shall I tell this
+‘most wanted baby in the world’? Daddy doesn’t exist,
+dear? Mother just stirred you up in a test tube?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would you rather tell him his father is also his <em>uncle</em>?”
+Page shouted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does he <em>have</em> to be told? Does anyone?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Things like this don’t stay secret forever, no matter
+how you try. Suppose he’s born a monster. How will you
+explain that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny put a frightened hand over her stomach. Like
+most people she had only hazy ideas of what happened
+to children born of incestuous unions, and all the ideas
+were gruesome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It will be beautiful,” she said, shaken but still brave.
+“It has to be, to prove our love is right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It will only prove we found out about ourselves too
+late,” he said sorrowfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’ll be healthy and normal,” she said. “A sign—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stop it, Sunny! There are no signs from heaven any
+more. All the miracles happened long ago. There aren’t
+any left for us. Darling, there’s only one way out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What?” She was crying now, unable to control her
+face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He tried to say it kindly, but the word itself was cruel.
+“An abortion.” It was her turn to register shock and
+disbelief. “Dad said Doc Blue might do it,” he added
+rigidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your <em>father</em> said that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In this case, he happens to be right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny shook with resentment. “How can you think such
+a thing? This innocent baby, this part of yourself you
+were so almighty proud of, and you want to murder—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you want to go on living with me. Me, your
+<em>brother</em>!” he shouted. “And give birth to an imbecile—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-61" class="pagenum" title="61"></a>
+“Page, don’t!” she cried with all her strength. “Get out!
+Get out! Get out!” She collapsed into the sofa, whimpering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stood in the door for a moment, watching her until
+she looked up to see if he had gone. They gazed at each
+other, speechless with the size of their despair and the
+size of their love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t tell anyone. <em>Anyone</em>,” she pleaded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded and pulled the door shut behind him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And let me know where you are,” she called after him.
+“Page? Page!” But the door was closed; he had left her
+and nothing indicated he had heard; or, having heard, that
+he would keep in touch.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-9">
+<a id="page-62" class="pagenum" title="62"></a>
+9
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Sunny sat where she was until the cramps in her legs
+reminded her of the hours that had passed. Like a hurt
+animal she roused and shook herself. With all the care
+of other nights she performed her usual nightly chores:
+bathed, brushed her teeth, curled her hair on trim tin
+rollers. It comforted her, as if she could enter the bedroom
+when she finished and find Page waiting for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To her surprise her hands moved, her heart beat, her
+mind functioned. She looked at her face in the mirror and
+her features were still in their places. She touched them
+to be sure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first time she studied her face for signs of
+similarity to her husband’s. She got his photograph from
+her dresser and, turning on both dresser lamps, stood at
+the mirror full front, holding Page’s picture at the level
+of her own face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was several minutes before it began to come clear:
+the tiny dents at the sides of their noses, the sweep of
+the jawline, the full curve of the underlip. But suddenly the
+likeness leaped at her, like a light switched on in a
+basement, and made her wonder how they could have
+missed it all this time, why their friends and family
+hadn’t caught it. All those small subtle signs imploring
+recognition: those two mouths that knew the feel of each
+other so well, those two pairs of green eyes that looked
+at each other so often but saw, it now seemed, so very
+little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-63" class="pagenum" title="63"></a>
+But the thing that astonished Sunny the most, hurt the
+most, was the sudden total opposition of their views. Their
+faces might be alike, their love painfully strong. But in
+their minds something terrible had happened. He had taken
+one tack and she another, and the two were irreconcilable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny’s first thought, when she was able to think, was
+to save their marriage somehow. The morality of the thing
+was secondary; <em>everything</em> was secondary to her love and
+her life with Page. They would worry about morality after
+they agreed to stay together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to her tragic surprise, they didn’t agree. He saw
+things exactly in reverse: morality dictated a separation.
+Their marriage was an offense to society, to religion, to
+the law. Page couldn’t live with that and keep his self-respect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny put Page’s neglected clothes back into his dresser
+drawers and told herself he would have to come get them
+sooner or later. She would see him then. In the meantime
+she would contrive a way to lure him back to live with
+her, back where he belonged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She knew he had adopted his step-father’s attitude. All
+the curses he flung at Pringle on the phone didn’t change
+that. But she hoped Pringle’s words would carry less
+weight with him in the long run than her own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the next few days she spent a lot of time at the
+mirror with Page’s photo in her hand. It gave her the same
+message every time: <em>You are brother and sister. It’s true.
+You look alike and nobody saw it before simply because
+nobody would have believed it.</em>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gazing at her guilty features she realized that Page
+would never be persuaded of the morality of their marriage.
+She would have to win him back on the strength
+of his love for her alone, and let the morality go hang.
+She felt she would die without him.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Page did not come back for several days. She guessed
+he was holed up somewhere, suffering as she was and
+uncertain what to do. She waited at first with confidence,
+sure that he would need his things. He couldn’t get them
+without seeing her and he couldn’t see her without wanting
+<a id="page-64" class="pagenum" title="64"></a>
+her; that was her secret weapon. She didn’t leave the
+house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when three days had passed she began to get scared.
+Finally, swallowing her pride, she called Jack Mann. “He
+isn’t home yet,” she said, “and it’s past dinnertime. Have
+you heard from him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, honey, not for the past few days. I was going to
+call you, in fact. His office says he’s home with the flu.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What?” she exclaimed. So Jack caught on at once that
+something was wrong. It humiliated her, and yet relieved
+her that she could share some bit of her troubles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I tried to get him for lunch yesterday,” Jack explained
+kindly. “Only have a couple of weeks left before I go to
+Chicago, you know.” He paused. “Want to talk about it,
+Sunny?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was not offended; only afraid to discuss it. “I guess
+I have the bug, myself,” she said. “If you <em>do</em> hear from
+him, Jack—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll call you right away.” Again he waited, giving her
+an opening. His instinct for people, for trouble, for people
+<em>in</em> trouble, was too good. There was no fooling him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she said, “Thanks, Jack,” and hung up quickly to
+avoid crying over the phone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wondered, as she replaced the phone, if she had
+better call the police. But she was afraid if they were
+called in, the whole fantastic mess would come out in
+the papers. And if that happened it would destroy Page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the middle of the morning’s anxious monotony she
+had an idea. Page must have realized what she was up to,
+waiting there for him in that neat little trap, ready to grab
+him when he came for his things. Couldn’t he be watching
+the place, waiting till she went out for a while? He could
+get in and grab his things then without having to face
+her, and it would spare him the temptation he dreaded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the speed of new hope she got her coat and purse
+and left the apartment. The cold air outside felt good to
+her. She glanced quickly up and down the block, wondering
+if he saw her from the shadows of a doorway. If he
+did he wouldn’t show himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny walked toward the market on the corner where
+she bought her groceries, bending her head slightly against
+<a id="page-65" class="pagenum" title="65"></a>
+the gray wind. Her eyes were open wide, aching to see
+behind her. She spent six or seven minutes in the shop.
+<em>That should give him time to get in</em>, she thought, and
+went out without buying so much as a package of gum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She ran back to her building with her heart struggling
+to break out of her ribs all the way, and hurried into the
+warm entrance hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They met halfway on the stairs. Sunny was dashing
+up with her head down and saw his feet first. Page stopped
+in his tracks, motionless with surprise and indecision. “You
+got me after all,” he said at last, as if she ought to move
+aside and let him pass to make up for it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Caught you like a thief,” she said to shame him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It won’t do any good, Sunny,” he said brusquely, trying
+to shove past her, but she threw frantic arms around him.
+And suddenly he dropped his bundles and kissed her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love you,” they said together, the way they had at
+the beginning of their love. It made her cry and made him
+wild to escape the need that swelled in him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let me go,” he said, pulling her arms away, but he
+saw that if he left her there on the stairs she would become
+hysterical. She was close to it already. He hesitated a few
+seconds and then the shame caught up with him. She would
+take him for a weakling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He retrieved his belongings and took her elbow, mounting
+the stairs with her. “This will only hurt both of us,”
+he said grimly. “But if you want to talk about it....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you, darling,” she said and let him unlock the
+door for her. She went in ahead of him and saw at once a
+note he had propped on the phone table. She started for it
+but he grasped her hand, letting his things fall again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s just a note,” he said impatiently. “If I hadn’t taken
+time to write the damn thing—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wouldn’t have caught you red-handed,” she said. She
+freed her hand and picked it up, ignoring his plea not to
+read it. It said, “I love you desperately. I will always love
+you, only you. Sunny, there will never be anyone else.
+Page.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she looked at him again through wet eyes, he was
+gazing at the floor. “It’s not as if you didn’t know it,” he
+said, embarrassed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-66" class="pagenum" title="66"></a>
+“I just like to be told,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s against the law to tell you now,” he said. “Did
+you know that? Our marriage is legally dead. If we went
+on living together we’d be criminals.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does that scare you so much? I’m willing to be a
+criminal, I’m willing to be <em>anything</em>, if it means keeping
+you. But you’re not willing to do that for me. You just
+want to sneak in and out of here with your clothes before
+I catch you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you wonder what living with a sickness like this
+all our lives could do to us?” Page said earnestly. “It would
+be slow poison. All you’re thinking about is right now.
+You want me and—and I want you.” He stopped, trying
+to steady himself. “But suppose I gave in and we went
+back together. Even if nobody ever found out it would
+destroy us, Sunny—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Destroy <em>you</em>!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Knowing every time we touched each other, every
+time we kissed—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, I won’t have our love defiled, not even by you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And what if somebody <em>did</em> find out? Do you think
+they’d approve of it?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your parents won’t tell, if that’s what you mean,” she
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My father would despise us if we stayed together.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, who is more important, your wife or your
+father?” she cried spitefully. “You never seemed to give
+a damn for him before.” Seeing him brace for a fight
+she softened suddenly, imploring him. “Darling, your
+father wouldn’t despise us. He wouldn’t approve, it’s true,
+but if he saw we meant it; saw how deep our love is....
+He loves you too much to risk breaking with you forever.
+And I have a woman’s feeling your mother secretly wishes
+we’d stay together, no matter what. They love us, Page.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure they love us. That doesn’t make us right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, say the damn word!” she exclaimed, shaking her
+head till the blond curls flew. “We’re both so scared of it
+we can’t pronounce it.... Well, <em>say</em> it, go on!” she
+taunted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say what?” he muttered stubbornly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<em>Incest.</em> Incest, Incest, Incest!” she shouted. “That’s
+<a id="page-67" class="pagenum" title="67"></a>
+it, that’s the one big fact in our lives. Let’s at least call it
+by its right name.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s just get rid of it, end it,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, you know you can’t leave me,” she said, approaching
+him. “Any more than I can leave you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right,” he flared. “We’ll live here and raise that
+little idiot we spawned. And someday, somehow, the news
+will leak out. Only by that time I’ll have a name, a reputation.
+We’ll be well known. Our child will have ears and
+he’ll understand things—at least I <em>hope</em> he’ll understand
+things—and either this gets plastered all over the papers or
+somebody gets smart and blackmails us. We lose our
+sanity either way. We’re helpless, completely trapped.”
+He stopped, out of breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll take that chance,” she said. “For you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will now, but not ten years from now. How would
+you like your child to have to face it with us? Sunny,
+there are things you can face by yourself, but not with a
+child to protect.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was true. She felt the uprush of unwanted tears and
+cursed softly to herself. “We might never have to face it.
+We could move.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where? The moon? You can’t escape yourself, anyway.
+You take yourself with you wherever you go—and your
+secrets and your shames. We’d have to look at each
+other every day, every night in bed, and know....” He
+gazed at her quietly for a minute, with his love, terrible
+and sharp in his heart, making him weak. “Sunny? Are
+you afraid to have an abortion?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<em>Sacrifice the baby</em>, he was begging her, <em>and maybe
+we can live together. If it’s just you and me with no kids
+to suffer with us.</em>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She understood. “Yes, I’m afraid,” she said truthfully.
+“But not so much of the pain as—” She gave a little sob.
+“I love this baby, Page.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<a id="corr-4"></a>You’d rather have the baby than me, is that it?” he said
+roughly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d rather have you both,” she wept. “We belong together,
+Page.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not in the eyes of the law.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The law can go to hell!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-68" class="pagenum" title="68"></a>
+“Swearing won’t change it. Why do you suppose incest
+is forbidden?” he asked. “Because brothers and sisters
+are falling all over each other trying to get hitched? No,
+Sunny, no. It’s to protect children, preserve the race. Did
+you ever hear of inbreeding? It happens to dogs and cows.
+They get nervous and weak. They get stupid. They bleed.
+It happened to the great royal families in Europe. What
+was it? Inbreeding. <em>Incest.</em>”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But that took generations,” Sunny protested. “That
+doesn’t happen the first time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It can,” he said with the certainty of a man who isn’t
+sure of his facts; only his prejudices. “I knew a brother
+and sister who were the children of first cousins. What do
+you think they were like?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Both gargoyles, of course,” she fumed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was completely hairless from the day he was born.
+He didn’t have a hair on his body—not on his head or his
+chest or his genitals. Not one lousy eyelash did that guy
+have. He looked like polished plastic.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can live with a thing like that,” she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And his sister,” Page went on, “was a hopeless cripple
+from the waist down. Her legs never carried her one inch
+in her life. They were just a detour for her blood. They
+hung from her hips like sacks of water, and you’d have
+sworn there wasn’t a bone in either one. She went everywhere
+in a wheel chair. Her brother pushed her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It might have been an accident or an illness,” she
+protested, trying to hide the anxiety he had roused in her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page lighted a cigarette from the one that was burning
+out. “Their parents were cousins. That’s the only explanation,”
+he said. “Cousins, Sunny. We’re brother and sister.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She covered her face with her hands and cried. It tore
+him nearly to pieces to watch her. He had dramatized it
+for her, tortured her with it, in the hope that she would
+agree to the abortion. He felt it was the only chance for
+them to stay together. But it didn’t work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe Dr. Blue was wrong,” she said pathetically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He reached her in one big step and took her hard by
+the shoulders. “Maybe our eyes aren’t the same color
+and our hair isn’t blond and our noses and our ears and
+our mouths—” He faltered. “That mouth of yours, that
+<a id="page-69" class="pagenum" title="69"></a>
+mouth I love so unspeakably much,” he said, helpless
+with her closeness “... is my own mouth.” His voice
+separated each awful word. Sunny covered her lips with
+her hands as if they were court evidence of guilt. “It’s so
+obvious,” he said, studying her face, lifting his fingers to
+touch it. “God, why couldn’t we have seen it and saved
+ourselves before we fell in love? I’ve spent hours in front
+of the damn mirror. And the more I look at myself, the
+more I see you.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I saw my face for the first time three days ago, Sunny.
+My face: <em>your</em> face. The same!” It was a cry of despair.
+She bent her head like a little girl being blamed for something
+she can’t understand. But he raised it again till
+he could see every feature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, my darling,” he said, wiping ineffectually at her
+tears. “Oh, my love, my wife, my—my sister.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He caught her in a crushing embrace, hiding his face
+in her soft neck, and she felt him shake with sobs that
+only a strangling repressive effort kept silent. He released
+her abruptly and turned, picking up his bags and hurrying
+toward the door. Sunny rushed after him, catching at his
+sleeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, where are you staying?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll get in touch with you,” he answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll die if I don’t know. Page!” she begged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, I have to be alone a little while. Can’t you see
+that? I’ll call you, darling.” He struggled toward the door,
+afraid to prolong the stay. He would succumb to her and
+betray them both, and end up hating her for it. To make
+love to Sunny now was to make her filthy as well as himself.
+His love was turned to lust since his wife had turned
+into his sister. Those were his feelings, a Pringle’s feelings,
+and he couldn’t escape them. Physical love with Sunny
+would be wrong and he despised himself for wanting it
+so constantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pushed her firmly away and reached the door. She
+stood where she was, momentarily defeated, crying and
+heart-sick. Page was too moved, too in love and too
+worried, to leave her without another word. He said,
+almost hoping she wouldn’t hear, “Maybe if you got an
+abortion ... we could—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-70" class="pagenum" title="70"></a>
+She straightened up and said with a fierce pride that
+surprised him, “Never!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shut the door quietly behind him.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Sunny waited another couple of days alone in the apartment,
+afraid to go out and leave the reinstalled phone
+untended. But Page, in spite of his promise, didn’t call.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny phoned his office at the <em>Sunday Magazine</em> twice,
+but they told her politely that Mr. Pringle was out covering
+a story, and gave her her own number to call.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He thinks if we just don’t see each other or hear each
+other, the problem will disappear, she thought angrily.
+For the first time since she had known him she was
+tempted to question Page’s courage. Not his physical
+courage; he had been in Korea, and his record was good.
+It was his moral courage she wondered about.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny called Jack again. She knew her call would
+advertise serious trouble between her and Page, but he
+was their closest friend and she trusted him. “I don’t
+know where he is,” she admitted to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I don’t know where he’s living, but I do know
+he’s in his office part-time. We talked yesterday about
+getting together for a drink.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They keep telling me he isn’t there,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He probably isn’t. He’s out a lot on interviews. Why
+don’t you go down there, if it’s that urgent?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’d kill me,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The hell with him,” Jack retorted. “If he hurts you,
+I’ll break his head. It’s worth a try, Sunny. If it doesn’t
+work, let me know. I’ll try to work something out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She thanked him and hung up somewhat reassured. It
+made sense for Page to hold tight to his job. He needed
+work right now, all the more since he had given up his
+wife. Sunny wished sourly that she had a similar crutch
+to lean on.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She took Jack’s advice and went to the midtown offices
+of the <em>Sunday Magazine</em>, but it was all for nothing. She
+wasn’t admitted to see him and had to leave, frustrated
+and furious. But Page suffered over it, too. He was angry
+that she should have tried to approach him in public and
+<a id="page-71" class="pagenum" title="71"></a>
+make a display of their trouble, especially here where he
+had a new job and had to establish his worth. But not
+all the wrath he could muster over her dangerous foolishness
+helped him forget that he had turned her out; embarrassed
+and hurt her. He ached with regret over it, wanting
+to rush home and hold her and beg her to forgive him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stood in his small private office, looking out the
+window at the complex geometry of the city. The street
+thirty-two stories below looked so inviting that he let himself
+wonder how it would feel to jump. But anything was
+better than suicide, any act less final than death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page fell into his swivel chair and wept all over his
+bright, self-confident new column. For the first time he
+really wanted to change; try to accept the thing for Sunny’s
+sake, but he couldn’t do it. Not yet. It still seemed too
+much like a weak surrender to him. Sunny would have
+to wait and let him come to her. For when she approached
+him, and worst of all, in public, he panicked. It was partly
+the uncontrollable sex thing, partly moral confusion, partly
+painful love.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-10">
+<a id="page-72" class="pagenum" title="72"></a>
+10
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Jack and Laura were packed and Jack had located a
+temporary apartment for them in Chicago. Their New
+York place was almost empty. The moving van would
+pick up the remaining things in the morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack had talked Page into a last night’s outing. “You
+can’t let me go without a send-off, old buddy,” he said.
+Privately, he hoped he could help with whatever was
+troubling the young Pringles. It was probably a typical
+newlywed complaint, but Jack pretended at first that he
+didn’t know anything was amiss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He met Page at a quiet little bar in Jack’s neighborhood.
+Both of them were early. Jack was surprised at Page’s
+appearance. He was wearing the right sort of clothes:
+the style-conscious young-executive sort. His shirt was
+hand-tailored, his shoes were new. And yet he looked
+neglected and unpressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You look like I did when I was drinking myself to
+death,” Jack said humorously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How?” Page said, anxious to get the first drink down
+and the second one ordered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Seedy,” Jack told him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks.” Page gulped over the hot whiskey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack ordered a glass of milk and Page’s eyebrows
+soared, “Jesus, are you still on the wagon?” he croaked,
+clearing his burning throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“More or less. Mostly more,” Jack grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack! You’re my friend. Get <em>drunk</em> with me, for God’s
+<a id="page-73" class="pagenum" title="73"></a>
+sake.” He looked so dismayed, with his face in lines and a
+button loose and his eyes lost and troubled, that Jack,
+against his better judgment, ordered a shot of Scotch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do this out of sheer misguided brotherly love,” he
+told Page. “Laura will probably divorce me when she
+finds out, but if it’s that serious....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s <em>that</em> serious.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack waited for him to pick up the cue and tell him his
+problems. He knew how to listen sympathetically to people,
+because he cared about them. He was really interested,
+even in the dreariest dilemmas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t talk about it,” Page said, putting the second
+drink away and signaling for the third.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well then, what the hell am I doing sitting here getting
+drunk with you?” Jack demanded to know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shut up and drink,” Page said solemnly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’ll take all night to get drunk on this stuff,” Jack said.
+“You could down ten shots in a row and be sober as a
+pole. Why don’t we go up to my place?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And slobber over your lovely wife?” Page objected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She isn’t home,” Jack said. She was, in fact, down
+in the Village saying good-by to a few close friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She isn’t? Let’s go.” The drinks seemed slightly stronger
+to Page than Jack’s description—perhaps because he took
+down four or five in less than ten minutes and they landed
+in an empty stomach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack eyed him critically. “Can you stand up?” he kidded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly, if you promise not to watch.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They headed outside and the fresh air steadied Page.
+He was glad to go with Jack. He had no wish to display
+his misery in a public bar. At the same time he yearned
+to get high, to relax with an old friend who wouldn’t
+judge him; muddle himself up and think about something
+besides Sunny Pringle, his wife who was not his wife: his
+beautiful, bewitching, seductive, adorable sister. But the
+liquor was just so much acid eating up his little tin inhibitions.
+The higher he got the more he thought of her; the
+more tempted he was to confess himself for the sake of the
+comfort Jack would give him.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The Manns’s apartment was bare except for packing
+<a id="page-74" class="pagenum" title="74"></a>
+boxes full of books and the built-in kitchen appliances.
+Jack and Page settled, with two glasses and a bottle, in
+the kitchen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page wouldn’t talk about the thing for a while. He had
+given himself strict orders, while he was still sober, not
+to mention it at all, not even to this oldest and best of his
+friends. Not that Jack would ever use it against him. But
+having revealed the thing once he might do it again, and
+the more people who knew, the shakier Page’s future.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as the evening wore on and the level in the whiskey
+bottle sank, the urge for admission came over him again.
+It had all been stopped up inside him for the past lonely,
+worried weeks. He wanted another viewpoint, help, somebody
+to tell him what to do. Above all, he needed someone
+to tell him he was right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was almost too easy to talk to. If you were sad he
+cheered you up, if you were wrong he righted you, if you
+were happy he lived it up with you. He was the one who
+had seen, even before Page himself, what a rare and wonderful
+girl Sunny was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page put a friendly arm around him. “Jack, what would
+I do without you?” he said in an unusual show of affection,
+brought on by straight Scotch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, you’d go straight to hell, old buddy. What else?”
+Jack grinned. “Fill your glass?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page handed it over. “What did you say was the name
+of that drink?” he asked, aware that his tongue was stumbling
+around in his mouth, like a mole lost in the daylight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘Jack’s Damnedest,’” Jack said. “Never fails.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s in it?” Page studied the glass suspiciously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ten parts whiskey,” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ten parts whiskey to <em>what</em>?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To your health.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page smelled it doubtfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Man, you don’t smell the stuff, you <em>drink</em> it,” Jack
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page drank. “You know, sometimes I feel like I can
+tell you just about anything,” he said. “Women don’t
+understand some things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, let’s have it,” Jack said. “No, wait, let me guess.
+Sunny can’t cook?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-75" class="pagenum" title="75"></a>
+“Oh, hell, she can cook anything.” Page made a sweeping
+gesture and tumbled an ice tray to the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She squeezes the toothpaste from the top and you
+squeeze from the bottom? That’s Laura’s specialty. Ought
+to be worth a trip to Reno.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page wrapped both hands around his glass. “Guess
+again, Counselor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, there’s only one other problem we haven’t
+examined. You don’t get along in bed?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page found himself laughing, knowing it was the liquor
+that tickled him, and trying to stop. Jack slapped him on
+the back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe you’d better tell me,” Jack said. “I’m not
+doing so well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I only wish it were all as simple as sex,” Page sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Simple be damned. That’s an art.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page finished the drink and stared slowly up the wall
+behind Jack’s head, unable to look squarely at him. He
+felt the words coming up in his throat, and he had nothing
+left to fight them with. It was wrong, it was grossly unfair
+to Sunny. And yet he felt safe with Jack, who had had
+<a id="corr-5"></a>an earful of Page’s escapades over the years and never
+betrayed him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page was so bewildered that his thinking apparatus had
+ground to a halt. The whiskey made it a cinch to surrender.
+He needed help and Jack was there to give it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know how to say it,” he began. “It’s so ugly.
+So humiliating and queer. It’s impossible, Jack, no kidding.
+But it really happened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack stared at this odd introduction. “The whole world’s
+a little queer, Page,” he reassured him. But he was thinking,
+Jesus don’t tell me Sunny’s gay. He knew Page wasn’t
+but he was never as sharp about the girls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Help me,” Page said. “I’ve got to tell somebody.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is it about Sunny?” Jack asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“About both of us. You see, we ... we’re....” Page
+looked at him very hard and suddenly lost his nerve. “I’m
+adopted,” he told his shoes, retreating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The liquor whirled in Page’s head and his heart ached
+<a id="page-76" class="pagenum" title="76"></a>
+and he knew, as well as he knew his real name, that Sunny
+was thinking of him at that moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So Sunny is my sister.” He had to force the words
+out and his voice boomed unnaturally from the effort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack was stunned almost the way Page himself had
+been when he first heard it. But before he could answer,
+offer his sympathy, Page bent his head into his hands and
+sobbed, knocking over the whiskey glass at his feet. A lone
+ice cube skidded out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack left him alone for several minutes before he put
+a tentative hand on his shoulder. “Your <em>sister</em>?” he echoed.
+“Are you sure?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think I’m kidding? About a thing like this?” Page
+stood up like a shot to dramatize his words, stood there
+wavering, trying to stabilize himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You, of all people,” Jack said, dazed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why do you say it that way?” He flushed the truth
+out of Jack, who was too shaken up for white lies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You hate everything like this, everything that isn’t
+normal and ordinary,” Jack said. “This must have been
+unbearable. My God.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page was offended. “I don’t like abnormality, no,” he
+declared still trying to balance himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sit down, boy, sit down,” Jack said, giving Page’s hand
+a tug and toppling him back onto his packing box. “And
+I suppose you think this is completely abnormal?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, what do <em>you</em> think it is? Clean, wholesome fun?”
+Page demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack got up and filled their glasses again. “I guess I
+just think it’s an accident,” he said. “You can’t very well
+blame anybody for it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a matter of opinion,” Page answered. “Oh, don’t
+misunderstand me, I know nobody planned to marry us
+off knowing we were brother and sister. But it could
+have been avoided, if my real parents had kept me. If
+the doctor had told Dad who I was. If my step-parents
+had kept it to themselves when they found out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That wouldn’t have been strictly moral, would it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. But at least I wouldn’t have had to—” Page
+stopped, ashamed, and let Jack finish for him. “You
+<a id="page-77" class="pagenum" title="77"></a>
+wouldn’t have had to face it,” Jack said, sitting down with
+their fresh drinks. “I guess there’s something in that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Remember when Sunny and I were going together in
+college? You used to tell us we were like an old married
+couple. We even looked alike.” Page laughed sadly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I remember. But I never thought....” Jack put his
+drink down between his feet. “You know something,
+Page? I think you and Sunny could make a go of it ...
+provided you keep quiet about it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That wouldn’t be strictly moral, Jackson,” Page said,
+throwing Jack’s words back at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not so sure this is any time to be moral,” Jack
+said, rolling some whiskey thoughtfully around in his
+mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can’t be moral on a part-time basis. It’s a condition,
+like being alive,” Page objected. “You have principles
+to live by. You can’t chuck them overboard at the first
+crisis.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Some things are more important than principles, old
+buddy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you’re talking about love, you’re wrong. Love has
+to be moral too, Jack.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Love has its own morality, doesn’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What does that mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, it means you and Sunny have to work something
+out so you can go on living together. Because you love
+each other too much to live apart.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That thing would eat us alive, Jack.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I doubt it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack’s calm, rational attitude angered Page. “You make
+it sound like a little misunderstanding between friends,”
+he said. “Some trifle we can just smooth over if we give it
+the old college try.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t mean to,” Jack said. “I guess I don’t shock
+so easily, Page. I’m used to odd balls in my life.” It was
+as close as Jack had ever come to revealing his homosexuality
+to Page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He got up and went to the book-loaded cartons in the
+living room. Page could hear him pottering around, skimming
+pages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-78" class="pagenum" title="78"></a>
+“I want to read you something,” Jack called. “Just
+remembered it. Ever hear of Lord Byron?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure. English 231. The girls called him Gorgeous
+George.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack found his book and blew dust off the top. He
+brought it back to the kitchen and sat down by Page
+again. “Lord Byron was in love with a lady named
+Augusta Leigh,” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So what?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So he wrote her a very beautiful poem.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Spare me the literature,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll just read you a couple of lines. Listen.” He
+marked the words with his finger and read: “‘For thee,
+my own sweet sister—’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<em>Whose</em> sister?” Page flared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Byron’s. Augusta.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was in love with his sister?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Didn’t they teach you anything in English 231, old
+buddy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I don’t want to hear about Byron’s troubles,”
+Page grumbled. “He’s dead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack ignored him. “‘For thee, my own sweet sister,/ In
+thy heart/ I know myself secure, as thou in mine;/ We
+were and are beings who never each other can resign.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page hiccoughed. “The poor broad was in love with
+him, too?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘It is the same, together or apart,/ From life’s commencement
+to its slow decline/ We are entwined—’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack, for God’s sake, this is very painful—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘—Let death come slow or fast,/ The tie which bound
+the first endures the last.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Jesus! You mean they were stuck with each
+other?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, they weren’t married, but they always loved each
+other,” Jack said, closing the book. “They settled for
+making love whenever they could. And they had a
+daughter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“An idiot?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now where in hell did you get that medieval idea?”
+Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<em>Was</em> she an idiot?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-79" class="pagenum" title="79"></a>
+“No, she was a normal girl. Why, Page? Is Sunny
+pregnant?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a moment Jack said quietly, “I should think you’d
+have to stay with her now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack, if Laura were your honest-to-God sister, what
+would you do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “But I wouldn’t let her
+go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’d keep her? As your wife?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not as my cook and bottle washer, that’s for sure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re as bad as Sunny,” Page complained. “You two
+would make a lovely pair.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve always thought so,” Jack said sardonically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page stood up again. “Knock it off,” he said, and took
+a swipe at Jack that nearly staggered Page back to the
+floor. Jack lowered him onto his packing box again and
+Page tried to control himself. “Forgive me, Jack, I didn’t
+mean it,” he said, humiliated. “It’s the whiskey.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forget it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I want you to know,” Page protested with drunken
+urgency. “I’m sick of myself. I can hardly bear to think
+of it. I know we were innocent when we got married. But
+that only makes it seem worse. More sinister, more tragic.
+We were so damn happy. And now—the contrast is torture.
+I can’t have her back and just because I can’t, I want
+her so much I get crazy with it. Did you ever want anybody
+that much?” He was clutching Jack’s lapels, talking
+straight into his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I did,” Jack said without flinching. But he didn’t
+describe the kind of love that tore him up that way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, you didn’t, you couldn’t have. Nobody ever did.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean,” Jack said, “nobody ever suffered as much
+as you did. Or as long or as hard.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Page was too drunk and too desolate to hear the
+parody of self-pity in Jack’s voice. “That’s it,” he said.
+“And to have to think of yourself as—as good as queer,
+on top of everything else—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, nuts,” Jack said. “No one knows about it but
+you and Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And the doc, and my step-parents. And now <em>you</em>,”
+<a id="page-80" class="pagenum" title="80"></a>
+Page said, suddenly resenting Jack. “And for every one
+of us who knows, I get sick to my stomach.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean if nobody knew you’d feel swell about it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s not what I mean!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re so damn mixed-up right now you don’t make
+sense,” Jack said, speaking steadily with firm hands on
+Page’s shoulders that helped to quiet him. “Am I right?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess.” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just because a man is different from the rest doesn’t
+make him contemptible, Page,” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just miserable.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Depends on how strong he is. How much of a man.
+These things happen to people and they have to learn
+to live with them. The better they face them, the stronger
+and finer they are in the end.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean, live with incest and be healthy,” Page
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mean live with Sunny and be <em>happy</em>. And let the
+rest go to hell. You don’t need to climb on a soapbox
+in Bughouse Square and explain that your wife is also
+your sister. You don’t have to get yourself punished in
+public to make your marriage permissible. You’ll only lose
+everything that way,” Jack told him. “Some things have to
+be kept secret if you want to make it in this world.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re telling me to do what Sunny wants me to do:
+keep it quiet and go on as if it hadn’t happened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Keep it quiet, yes, but for God’s sake, don’t go on as
+if it hadn’t happened. Face it. Between yourselves. Adjust
+to it the best you can and don’t let it defeat you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack,” Page said uncertainly. “How can you respect
+me, knowing about it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Am <a id="corr-7"></a>I talking as if I didn’t?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, but—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, listen. Learn something about charity. You respect
+me, don’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know how much I think of you, Jack. I couldn’t
+sit here and tell this to anyone else in the world.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, would it make a difference to you if Laura were
+my sister and we were still married? Would you shove
+my teeth down my throat and turn me over to the cops
+if you found out such a thing about me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-81" class="pagenum" title="81"></a>
+“I can’t say I’d admire you for it,” Page said. “But I
+wouldn’t meddle, if you wanted things that way. But hell,
+Jack, there’s nothing wrong with you. You can’t possibly
+know how it feels—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know exactly how it feels. What if I told you I’ve
+been as misfit and miserable with my problems as you
+ever were with yours?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My God, Laura isn’t—” Page began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Jack stopped him with a wry smile. “No, she’s not
+my sister. It’s me. I’m gay, Page.” He hadn’t planned to
+say it, but when it came out, it came simply and generously.
+It was a brave risk to speak like that to Page Pringle, who
+couldn’t watch a man do a hula in fun without condemning
+him. It might cost Jack a valued friendship. But he was
+hoping it would comfort Page instead; show him with a
+shock that you could be different from the pack and
+survive. Better than that: live a good life, love a good
+wife, and enjoy the respect you deserved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gay?” Page repeated doubtfully. “You mean ... a
+homo?” The word tasted even worse to him than ‘incest’.
+It smacked of pretty boys cruising the streets in ridiculously
+tight pants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack nodded, letting his hands fall away from Page’s
+shoulders. In almost the same gesture Page released Jack
+with a shudder and they sat looking at each other. Page
+was acutely embarrassed. Self-conscious and clumsy and
+drunk, he fumbled for a way out. “Well, that must make
+things dull for Laura,” he said, forgetting even that Jack
+and Laura had a child. Jack didn’t smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a few minutes of mortified silence Page stood up,
+steadying himself with a hand on the kitchen counter.
+“I’d better go,” he said, afraid to say more. The thing
+revolted him and yet he was ashamed to feel that way.
+He wasn’t too drunk or too callous to realize what a
+sacrifice Jack had made for him. And yet he felt remorse
+that Jack had thought it necessary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack rose and followed him, handing him his cigarettes
+and coat as he reached the front door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m sorry you told me, Jack,” Page said quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can see that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-82" class="pagenum" title="82"></a>
+“Sort of ironical, isn’t it?” Page said, not sure if he
+were joking or trying to hurt his friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s ironical?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your name. Mann.” Page began to laugh against his
+will.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Laura doesn’t think so,” Jack answered. He had himself
+under tight control. But he knew now he had forfeited
+Page’s friendship. Tired and profoundly disappointed, he
+felt a sudden pity and scorn for Page; pity and regret for
+himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I should have known you couldn’t grow and learn a
+little,” he told Page. “You can’t see any parallel between
+us. You can’t see how my problem lets me understand
+yours. You only see that I’m queer—your word, by the
+way. And suddenly I’m not like you any more and you
+want to wipe me off like so much mud on your hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, go on. I only wish to God Sunny had gotten the
+man she deserves and not her chicken brother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page paused in the doorway, insulted and shocked.
+“You hate me for having the strength to leave her, to do
+what I know is right,” he said. “You hate me because
+I’m a normal male. And if I weren’t so drunk—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yeah, well, you <em>are</em> that drunk, Brother Pringle. Go
+home and sober up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page lunged at him but Jack ducked, grabbed Page,
+spun him out the door, and let him blunder noisily into
+the wall across the corridor. Page stood there dizzily,
+searching for his equilibrium like a man trying to find his
+shadow; turning around and around with increasing frustration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack shut the door and leaned against it, exhausted. He
+felt like crying, the way he had when he was a kid and
+too small to defend himself. He had learned a lot about
+fighting since then. But when something like this happened,
+he felt vulnerable, as if he and not Page had had the
+worst of it.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-11">
+<a id="page-83" class="pagenum" title="83"></a>
+11
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+“Now you know why we haven’t seen each other since
+then,” Jack said quietly to his guest, Mr. Winkler. Repeating
+the story had been almost like reliving it; Jack felt
+tired and used. He poured himself another drink. “It’s
+funny how you don’t suspect so much prejudice, so much
+contempt, in somebody you know that well,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, maybe his confusion was the Pringles’ fault,”
+Winkler suggested, staring thoughtfully at the floor. He
+added diffidently, “Then again, maybe there was some
+sense in his father’s ideas.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure there was. Quite a lot. Page wouldn’t have swallowed
+anything vicious or stupid,” Jack said. “Do you
+know the Pringles, Mr. Winkler?” He looked at his visitor
+curiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Me? No, no,” Winkler said. “I suppose, being older,
+I can’t help sympathizing with them a little.” He cleared
+his throat. “You lost track of Page and Sunny after that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Sunny began to write to Laura. She didn’t have
+anybody else. She was madder than hell at Page when she
+found out he’d told me everything. But she trusted us
+enough to get over it eventually.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m glad she did,” Winkler said. “I was afraid I’d miss
+part of the story.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+On their own, Page and Sunny began to read books on
+incest. Page took the ones on law and medicine; Sunny, all
+the history and mythology and psychology she could find.
+<a id="page-84" class="pagenum" title="84"></a>
+They both dug out what they were looking for and ignored
+the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page wanted to damn incest medically and legally. Sunny
+wanted to whitewash and glamorize it. And the books,
+which reflected the world’s confusion on the subject, gave
+them both ammunition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What is incest? Why is it so wrong? Why are there
+strict laws against it? <em>Because</em>, said Sunny’s books, <em>it’s so
+alluring. If the laws weren’t strict, everybody and his
+brother—literally—would be taking it up. The boy with
+his beloved mother, the girl with a father she worships, the
+brother and sister sharing the same bed too long or discovering
+each other erotically in some kind of emotional
+crisis.</em>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There have to be laws against it, Sunny concluded, or
+we’d have an epidemic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She read about the ancient Ptolemies, fabled kings and
+successors of Alexander the Great, who practiced incest
+for three hundred years and produced a defiantly healthy
+line to the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She read about Cesare Borgia, who fell madly in love
+with his luscious sister Lucrezia, and who arranged the
+plot by which her husband, the Duke of Besaglia, was
+strangled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She read of strange customs in the Melanesian Islands
+where sisters turned away and covered their faces at the
+approach of their brothers, so powerful was the forbidden
+attraction between them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She read about the gold-encrusted Pharaohs, children of
+the Sun, who married their sisters to preserve the purity
+of royal blood. And she saw that after several thousand
+years of inbreeding they were still producing tough healthy
+children. Even Cleopatra, the symbol of seductive femininity,
+married her brother. And the poetry of love in
+Egypt still uses the words ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister’ to mean
+‘Lover’ and ‘Beloved.’
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Sunny ignored the bloodshed and bitterness and rigid
+strictures against incest that spotted these narratives. They
+were in the sections she skipped: the austere laws of
+<a id="page-85" class="pagenum" title="85"></a>
+Leviticus in the Bible, the tales of crop failure and calamity
+ascribed to incest in ancient Greece, the awful tragedy
+of Oedipus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The thing that confused her most was not in the books.
+It was a small, almost artificially forced feeling, that she
+adored her husband even more because he was her brother.
+Perhaps she had to feel that way or lose her mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny continued to see her doctor for regular check-ups.
+Finally, burning with curiosity, she asked, “Doctor
+Settick, what happens if two people, say two first cousins,
+get married and have children?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He screwed his handsome young face into a laugh.
+“Whatever put that in your head?” he asked. When he
+looked at her that way she wished she were in the hands
+of an older, more businesslike doctor. But she liked
+Settick. She laughed a lot in his office, and it was the only
+place where she did.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She blushed at his question. “I read about it once,”
+she said. “When you’re pregnant you read all sorts of
+goofy books. If a brother and sister had a baby together
+would it—would it—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would it what?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would it be an idiot? A monster?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not necessarily,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She tried to look casual, not relieved. “Oh,” she said,
+hoping he would go on. He did, crossing his arms over
+his chest while she looked demurely at the white sheet
+that covered her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When two people that closely related have children,
+however,” he said, “the children are likely to have their
+parents’ strengths and weaknesses magnified.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How does it work?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, if you have bad eyes and your husband, who is
+also your brother”—he smiled interestedly at her—“also
+has bad eyes, your child is going to have a terrible pair
+of eyes. On the other hand, if you both have good vision,
+he’ll probably see like a hawk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That sounds normal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Almost. Incest just seems to exaggerate the parents’
+characteristics in the children.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-86" class="pagenum" title="86"></a>
+“If you were both healthy, then, your children would
+be, too?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very likely.” There was a small line of intrigue between
+his eyes. “Why all the questions?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, my husband was telling me about a family he
+knew where the parents were first cousins. And their kids
+were crippled and bald.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You tell him it was probably some other complication
+than consanguinity,” said Settick. “That might have intensified
+the trouble, but it probably didn’t cause it unless
+there had been a lot of close inter-marriage over several
+generations. Why hell,” he said, “my own brother fell
+madly in love with our first cousin once.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He did?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure. Fortunately he was only thirteen at the time. He
+got over it. Still, it wouldn’t have been such a catastrophe
+if he hadn’t. From the standpoint of having kids, anyway.
+But he got smart and put off marriage. Didn’t get hooked
+till he was thirty-two.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s kind of old,” Sunny said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Couldn’t be helped. The damn fool went through
+medical school. And dragged me after him. Takes quite
+a while, you know, particularly if you specialize.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny chuckled with him. He had reassured her and she
+went home from the examination feeling better.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+But Sunny had not reassured her doctor. Richie Settick
+had a couple of favorite patients, and one of them was
+Sunny Pringle. It was not the incest talk that bothered
+him. He dismissed that as vagrant curiosity inspired by her
+reading. His patients came up with all manner of moon-shot
+questions. He had learned to answer with a straight
+face, even when they brought him their horoscopes and
+ordered their babies delivered on a propitious day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What troubled him about Sunny was that she was
+actually losing weight. Although the foetus continued to
+grow and Sunny didn’t complain, she was obviously
+worried and unhappy. And she was getting visibly thin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At the rate you’re going,” he informed her the next
+time she came, “you won’t need to bother with maternity
+clothes till the last week.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-87" class="pagenum" title="87"></a>
+“Oh, I’ll wear them anyway. Makes me feel motherly,”
+she said. “Besides, I’ll look like I’ve swallowed a watermelon
+the next time you see me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she didn’t. When she came back her face and limbs
+were thinner still, her waist still small.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You look too sexy to be as far along as you are,”
+he told her critically. “In five months of pregnancy you’ve
+lost two pounds. What are you trying to do, disappear?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will it hurt the baby?” she asked anxiously. “I can’t
+work up an appetite.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nuts,” he clucked at her. “I don’t see how you could
+be getting the minimum healthy diet. And I don’t mean
+just vitamin pills.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dr. Settick,” she said seriously, “if anything happens
+to this baby, I’d want to die. But when I force myself to
+eat I upchuck.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s all this dying talk?” he broke in. “That’s no
+way to carry on, Sunny. Nothing’s going to happen to
+the baby. That’s number one. But if anything did, there’s
+nothing in God’s world to prevent you from having a
+whole passel of kids if you want them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes there is,” she said quietly. The last few empty
+months in the apartment had made her desperate to talk
+to somebody, the way Page had been desperate when he
+confessed to Jack Mann. She didn’t want to open her soul
+to Dr. Settick. But he stood there waiting for some
+explanation; compassionate and friendly and with the
+sort of frank, good-featured face Sunny fell for. So she
+said in an unsure voice, “My husband doesn’t want any
+more children.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can’t stand them, hm?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” She looked away, already sorry she had spoken.
+But the doctor came over to her and touched her gently.
+“Any time you want more you just come and see me,”
+he said. The words were insolent but Settick wasn’t. His
+tone was quite respectful. “You can always tell him it
+was an accident,” he added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny didn’t know whether to laugh or lose her temper.
+She turned scarlet and couldn’t look at him. “I love him,”
+she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s making you unhappy, isn’t he?” Dr. Settick stood
+<a id="page-88" class="pagenum" title="88"></a>
+where he was, taken with the daffodil lights in her hair,
+the trembling of her finely-sculptured mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s something neither of us can help,” Sunny said,
+squirming with the intimacy of the situation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll tell you something,” Settick offered. “The beautiful
+Mrs. Pringle is hurting her baby’s health by hurting
+her own. And if Mr. Pringle is to blame, I’ll talk to him
+myself. I’d rather flatten him out on the floor, but I’ll
+<em>talk</em> to him, I promise.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s nothing you can say that would help,” she
+said. “He won’t come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“With a wife like you?” He took the sexual implication
+of the phrase, and again she didn’t know how to handle
+him. His hand touched her breasts and it was no neat
+medical gesture. Sunny brushed it quickly away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey,” she said. “None of that. I told you, I love the
+guy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Okay, you love him,” Settick said, turning away from
+her with a sigh. “These things happen. Wives do love their
+husbands, although to hear some of my patients talk you’d
+never believe it. You know something, Sunny? You’re all
+backwards. You not only love your husband, you actually
+want more children. Do you know how many women come
+in here day after day telling me what slobs they’re stuck
+with and how many screaming brats they’ve got at home?
+They hate being mothers, they hate being wives. God, it’s
+enough to keep a man single for the rest of his life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She smiled at him. “They’d probably all stay right where
+they are if you gave them a choice.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook his head with a laugh. “What makes you such
+an optimist?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have to be. It’s all I’ve got.” For a moment she was
+afraid she would lose control and cry in front of him. But
+she found a measure of dignity by staring carefully at the
+large stethoscope through which mothers were allowed
+to listen to their growing baby’s heartbeats. She had heard
+her baby’s heart not ten minutes ago. It sounded like the
+rapid tapping of a metronome in the next room, and it
+moved her unspeakably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish you’d tell me what’s the matter, Sunny,” the
+doctor urged. “I didn’t mean to get fresh just now. Forget
+<a id="page-89" class="pagenum" title="89"></a>
+it, will you? That’s the price you pay for being so damn
+beautiful.” He smiled disarmingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s okay,” she said, letting him persuade her that he
+meant no offense.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re worried and you’re not eating right,” he said
+briskly. “I’m going to put you on a diet, to gain, and some
+tranquilizers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She protested but he wrote a prescription for her. “It’s
+for the baby,” he said. “You don’t have to live on them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny got off the examination table, holding her sheets
+around her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you getting a divorce by any chance?” Settick
+asked, unable to resist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We don’t need to,” she said cryptically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He surprised himself by recalling at that moment the
+questions on incest one of his patients—was it Sunny?—had
+put to him: just a fleeting notion that crossed his
+mind and left it the moment he saw her out the door.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Sunny’s letters to Laura and her talks with Dr. Settick
+were her only relief from solitude. Laura was the sole
+person she could tell everything to. Her notes were
+restrained at first, but Laura’s warmth and concern <a id="corr-9"></a>shone
+through her answers and gave Sunny the courage to be
+honest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It takes two to dissolve a marriage, just as it takes
+two to make one,” Laura wrote. “So Page can’t call it
+quits by himself, whatever the heartless law books say.
+Fight for him. He’s worth it. Or at least he <em>will</em> be when
+he grows up and realizes life is more important than
+arbitrary rules.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny reread the letter a dozen times. And from then
+on her own letters were graphic charts of her heart and
+mind. She described the long gray days that not even a
+sweet spring breeze could brighten. And the nights, infamous
+in the poems of separated lovers, and hourglass-endless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like being mad at Page,” she wrote Laura. “It gives
+me energy—keeps my pride alive. I think how mean I’ll
+be when he comes home. And when he begs me to take
+him back—oh, how tender and passionate! I have only
+<a id="page-90" class="pagenum" title="90"></a>
+one fear, Laura—that he’ll never come. The longer he
+waits, the more I wonder. Maybe I’ll have to start crawling
+again after all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny took Laura’s sympathy with gratitude, with greed,
+but it didn’t replace her husband. And it was all Laura
+could give her.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Page’s <em>Sunday Magazine</em> column was getting noticed. It
+was funny, a little rough and overstated, but clever. Sunny
+loved it. It surprised her and made her laugh—and then
+weep because he hadn’t shared it with her before he shared
+it with the public.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She cut out the columns, pasting them in a scrapbook.
+The best she taped to her mirror to memorize:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s like a gold yoyo,” he said of a modern canvas.
+“If you want it you’ll pay anything for it. If you don’t,
+nothing is too damn much.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He quoted a famous movie producer signing a witless
+young lovely for a new film: “Never mind about the lines.
+Just be sure to bring your face along.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny yearned with a choking envy to share all this
+with him: the excitement he felt as his name gained
+currency, the pleasure of turning out quotable prose, the
+odd thrill of having your words read by people you would
+never know. To be denied her part in his blossoming
+career was one of her worst burdens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One morning, after reading his newest column, she
+suddenly chucked her pride and wrote him a fan letter:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem-container">
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="verse">Dear Mr. Pringle,</p>
+      <p class="verse">If a lady is single</p>
+      <p class="verse">And wants you to chase her,</p>
+      <p class="verse">Adore and embrace her,</p>
+      <p class="verse">Should she ...</p>
+      <p class="verse">Be sexy and clever?</p>
+      <p class="verse">Or wait here forever?</p>
+      <p class="verse">Your columns are funny.</p>
+      <p class="verse">I hate you.</p>
+    </div>
+    <div class="stanza sign">
+      <p class="verse">Love,</p>
+      <p class="verse">Sunny</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a id="page-91" class="pagenum" title="91"></a>
+She mailed it on a Monday morning in April. Tuesday
+was the first of May, and it was the day Page called her
+after nearly three dismal months of silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the phone rang she ran to it from the kitchen as
+if she had been expecting it. With trembling hands she
+lifted the receiver. It might be Dr. Settick, after all. He
+had called her several times and once ended up asking her
+to dinner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hello?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny?” It was Page. His voice sounded a little unsure,
+but there was no mistaking it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Page!” She pressed a hand over her mouth for
+a second and then said weakly, “How are you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m miserable,” he said. “How are you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, darling!” Her heart kicked joyfully. “Are you
+really miserable?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aren’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes; God, I can hardly stand it. Did you get my poem?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Honey, it was beautiful. It was immortal,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, can we meet somewhere? I mean—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” he said and she knew at once he had been thinking
+about it hard. He wanted to see her so much that he
+knew an argument would end up in his ignominious surrender.
+“Can you have dinner with me tonight?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can I!” she cried. “<em>Beg</em> me, darling.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please, baby. Please.... I have your poem in my
+pocket. Any girl who can write such deathless verse deserves
+a filet mignon,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, you wonderful idiot. Darling, when will you pick
+me up?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, maybe I’d better meet you,” he hedged. He
+knew what would happen to him if he got caught in that
+apartment again. Sunny knew too and she couldn’t give up
+without trying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve fixed the place up so nicely,” she said. “You won’t
+know it. I want you to see the new curtains and—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” he said anxiously, and she was afraid of scaring
+him off. She gave in with the hope that when they were
+physically close she could move him better than she could
+on the phone. All she asked was the chance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where are you staying?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-92" class="pagenum" title="92"></a>
+“Let’s not get into that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not going to storm the gates, Page. I really need
+to now. What if the baby comes and I have to contact
+you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can always call the office,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure, and get told off again,” she reminded him. “Page,
+it might be an emergency. I’m completely alone in this
+city. The only friends I had were your friends and I never
+see any of them. And Jack and Laura are gone now. About
+the only human being I see who gives a damn about me
+is Dr. Settick.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How much of a damn?” he said, feeling an upswell of
+jealousy that suddenly made him determined. “All right,”
+he went on, “but Sunny, play fair. Promise me you won’t
+call unless it’s really urgent.” Somewhere in the back of
+his mind was the unacknowledged thought that he secretly
+wanted her to come; but he sternly ignored it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I promise,” she said. You can’t go to hell for breaking
+one lousy promise, she reasoned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m on East Thirty-second Street,” he said with misgivings,
+and gave her the number and the phone. If she
+ever showed up, his conscience would blast him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny wrote it down on the phone pad with a sense of
+triumph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They agreed to meet at a small restaurant on Tenth
+Avenue.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+But Sunny had other plans. She knew Page would blow
+his top if he found her in his rooms that very day. But she
+was as sure as love could make her that his anger would
+die a quick death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She heard the tremor of love and long denial in his
+voice. If it was so desperately hard for her, a woman, to
+forbid herself the love she needed, how difficult mustn’t
+it be for a man? A young vigorous passionate man who
+adored his wife?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He’ll never resist, she told herself, laughing aloud with
+anticipation. She made herself stunningly beautiful. She
+took pains she rarely bothered with and hardly needed.
+But it made her feel irresistible to know there was a sheen
+of exotic color over her eyes, an underfilm of silver witchery
+<a id="page-93" class="pagenum" title="93"></a>
+on her lips, a fragrant mist in her swinging yellow
+hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was still slim enough to look chic in a small-waisted
+dress. It had a full, soft skirt that hid her six-month
+stomach. She put on her four-inch heels, her sequined
+cocktail hat, black gloves and purse, and checked herself
+out in the mirror, ticking off each feature like a C.P.A.
+going over his books. Her glamorous reflection surprised
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked older, beautiful in an experienced way. It
+was not just the makeup. It had something to do with the
+past three months of solitary introspection and yearning.
+She was full of the new things she had learned from the
+books, the new life she felt within her, and the new
+depths and shadows her heart had explored. They changed
+her face. She was no little girl any more. She was a lovely
+woman.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-12">
+<a id="page-94" class="pagenum" title="94"></a>
+12
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Sunny left her apartment early, hailed a taxi, and gave
+Page’s address to the driver in a confident voice. When
+she got out in front of the new apartment building, it was
+forty minutes before their date. She decided he was probably
+taking his shower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Inside the front door she found his mail box with a
+button beneath the name. There was a small speaker and
+she knew he might ask through it who was there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<em>Well, the worst he can do is make me wait down here
+till he’s ready</em>, she thought. Still, how much better to get
+a foot in the door. He’d never be able to resist that foot—not
+when it was followed by her slim, silky leg. So she
+boldly pushed the buzzer. A wave of goose bumps fanned
+over her back and neck while she waited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a moment the speaker came on. To Sunny’s amazement,
+a feminine voice answered. Sunny looked to see if
+she had pushed the right button. She had. The voice
+repeated, “Who’s there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The florist,” Sunny said. “I have a corsage Mr. Pringle
+ordered.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh. Okay.” The speaker went off and a buzz sounded.
+Sunny went inside and up a flight of stairs. On the second
+floor she found his door to the left of the landing. It
+opened before she could knock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny found herself facing a valentine-pretty girl, very
+young, very efficient looking, with her hands full of typed
+copy. The girl stared at Sunny, fully as startled as her
+<a id="page-95" class="pagenum" title="95"></a>
+visitor. After an anxious pause she said, “Was Mr. Pringle
+expecting you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Apparently not,” Sunny said coolly. “May I come in?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl hesitated briefly and then stepped aside.
+“Please,” she said. “I—I should explain, I was just here
+to bring Mr. Pringle some notes I took for him at the
+library. He doesn’t have time to do all his own research,
+so I—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, you don’t have to explain,” Sunny said with
+dangerous charm. “I understand perfectly.” She looked
+sharply at the flustered girl who lowered her eyes in
+confusion. “Of course you’re his secretary.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. I’m Pat Burridge. I—hope you won’t jump to
+conclusions,” she said with a clumsy laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not?” Sunny said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, but really, it’s not what you think!” Pat cried,
+wide-eyed and innocent as milk. But there were a few
+sour curds floating around. She was ready to defend
+herself and fast if Sunny didn’t ease up. And she was
+impatient to know who Sunny was. Sunny made her wait.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you think I think, Miss Burridge?” Sunny
+said. “That you’re sleeping with him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How dare you!” the girl exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Mr. Pringle and I have been having a little affair
+ourselves for some time now,” Sunny said, pulling off her
+gloves. “I’m not surprised he’s getting tired of me.” She
+gave Pat a critical going-over that made the secretary
+frantic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whoever you are, you have no right to talk to me that
+way!” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, hell, if you’re going to be a bitch, be a good honest
+bitch,” Sunny said. The shock of the situation had frozen
+the fury in her veins and given her a sardonic composure
+that staggered Miss Burridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you think I’m having <em>relations</em> with Mr. Pringle,”
+the girl panted, “it might just interest you to know that
+I’m engaged to a very nice man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Poor man. This will come as something of a shock,
+won’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I happen to be a virgin!” Pat declared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-96" class="pagenum" title="96"></a>
+“Fancy!” Sunny said, sauntering across the room. “All
+hail to the last member of a vanishing race.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have a filthy mind!” Pat said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you have a filthy habit: sleeping with a married
+man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Evidently I’m not the only one,” Pat snapped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, but there’s a difference. I’m a married <em>woman</em>.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Besides,” Pat went on with noisy outrage, “Mr. Pringle
+is <em>not</em> a married man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<em>Really?</em>” Sunny said with genuine astonishment. “Did
+he tell you that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He certainly did. His divorced wife calls him on the
+office phone all the time but he has me tell her he’s out.”
+She evidently considered a divorced man even less attached
+than a bachelor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well!” Sunny said with sugary sarcasm. “I guess that
+makes it all right for you to sleep with him, then, as long
+as your fiance doesn’t find out what his bride-to-be does
+in her spare time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Abruptly Page burst into the room behind Pat, who
+turned around with a gasp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, darling!” Sunny said, beautiful in her anger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page’s face fell. “Oh, God,” he said. “What are <em>you</em>
+doing here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Which one of us are you referring to, darling? Well?
+Go on, introduce us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked distractedly from one to the other, caught
+between two fighting females; a nightmare for any man.
+“Miss Burridge,” he said resolutely. “My wife, Mrs.
+Pringle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pat Burridge’s expression changed from anger through
+shock to mortification. “Mrs. Pringle?” she repeated to
+him. “But you said—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never mind what I said!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How do you do, Miss Burridge?” Sunny said with
+savage courtesy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d better go,” Pat said. “Here’s your key, Mr. Pringle.”
+She stopped, raising a hand to her mouth. “Oh! I mean—Well,
+he only gives it to me so I can bring him the
+notes when he’s not home!” she cried, and ran weeping
+out the front door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-97" class="pagenum" title="97"></a>
+The Pringles were so mad at each other that neither of
+them could talk for a few seconds. Finally Page said,
+determinedly calm, “You promised me you wouldn’t come
+here. Your promises aren’t worth a damn, are they?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s forbidden for your wife to come here; only your
+secretary is allowed,” she shot back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For your information, Pat Burridge comes over here
+nearly every afternoon about this time with a bunch of
+research notes I’ve assigned to her. She puts them on the
+desk and leaves,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“After she warms up the bed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She doesn’t go near the damn bed!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, an experimenter. She likes the couch in the living
+room.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, cut it out. Pat is a nice decent kid, but I’m not
+sleeping with her.” He glared at her over the back of a
+chair upon which he was leaning stiff-armed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not, darling? You could climb in bed with her and
+still feel nice and clean. After all, <em>she’s</em> not your sister.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Surprised at her, he answered, “I could, but I don’t.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I suppose she means more to you than your own wife!”
+Sunny cried unhappily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How many times do you have to be told, Sunny? You’re
+<em>not</em> my wife.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then don’t introduce me as Mrs. Pringle. It might
+confuse people.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was a slip of the tongue.” His anger blew itself
+out suddenly. “Sunny, for the love of God, how could I
+make love to any other woman while you’re alive? Do we
+have to shout at each other? This is our first meeting in
+three months. Darling ... my love, my wife—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You just got through hollering that I’m <em>not</em> your wife,”
+she wept. “Make up your mind before I lose mine, will
+you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page dropped his head in his hands to compose himself
+and then lifted it to look at her. “I’m going to read you
+something,” he said, going to his desk, “from an outline
+of American law.” He picked up a big black leather-bound
+book with torn matchbook covers marking various pages,
+and turned to an underlined passage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘Where the parties to the marriage are closely related,’”
+<a id="page-98" class="pagenum" title="98"></a>
+he read her, “‘—such as brother and sister or
+ancestor and descendant—the marriage is void.’ <em>Void</em>,
+Sunny. ‘And a decree of annulment should be and apparently
+is unnecessary.’” He shut the book and dropped it
+on the desk with a bang, looking at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What does it mean?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It means we aren’t married. And there isn’t a damn
+thing we can do about it even if we want to. We are
+automatically un-married, because our marriage was never
+valid in the first place.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There <em>is</em> something we can do about it,” Sunny said,
+trembling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What?” His face and voice were weary but, like her,
+in his heart he kept hoping ... hoping for nothing less
+than a revolution in Heaven’s laws and Earth’s traditions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Keep it a secret,” she said. “What the law doesn’t
+know the law can’t very well change.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat down heavily in his desk chair and said, “the
+law has eyes and ears, Sunny. We might get away with
+it for a while, but—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d rather have that little while than nothing at all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He put his head down on his crossed arms for a minute
+and the sight of him like that, near despair, twisted her
+heart. “Oh, Page,” she whispered, afraid to touch him.
+She folded into the chair he had been leaning on moments
+ago. “Can’t we live with it? Can’t we even try? Do we
+have to be so damn tragically moral?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve been reading,” he began, but she interrupted:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So have I.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you read Freud?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A little,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you any idea what a childish, immature, emotionally
+crippling sort of thing incest is?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, we didn’t commit incest! It <em>happened</em> to us!”
+she said passionately. “We had no idea we were brother
+and sister. We chose each other as normally and innocently
+as other husbands and wives.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<em>Did</em> we, Sunny?” He spoke softly, looking away from
+her. It frightened her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What on earth do you mean?” she said indignantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mean, isn’t it just possible that we recognized each
+<a id="page-99" class="pagenum" title="99"></a>
+other subconsciously? People fall in love with the people
+who remind them of themselves, Sunny. Couldn’t we have
+fallen in love and refused to admit the awful truth we
+were half-aware of? Tried to hide and deny it so we could
+get married with a clear conscience?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!” she said appalled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Isn’t it possible that what we fell in love with and
+desired in each other was our own selves, without ever
+permitting ourselves to realize it? If we did that, we’re as
+guilty as anybody else who ever committed incest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We didn’t do it,” she protested. “Page, we don’t look
+<em>that</em> much alike.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, don’t we, though!” he said, rising quickly and
+grabbing her hand. “Look at my eyes. My hair.” He took
+a handful of hers and held it out so her eyes could
+compare. “Same color, same texture, same everything,”
+he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A lot of people have hair like that. There aren’t that
+many kinds of hair!” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look, Sunny, even our hands,” he said, and though
+his was heavier and hairier, the basic bone structure was
+the same.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Sunny was incapable of hating their similarities. She
+lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed it and suddenly
+he leaned over her, almost tumbled into the chair with
+her, and kissed her mouth hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before they knew it, they were making love in the chair.
+It was awful; agonized, furtive, rushed. The chair tipped
+precariously. They hurt each other, half on purpose. And
+yet, in spite of that, it was beautiful. They gripped each
+other with hands like traps. They kissed each other everywhere,
+desperate to leave a touch of love all over each
+other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny clung to him ecstatically, sobbing his name when
+he freed her mouth for a second. He felt himself losing
+control, and the harder he tried to fight free the more
+deeply entangled he became.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, no,” he pleaded at the very moment that he
+was tearing the buttons off her dress in a fever to touch
+her warm satin skin. “Oh, dear God, stop me,” he muttered,
+<a id="page-100" class="pagenum" title="100"></a>
+kissing her all the while so that she couldn’t answer
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He wanted to punish her for making him do the terrible
+thing he had resisted so long. He took a bite in her
+delicate shoulder that made her sob with startled pain.
+His hands twisted the shining flesh of her back and his
+lips bruised her full sweet breasts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny knew why he was doing it and at first she didn’t
+try to stop him, hoping it might ease him. But it got too
+bad. She finally combed his cheeks with her nails in self-defense
+and shocked him into gentleness. After that they
+made love, as much love as blood and breath would bear,
+until they were utterly worn out. Only sheer exhaustion
+stopped them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+The chill air woke them. Page got up and fetched a down
+comforter from his bedroom and wrapped her in it, giving
+her a cigarette while he fixed them a drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had put on his bathrobe. His actions, as he poured
+the drinks, were almost normal. But his grim-lipped
+silence belied them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a mournful quiet, broken only by the rustle
+and crack of the liquor flowing over the ice cubes. He
+walked over to her, handed her a glass, and sat down on
+the rug beside her. They leaned back against the sofa
+and drank. Page put an arm around her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page,” she said. “Do you really think we can live
+apart when we love each other like this?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” he admitted finally, and she wondered
+if it were the first break in his armor of rectitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me you don’t want me, darling,” she teased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t,” he said softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me you want me more every time we make love.
+Tell me that pretty soon you won’t be able to resist me
+at all any more. Tell me we can try living together again
+... just for a while.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He inspected his drink. “How do you feel right now?”
+he asked her. “After we’ve made love. Tell the truth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d be unbearably happy if I weren’t so afraid it will
+be the last time,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-101" class="pagenum" title="101"></a>
+“Is that all? No shame? No regret? No wonder, even,
+that maybe it’s wrong?” He looked at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” she said, sniffling. “I’m too glad to be back in
+your arms to care about the rest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Suppose,” he said, his voice still low, “that your father—<em>our</em>
+father—went a little crazy and forced you to go to
+bed with him. I mean, made love to you. Would you feel
+anything then?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you ever speak like that again,” she said rigidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s exactly the same thing,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is <em>not</em> the same thing! I grew up in my father’s
+house, I knew all along he was my father. I could never
+let him touch me that way. He could never <em>want</em> to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re saying the only difference between him and
+me is, you knew all along who he was. If you and I had always
+known we were brother and sister, you couldn’t let <em>me</em>
+touch you, either,” he said. And he was right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny groaned and hung her head. “Darling, I’m not
+much for logic,” she said at last. “All I know is I’m
+miserably in love with you and I don’t care <em>who</em> you are.”
+Her voice rose, becoming stubborn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked so unhappy that she set her drink down and
+took his face in her hands, trying to kiss some cheer into
+him. But he stopped her. So she stayed where she was,
+kneeling in front of him, afraid to look at him again. In
+silence she began a tormented debate with herself, deciding
+at length to make one final try; one ultimate sacrifice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page?” she said unsteadily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hm?” He fingered the slim knee winking out of her
+blanket at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I don’t have this baby—could we—would you live
+with me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked slowly up at her green eyes that glittered
+with tears and took her hands. “It’s a little late for that,
+isn’t it?” he said. “You’re too far along now. If you’d been
+willing three months ago....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wanted the baby so much,” she whispered. “But I’d
+do anything to have you back, darling. I almost wish I
+could tear it out now—” She stopped, feeling the baby
+kick. It made her sick. Grasping one of his hands, she
+put it on her abdomen and held it there fiercely, over his
+<a id="page-102" class="pagenum" title="102"></a>
+protests, until he felt the solid thump of a small foot
+under it. He looked up at her, astonished. At that moment,
+for the first time, his child became real to him: a human
+being with a beating heart and moving limbs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He got up and walked to the other side of the room and
+she could tell from the inclination of his head that he was
+deeply disturbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can we live together if I destroy this child?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This child,” he repeated in a daze. “Our child. My
+son.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If it’s between you and the baby, I choose you,” she
+said, trembling uncontrollably. “I don’t know how I’d get
+rid of it now, I don’t know if it would kill me just to try.
+But I’m willing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, Sunny,” he said firmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You thought it was a good idea not so long ago,” she
+reminded him. “You said—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know what I said. It was barbarous!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You asked me to get an abortion and I didn’t think I
+could. But I hadn’t been living without you for three
+months then. I think I could do it now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t let you do it now and don’t ever bring it up
+again,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well then, can we live together anyway, even if I
+have the baby?” she implored him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No we can’t, Sunny!” he cried, throwing out his arms
+for understanding. “I wish that poor little kid had never
+been conceived but I’m not going to <em>murder</em> it,” he added.
+“The night I found out about us I was half mad with grief
+and that baby seemed like the crowning blow. But it wasn’t
+a person, then, honey. It was just a mess of proliferating
+cells. Now it’s a baby. You can’t go around murdering
+babies. Go ahead and <em>have</em> it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks a lot! You’re too generous, Page,” she said.
+“You get me pregnant and then graciously <em>allow</em> me to have
+the damn baby. And just how shall I support this creature,
+now that I’m permitted the joys of an illegitimate birth,
+labor pains, no money in the bank, no husband in my bed,
+no father for my child? Shall I feed it pipe dreams and
+dress it in lullabies? Shall I wrap Junior in an old rag and
+pass the tin cup around to my neighbors?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-103" class="pagenum" title="103"></a>
+“Good God, Sunny, there’s money in the bank,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve been spending some these past few months, you
+know,” she said. “There’s the rent. And I can’t seem to
+stop eating—not entirely, anyway. Oh, and the doctor
+bills. And I’ve seen at least two movies.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, God damn it, I know you’ve spent money. I’m
+<em>making</em> money and every cent I don’t need is in your bank
+account.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you ever read the balance sheet they send you?”
+he demanded, insulted that she should have thought he
+would let her starve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. I can’t understand it,” she said. “I didn’t know if
+it was the top figure or the bottom one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, God,” he murmured, almost laughing with exasperation.
+“Sunny, did you think I’d send you to the poor
+house?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t know. I don’t know you at all any more, Page.”
+She got up from the floor and walked across the room to
+where he stood with his back to her, putting her hands
+lightly on his hips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I always thought we were so much alike before we got
+married, darling. And I don’t mean our faces, either. I
+mean in the way we thought, the way we looked at life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Remember when we met? I ran out of the bushes and
+there you were, standing by the lake, completely bare.
+Anybody else would have covered himself up and acted like
+a silly fool. I kept waiting for you to make an ass of yourself.
+But you just stood there and kidded me and let me
+look at you and didn’t seem to mind at all that your
+clothes were piled up under a tree twenty feet away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, I never was so excited, so scared, so thrilled, in
+my life. The way you looked at me, the way you stood
+there, seemed to sum up your whole attitude toward life—and
+mine. You were bold, you were amused with me and
+with yourself. You were so wonderful to look at. And you
+weren’t ashamed. All I could think of from that day on
+was, ‘That’s the kind of man I could adore and live with
+and take care of for the rest of my life.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You made me feel so womanly, Page. So feminine and
+passionate. I always liked boys and I’d had my share of
+<a id="page-104" class="pagenum" title="104"></a>
+crushes. But I’d never felt like that before till I met you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know, baby, I know,” he said softly. “It was wonderful.
+But hell, it was normal, sweetheart. Moral.” He paused,
+trying to keep himself controlled, pulling her arms around
+him as he continued. “God, you were gorgeous. I couldn’t
+quite believe you. When you suddenly burst in on me I was
+too surprised to move. And when I could, I was afraid
+I’d lose you if I did. So I stood there and kidded you to
+make you stay. To make you look at me as long as possible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There was never anything Puritanical about our romance,”
+she said. “A lot of people say we went too far.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m no Puritan, honey,” he protested. “We were two
+unrelated kids as far as we knew. If two people are clean
+and decent and really in love, then what they do with
+their bodies is only an expression of their love. No sin,
+certainly. But there are some things I won’t and can’t do,
+things that offend me morally.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You break down and do them, though,” Sunny said.
+“You hypocrite. And don’t you call me a moral offense.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you have to twist everything I say? Don’t you
+know—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know we used to agree on everything!” she wailed.
+“Now we can’t agree on anything at all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s because everything in our lives resolves around
+the central fact of incest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She reclaimed her arms and moved away from him, the
+old despair fighting up in her again. “No, it’s not just that,”
+she said. “You’ve changed, Page. You’re a different man
+from the one I married. You even had a bad argument
+with Jack Mann, your best friend, because he tried to put
+in a good word for me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I suppose Laura told you,” he said angrily. “Well,
+Laura’s all wet. Sure, he put in a good word for you. I
+expected him to. But that’s not why I broke off with him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You broke off with him because you couldn’t take the
+truth!” She cried. “You broke your promise to me and
+told him our secret, and when he told you what a twerp
+you are, you went to pieces.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Across the length of the small room they looked at each
+<a id="page-105" class="pagenum" title="105"></a>
+other as if the Grand Canyon, narrower but just as deep,
+yawned between them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That had nothing to do with it,” Page said. “I dropped
+him because he’s <a id="corr-11"></a>a damn fairy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny was too startled to answer him for a moment.
+When she finally did it was with a dour laugh. “Page, I
+really think you’re dotty,” she said. “Jack Mann is about
+as much of a fairy as you are. And I’m here to state you
+aren’t.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He told me so himself,” Page said. “He was trying to
+make me understand, as he put it, that abnormality can
+be fun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Like hell he was,” Sunny flashed. “He was probably
+trying to get it through that thick skull of yours that you
+can live with abnormality. You don’t have to turn tail
+and run.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you listen when I tell you something?” Page
+shouted. “He’s <em>queer</em>, Sunny!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, what do you want me to do, write to my Congressman?
+Besides, there are all kinds of homosexuals. You
+don’t have to put on lipstick and skirts and flirt in the
+streets. If Jack is a homosexual, that’s his business. If
+we’re incestuous, that’s ours!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I might have known you’d react like this,” he said
+harshly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack Mann is a good friend of mine,” she cried with
+feeling, “and I wouldn’t care if he were an ape in the zoo;
+it’s all the same to me. I like him and I’m grateful for his
+friendship. If it weren’t for Jack, I would have been even
+more miserable than I am.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page picked up his forgotten drink and finished it, as
+if the only way to deal with such idiocy was to get drunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She marched up to him as he smacked the glass down
+on his desk. “You listen to me, Page Pringle,” she said.
+“I’m ashamed of you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re what? You’re ashamed of <em>me</em>!” he said in disbelief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m ashamed of the way you treated Jack. You weren’t
+afraid to be his friend when you thought he was normal.
+You would never have guessed, and he didn’t have to tell
+you. Don’t you suppose it hurt him to speak the truth?
+<a id="page-106" class="pagenum" title="106"></a>
+And why did he do it? Because he’s a true friend. Because
+you matter to him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll bet I do!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I don’t mean <em>that</em> way!” she broke in. “Did he
+ever lay a finger on you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d have tied him in knots if he had.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re a damn coward, Page. You’re afraid of Jack
+because he’s more of a man than you are.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stared at her open-mouthed, his face going scarlet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He has guts. I mean that, Page. He had the courage to
+tell you a terrible secret, to risk losing your affection and
+respect—which by the way he did—because he had faith
+in you. He wanted to help. His mistake was that you
+weren’t worth it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, that man is a degenerate—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you’re a rotten coward!” she said with bitter tears.
+“I know what Jack is, and it isn’t degenerate. If you had
+his courage, you’d be a better man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean I’d be in your bed. Like the coward I am
+<em>not</em>,” he said, slamming a heavy fist down on the desk and
+making his whiskey glass jump.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are a coward, Page, because you can’t face this
+thing,” she said, calmer now but still crying. “Because
+from the very night you found out you were my brother
+you’ve been running away from me. You ran out that night
+and you’ve been running like a frightened hare ever since.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have the courage to see this marriage has to end,”
+he said, shaking with rage. “Hopelessly as I love you, I
+have the courage to admit that our life together would be
+one long nightmare and our baby’s life would be ruined
+by it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’d see to that, wouldn’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The hardest thing I ever did was leave you, Sunny. If
+that’s being a coward, all right, I’m a coward. I love you,
+I never loved anybody like I love you, but—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped, too broken up to talk. “But it’s over,” he
+said hoarsely at last. “If you think a coward could face
+that, you’re wrong. <em>You’re</em> the coward, Sunny, as long as
+we’re pointing fingers. You’re the one who’s clinging to
+rosy dreams.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, you think if you look the other way and keep
+<a id="page-107" class="pagenum" title="107"></a>
+your front door locked this whole mess will clean itself up.
+God, I wish I had the strength to slug you! That law book
+you read me: ‘We don’t have to do anything, we’re automatically
+un-married.’ How nice for you. That’s a coward’s
+way out, Page, and that’s what you are. <em>Coward!</em>” She
+shrieked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His eyes took on a hot shine and she could see the
+muscles working under the skin of his face. “You come
+with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.” He
+was perilously angry and Sunny’s temper vanished suddenly
+in wave of fear. He grabbed her by the wrist and
+dragged her roughly after him into his small kitchen.
+Sunny scrambled after him, afraid he would crack her
+wrist. She had never seen him like this before, and yet it
+was a strangely familiar expression he wore. She gasped
+when she recognized it: it was the look her father, Ben
+Rotheli, wore one time when a local business rival tried
+to ruin him by impugning June’s virtue. It was a look of
+uncontrollable fury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page released her by the sink and went to a drawer in
+one of the cupboards. She stood silent and shaking while
+he pulled the drawer open and fumbled in it. But when he
+took out a chef’s knife, heavy-handled and with a massive
+blade of spotted steel, she gave a little scream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now who’s a coward?” he said, glaring at her, waving
+the blade slowly back and forth under her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny stood white and still in front of him. “Go ahead,
+operate,” she whispered. “You never wanted the baby, anyway.”
+There was almost more contempt than fear in her
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not on you,” he said and his voice went deathly quiet,
+like hers. Sunny dared to look at his face then. “If I hurt
+you you’d have a good reason for calling me a coward,”
+he said. “And you’d be right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her eyes went huge with alarm then. “Page, don’t hurt
+yourself,” she begged. “I didn’t mean it. Page!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure you meant it.” He was temporarily demented
+with wrath and humiliation, and before she could stop him
+he put his left hand down on the drainboard of the sink,
+palm up and with the fingers spread, and struck a terrible
+blow to the little finger. Sunny shut her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-108" class="pagenum" title="108"></a>
+There was an awful silence. Page dropped the knife
+with a nerve-scraping clatter into the sink and lifted his
+hand. Slowly Sunny opened her eyes and looked at it. The
+finger clung to its place by a forlorn thread of skin, hanging
+horribly backwards and upside-down against the back
+of his hand and bleeding heavily. He picked up the knife
+again and sawed it free and threw it at her feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny had covered her mouth with both hands in an effort
+to stifle her shock. Now she stooped as if in a dream
+and recaptured the severed finger. A strange sort of calm
+enveloped them both as she straightened up. Having
+touched the awful thing, so lately living, her horror left
+her. She was almost drowned in a well of love and pity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You didn’t have to do that,” she wept softly. “You
+fool. You big baby.” His disembodied finger vanished
+within her clenched hand. She stared at the tiny red rivers
+seeping through the cracks of her own fingers and blending
+with her tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I did,” he said, holding his left hand up carefully
+to stem the copious blood flow. The pain was only half-real
+to him. The whole action, in fact, seemed dreamlike. “It
+was worth it. I can tell by your eyes. I’m not a coward,
+Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t mean this way, darling,” she said. “You’re
+the bravest man in the world. I meant—the <em>other</em> way.
+Morally.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean I did all this for nothing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head. “Page, if you offered me the world
+on a string it wouldn’t mean half to me what this poor
+bloody finger means,” she wept. “Darling, what a stupid,
+gruesome, <em>brave</em> thing to do. Page ... I love you more than
+I can bear. Forgive me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she went to him and kissed him and his gory hand.
+They stood together with their arms around each other;
+damp and discolored with blood and tears; too stunned to
+talk any more.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-13">
+<a id="page-109" class="pagenum" title="109"></a>
+13
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+“You know, Laura, I don’t think either of us really knew
+what courage meant that day,” Sunny wrote to Laura
+Mann. “We were a couple of little kids lost in the dark,
+each one hanging on to the other, near dead with fright
+and both shouting how brave we were. To Page, courage
+was the strength to do what he thought was right. To me,
+courage was the guts to do what I knew damn well was
+wrong. (By conventional standards, at least). We were
+at opposite ends of the pole, too proud to meet halfway.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Sunny left Page’s apartment that night with Page asleep
+from the effects of a sedative the doctor had given him.
+She went home in a taxi. There had been no verbal understanding
+between her and Page. It seemed as though
+the more they talked about their problem, the farther they
+drew apart. They traveled away from each other on the
+wings of their own words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when they kissed or clasped hands or stood and
+shared a lingering look, words were unnecessary. They
+had made love this time, they had been so close to one
+another that Sunny began to hope the future wasn’t all
+black.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page had told her with his hands, his eyes, his mouth,
+how much she was cherished. No matter how wrong and
+painful and misunderstood their speeches were, they never
+misunderstood each other’s kisses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She spent the next few days expecting him to call her,
+<a id="page-110" class="pagenum" title="110"></a>
+and when nearly a week went by and he didn’t, she was
+gravely hurt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What does he expect me to do, make all the advances?
+she wondered. I’ve swallowed my pride. Let him swallow
+his this time.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+It was in a downcast mood that Sunny went to Dr.
+Settick for her six-month check-up. She sat in the examination
+room, staring at the white gown that covered her
+and trying not to think of Page. She hardly heard the doctor
+enter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He walked around in front of her, pulled her chart out
+of a folder, and checked her weight without a word of
+greeting. Total gain for six months: two pounds. He noted
+it, still silent, and turned to look her over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was so unlike him to keep quiet that she glanced up
+at him. “Am I all right?” she asked anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” he said, straightening up. “<em>Are</em> you
+all right? You tell me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I <em>feel</em> all right,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How does your husband feel?” He eyed her closely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He had a slight accident last week,” she answered.
+“I imagine he’s still pretty uncomfortable.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh? You wrung his neck, I hope. Sunny, you’re badly
+underweight. The baby seems to be all right. His heart is
+strong and he’s growing. But frankly, you worry me. The
+first time I saw you in here you were smiles all over, just
+like your name. And when I told you you were going
+to be a mother you nearly floated out of here. Now you’re
+moody, gloomy, listless....” He sighed. “I’m the last guy
+to make predictions, but I don’t like what your husband’s
+been doing to your state of mind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It couldn’t be helped,” she said shyly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, something had better be done about it,” Settick
+said, “if you want me to take responsibility for delivering
+that baby in good condition.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is it that bad?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It could be. It depends on how much pressure you’re
+under and how strong you are to resist it. This is your
+first baby and there’s no way of telling.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-111" class="pagenum" title="111"></a>
+“What can I do?” she asked. “If anything happens to
+my child—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you ever see your husband?” the doctor asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now and then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does it upset you a lot?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess it does,” she admitted with restraint.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then you shouldn’t see him at all,” Settick told her.
+“I mean that, Sunny. You’re in no shape to fight and
+argue and whatever the hell else you do with the guy. I’m
+telling you honestly: forget him till after the baby comes.
+Don’t call him and don’t let him in. Tell him it’s doctor’s
+orders and if he gives you a bad time tell him to call
+me. I think I have good medical grounds for asking you
+to do this.” He stepped closer to her, though there was
+a careful lack of intimacy in his manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, you’re such a damn sweet girl,” he said. He
+leaned his weight on the examination table behind her,
+his eyes averted. “You ought to be the way you were the
+day I met you, and instead you’re coasting downhill.
+There’s nothing physically wrong, nothing I can prescribe
+any more pills for. But it’s obvious your husband’s making
+you miserable, and if he doesn’t quit it’s my professional
+opinion he may injure this child you’re carrying. Or you.
+I don’t know how I can make it any stronger.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know if I <em>can</em> stop seeing him,” Sunny said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, okay, it’s your choice,” Settick said, shrugging.
+“You can choose between husband and baby. At the
+moment, I think baby comes first. You can square things
+up with your husband later.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny breathed deeply and fought her tears. To make
+it easier for her, Dr. Settick pretended not to notice and
+re-aligned the papers in her file.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I can’t see him at all, I think I’d better get out of
+the city,” she said when her nerves steadied. “Because if
+I’m still here and he’s still here, I’ll see him, Doctor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Settick folded his arms on his chest, and shook his
+head at her. “Brother,” he said. “You sure are a case.
+The guy makes you sick and you adore him for it. If you
+love each other so much why aren’t you happy? It doesn’t
+make sense.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess it doesn’t,” she agreed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-112" class="pagenum" title="112"></a>
+“I don’t mean to pry,” he added. “But if you have to
+move out of New York, move quickly. I suggest California.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why California? It’s so far away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s exactly why,” he said. “Ever been there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That makes it even better. He won’t suspect it. He’ll
+think you went home to Mama. And when he finds out
+otherwise, he won’t know where to look. My brother
+Brian lives in Los Angeles,” he went on. “I told you about
+him. He’s an obstetrician too. I want to keep close track
+of you, Sunny, and give you the best medical care. Brian
+is the best ... Could you finance the trip?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think so, Page puts money in the bank every month.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait till the last minute and then close out the account.
+You’ll like the coast,” he added reassuringly.
+“Brian’s wife will show you around.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny couldn’t help being touched and grateful for his
+concern. “I’d only do this for the baby,” she said. “I don’t
+care about myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What happens to you happens to Junior. Think of it
+that way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, then.” She had made a momentous decision;
+now she felt tired. After a minute she became conscious
+of the silence and glanced up at him. “May I go now?”
+she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” he said, but there was an avalanche of words
+piled up and waiting behind that ‘yes’ for some gesture of
+Sunny’s to release them. “I’ll call you when I’ve made the
+arrangements,” he said. “You can go home and pack.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you.” She paused. “If I weren’t so tired I
+wouldn’t let you talk me into this, you know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the first time I’ve been glad to see you tired,”
+he grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She smiled, letting him help her down from the table,
+and found herself standing right in front of him, suggestively
+close. Oddly immobile, whether from weariness or
+a desire to be comforted she never knew, she stood there
+until she felt his arms go around her. She had known
+they would, and her behavior actually encouraged it. She
+even knew he would kiss her, and she didn’t want his kiss.
+<a id="page-113" class="pagenum" title="113"></a>
+But she wanted to be held; she wanted to be caressed and
+reassured by a man’s gentle strength, and she was willing
+to pay for it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a chaste kiss: the kind a man gives a woman he
+reveres; a woman he can’t have and yet can’t give up.
+It surprised Sunny, who thought the young doctor would
+make the most of this chance to rouse her sexually. But
+he seemed to know that such a move could only repel her
+then. Instead he touched her lips lightly with his and
+kissed her forehead. And then he wrapped her in the
+strong embrace she yearned for and rocked her tenderly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was so kind, so careful to control his fascination
+with her lest he offend her, that he won her over. She
+clung to him and let herself cry into his starchy clean
+coat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny,” he said, afraid of breaking the spell but more
+afraid he’d never talk to her again. “I have no right to
+say this, but—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t then, please,” she pleaded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let me. Just listen for one minute. I have no claim on
+you. You belong to another man. You love him. For some
+reason he sees fit to torment you—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re being unfair!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Okay, I’m unfair. I don’t know all the facts.” He
+held her closer. “But I do know you’re bitterly unhappy
+because of him and you’re making yourself sick over it.
+Every time I see you I want to take you in my arms and
+brush away the tears and make you smile. Sunny, I
+haven’t been very subtle about this. I guess it’s no secret
+that ever since you’ve been coming here I—I’ve had a
+special interest in you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dr. Settick—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My name is Richie,” he said gently. “Let me finish.
+For want of a better word let me say I’m infatuated with
+you. If you weren’t married I’d call it something much
+stronger. I’d want you for my own.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Richie, I didn’t mean to start this,” she said, pressing
+away from him. But he held her firmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just one last thing,” he said. “I know I can’t have you.
+But please let me help you. I can’t tell you what it would
+mean to me to see you safely through this pregnancy.
+<a id="page-114" class="pagenum" title="114"></a>
+If I thought we could get away with it I’d certainly keep
+you here where I can watch over you myself. The next
+best thing is to put you in Brian’s care. And when the
+baby’s due I’m coming out there to deliver it. I want you
+to promise me—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t ask you to drop everything and—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t have to ask me, I <em>want</em> to do it.” He looked
+down at her and she could see in his serious clean-featured
+face that he meant it. “I’ve been planning a couple of
+weeks off later in the summer anyway. I’ll be in close
+touch with Brian. And I want you to write me, too. Sunny,
+let me do this. Don’t be embarrassed by my feelings for
+you. Don’t even think about them. I’m a good doctor,
+and I’ll take good care of you. Please. It’s all of you I
+can ever have.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rush of words stopped. Sunny was tempted simply
+to resign her will and be cared for. She needed it so much
+and he wanted so much to do it. Was it wrong to accept
+his help, just because he loved her? He was a doctor, he
+was trained to care for people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Richie,” she said awkwardly, “I’m grateful to you—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then don’t turn me down.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ... I can’t turn you down. I need you too much.
+But you mustn’t expect me to leave my husband. I can
+never thank you enough for what you’re doing for me,
+only—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll never take advantage of you, Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She smiled at him then. “You make me feel terribly
+selfish,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m the selfish one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She put a hand on his arm. “I want you to know about
+Page. It’s never been a question of love between us,
+Richie. That’s the only thing we’ve been sure of in all
+this mess.” She remembered suddenly that she was clad
+in a loose gown with nothing underneath it. He brought
+it to her attention inadvertently, being extremely close
+to her as he was. With a deep blush she said, “I’d better
+dress.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, have dinner with me tonight?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would be nice to have some company, some laughter.
+She relented without a struggle. “All right, if you’ll let me
+<a id="page-115" class="pagenum" title="115"></a>
+cook it for you,” she said. “I haven’t cooked a meal for
+a man in months. Seven o’clock?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve got a deal,” he said with a grin.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She got a roast on the way home and some squash and
+fresh broccoli—the sort of things that take a little doing
+when they’re spiced and wined and buttered right, things
+women never fix for themselves. It felt good to be busy
+in the kitchen, even though the bother wasn’t for Page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wondered once, briefly, if Page would choose that
+evening to come over. He’d blow a fuse, she thought. But
+it was too late to change things: already quarter to seven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Richie arrived ten minutes later, with a spray of yellow
+roses and a bottle of champagne under his arm. “I thought
+as long as we were doing it, we might as well do it right,”
+he said handing them to her. He looked very handsome in
+his dark suit. He was fair, like Page, but heavier set and
+shorter. His features were fuller, more emphatic than
+Page’s: one might say a little coarser, though coarse only
+by comparison. He was a sensitive, intelligent man, and
+he was pleasant company that evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The champagne eased Sunny’s apprehensions about
+Page and she relaxed and enjoyed herself. Richie talked
+about himself at her insistence, telling her about the
+medical school he had attended and why he had specialized
+in obstetrics. “I just like women and babies, I guess,”
+he laughed. “Not a very scientific reason.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laughed with him and listened with interest, and he
+found himself growing expansive with her attention on him
+and the champagne in him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a pleasure to talk like this,” he told her when the
+dinner was over and they were drinking their coffee with
+Page’s prize Drambuie. “I spend so damn much time
+every day listening.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s why you’re so popular,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think so?” he chuckled. “I used to have an old
+professor who insisted the bedside manner was half the
+cure. Any time you want to let me practice it on you, I’d
+be delighted.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The time went much too fast. Sunny was surprised and
+<a id="page-116" class="pagenum" title="116"></a>
+disappointed when Richie got up to go a few minutes
+past eleven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m afraid I kept you too long,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you really?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” she admitted with a little smile. “I’d keep you
+longer if I could.” But when he reached toward her she
+added quickly: “But just to talk. Nobody else can make
+me smile these days.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He let his hands fall back. “When you take up medicine
+you give up normal hours for the rest of your life,” he
+said. “You have to sleep wherever you can and whenever
+you get the chance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She saw him to the door, getting his coat from the hall
+closet. There was a clumsy little silence after he had put
+it on and stood there in front of her, hesitating. She hoped,
+suddenly self-conscious, that he would not try to kiss her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he only said, “Thank you, Sunny, for a beautiful
+evening. Everything was perfect. Especially you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She surprised herself and him both by kissing his cheek,
+a swift, soft, tip-toed peck. “That’s for taking such good
+care of me,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He couldn’t help kissing her then, and she wondered,
+while he held her, what might have happened to her life
+if she had met him before she met Page. It was idle conjecture,
+really; she loved Page with her whole heart. But
+Richie Settick was a fine man; strong, intelligent, attractive.
+And while he respected her feelings for her husband,
+he was not sorry she admired himself and liked
+him and needed him. He would do nothing to discourage
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He squeezed her one last time. “I’ll call you tomorrow,
+after I’ve talked to Brian,” he said, gave her one long look,
+and left.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Richie’s call came just five minutes after unpredictable
+Page had walked in on his wife, and Sunny was so flustered
+on the phone, trying to warn Richie without making
+Page suspicious, that Richie finally caught on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is your husband there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Extremely!” she said and he muttered, “Oh, God. Well,
+I’d better call you back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-117" class="pagenum" title="117"></a>
+“No, I’ll call you,” she said, afraid he might call again
+before Page left. Or perhaps Page had no intention of
+leaving. She couldn’t guess what he had come for.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny hung up and followed Page into the kitchen,
+where he had gone while she was on the phone. She
+found him with his head in the refrigerator, sampling
+the previous night’s leftovers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Boy,” he mumbled through a full mouth. “Good,
+honey.” He waved a piece of roast beef at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that all you have to say to me?” she said, half-joking,
+half-dismayed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” He glanced at her almost bashfully, and turned
+away, finding a knife in the kitchen drawer to cut the meat.
+The sight of him with a blade in his hand made her
+gasp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s all right,” he said hastily. “I just want something
+to eat. I always thought I married a crackerjack cook.”
+He gave her a smile that seemed more like a cover-up
+for something else. He was too casual, too much the
+sophisticated spouse calling on his estranged wife to chat.
+She half-expected a polite inquiry on the health of her
+lovers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How is your hand, darling?” she asked. The wound was
+one week old.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Okay,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll bet it hurts a lot,” she said. “What did you do
+with the finger, Page?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He blinked, humiliated by the discussion. “Threw it
+in the garbage,” he said briefly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But it was a part of you,” she protested. “I know it
+sounds silly, but—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It certainly does,” he said, refusing to look at her and
+eating a chunk of beef. “What would I do with the thing?
+Pickle it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess not,” she admitted. She put a cautious hand on
+his shoulder. “Page? Why are you here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To see you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t be so damn matter-of-fact about it,” she cried.
+“This is the first time you’ve come to see me since this
+thing happened. Page, put that meat down and <em>talk</em> to
+<a id="page-118" class="pagenum" title="118"></a>
+me.” She snatched it from him and re-wrapped it in
+aluminum foil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m sorry,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did you come for?” She faced him with her
+hands folded over her bosom and he knew he would have
+to do battle to get them down again. She wasn’t going
+to give him any help.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made a fuss over his sticky hands and spent some
+minutes cleaning them up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How are you feeling?” he said lamely. “I mean, what
+does the doctor say? I mean you scared me last week.
+You were so thin and white. You looked so beautiful,
+honey, but too damn skinny. Are you all right?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He delivered this halting speech, full of love and embarrassment,
+without looking at her. She decided not to
+answer till he looked at her. Eventually, in the ensuing
+silence, he had to.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Darling?” he questioned softly. “Are you all right?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I’m not.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paled. He blushed easily when he was self-conscious
+and conversely went white with alarm. Sunny’s
+reactions were identical, and it touched her to see the
+trait in Page, even though it was another physical proof
+of their blood tie. “Are you really sick or are you trying
+to scare me?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m really almost sick. Dr. Settick says I have to get
+out of New York for a while. He doesn’t want me to see
+you any more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She hadn’t stopped to think that her words would be
+antagonistic. She meant to spite him and instead infuriated
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You tell that bastard he can take a flying jump at the
+moon!” he exploded. “Who is he to tell you if you can
+see your own husband?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My <em>ex</em>-husband,” she reminded him. “Be consistent,
+Page. He said it because I get so upset he’s afraid it will
+affect the baby’s health. And mine. He said if my depression
+lasts he can’t answer for the baby’s safe delivery. He
+said it would be on your conscience.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She hadn’t intended to tell him that. She meant to
+slip away on her trip and leave him a reassuring note.
+<a id="page-119" class="pagenum" title="119"></a>
+No recriminations. But the way he gnawed on that roast
+beef, maligned Richie, avoided her, with such a show of
+casual sophistication, incensed her. She knew he was
+trying to hide his love, to prevent a burst of uncontrollable
+desire for her. But it made her want to tear down his
+cool self-righteousness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, I wish I could make you come to me on your
+knees,” she cried. “I wish I could make you feel what I
+feel when I crawl to you and beg you to kiss me and
+need me and—” She broke down and cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Watching her, his anger melted. “Don’t go away,” he
+began. “Please, Sunny. I couldn’t live in this town if you
+weren’t here. Just knowing I can see you if I have to—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you have to!” she shouted. “That’s too big an ‘if,’
+Page. Either live with me as my husband or consider the
+annulment official and leave me forever. Make up your
+mind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Darling, I can’t. Don’t force me—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, which is better?” she asked brokenly through
+her tears. “This piecemeal love-making? This frantic once-a-month
+stuff that exhausts us both? Or making up our
+minds we have to have each other anyway, and so living
+together? Page, I can’t take this and neither can you.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You say it’s wrong for us to sleep together because
+we’re brother and sister. Well, why do we do it, then? Why
+don’t we say good-by and get it over with? This installment-plan
+passion is just as immoral as living together and
+a lot more agonizing. You say you have principles. All
+right, stick to them!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She finished with a small cry of dismay. She had delivered
+an ultimatum to him by mistake. All the pent-up
+wrath of the preceding months boiled out of her and she
+couldn’t stop it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That doctor’s been brainwashing you!” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s been telling me the truth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s trying to turn you against me! And he’s probably
+in love with you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, he is!” she fired back with vindictive pride.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, God!” he cried. “And I suppose you’ve invited
+him over here—to <em>my</em> apartment—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-120" class="pagenum" title="120"></a>
+“<em>My</em> apartment,” she corrected him. “You forfeited
+your right to it months ago.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I suppose that roast beef was for him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t think I’d cook all that for myself, do you?”
+she said in a voice made unsteady with tears. “He’s a lot
+better company than you are, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you leave this city,” he warned. “I’ll have that
+bone-picker jailed for alienation of affections!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can you sue if the affections belong to your mistress,
+not your wife? Since we’re getting technical, let me
+remind you as you keep reminding me: we’re not married.
+And I’m no more sleeping with Richie Settick than
+you are with your secretary.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stared at each other. Page dared not relent for
+fear of crushing her in his arms and forgiving her everything,
+even the things she only did in his imagination—and
+those were the worst of the lot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think I let him make love to me, don’t you?” she
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” he said and the admission surprised her almost as
+the sudden quiet of his voice. The starch in him washed
+out suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went to her, hesitant and ashamed of his outburst,
+expecting the frigid reception he deserved. But she moved
+toward him and he caught her, holding her tightly as if
+he meant to keep her there forever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Every time I shout at you I get myself in trouble,” he
+said unhappily. “I’m so damn jealous I’m acting like a
+five-year-old. If I can’t have you I don’t want anyone else
+to. But you see Settick too much and you like him too
+much. No wonder he’s in love with you. He’d have to be
+blind not to be. And he’s too damn available.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But darling, the man I want is so <em>un</em>available.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He kissed her mouth, long and tenderly. She only
+said one word when he released her: “Stay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he wasn’t ready; not yet. He was thinking, he was
+suffering, he was even softening. But it was still beyond his
+courage to commit himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left her moments later. Sunny didn’t beg, she didn’t
+cry. She sensed a new attitude in him, a new gentleness,
+and she didn’t want to frighten it off. He was trying to
+<a id="page-121" class="pagenum" title="121"></a>
+control the emotions that had mastered him so often in
+the past, and, for the first time, he was taking a cautious
+look at her side of things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An hour later she called Richie Settick back on the
+phone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have a reservation on a jet flight to Los Angeles for
+Thursday, honey,” he told her. “Tessa, Brian’s wife, will
+pick you up at International Airport. She’ll have an apartment
+for you, too; something small, near Brian’s office.
+They wanted to take you in themselves, but I told them no.
+They have four little kids and it’s a madhouse.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks a million, Richie,” she said. “I’d better let
+my parents know where I am.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait till you get out there,” he said. “And don’t let
+them tell Page.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll say it’s a trial separation,” she said. “They don’t
+even know I’m pregnant and they’re awfully fond of Page.
+They’d be heart-sick if they thought we were breaking up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This won’t be half as bad as you think, Sunny,” he
+comforted her. “I’ll drive you out to Idlewild Thursday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks, Richie.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now get yourself packed and get your money from
+the bank,” he said. “And don’t do it all at once and wear
+yourself out. That baby’s still got almost three months to
+go, and we don’t want him coming early. Might louse up
+my vacation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She obeyed him; she was too tired to argue. Richie
+was efficient and strong and he simply took over, helping
+her pack, running last-minute errands for her, getting
+things in order. She told him about Page’s visit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you told him you were leaving? You shouldn’t
+have done that, Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know why I did, except that he made me so
+angry. I wanted to see him really afraid of losing me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But my God, he’ll be after you all the time,” Richie
+said. “I’m surprised he hasn’t barged in already.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not that boy,” she said with weary sarcasm. “I told
+Page I was leaving, yes,” she added. “But not when or
+where. I’ve stuck it out all these months and he just
+figures I won’t leave now. And I wouldn’t, except for the
+baby.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-122" class="pagenum" title="122"></a>
+She sat down glumly on a suitcase. “Maybe I ought
+to stay,” she whispered, almost to herself. “He really tried
+to understand a little.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A little isn’t enough. Now forget it. Don’t think about
+him,” Richie ordered her. “Think about that instead.”
+He indicated her small belly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t see how there’s room for a <em>mouse</em> in there,”
+she mourned, looking down at herself, “let alone a baby.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Some of the smallest girls have the biggest babies,”
+he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But they stick out, don’t they?” She lifted her sad face
+for his reassuring reply and he kissed it instead. She murmured
+wryly, “Enter Page, twirling mustache. Sunny
+screams. Gallant doctor draws pistol and defends virtue
+of wronged damsel. Duel follows. Everybody drops dead.
+Justice is served. Fanfare. End of story.” She glanced at
+Settick. “Maybe we’d all be better off dead,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The hell with that noise,” he retorted cheerfully. “Nobody’s
+better off dead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not even the screwballs? The queers and the criminals?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not even them. Not in my book.” He was kneeling
+with one leg on her other bag, forcing it shut. “There’s
+always a chance the square peg will find a square hole.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How about the people who make love to corpses? Or
+their own sex? Or their own brother?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a small bemused pause. “You have a morbid
+imagination, honey,” he said, smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean you condone all those things?” she said,
+feeling an almost compulsive need to talk about it. “Murder?
+And sodomy? And—incest?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” he said calmly. “I don’t condone. And I don’t
+condemn. I try to correct. I had a patient a few months
+ago—can’t remember which one, they all ask questions—who
+wanted to know about incest.” His look made her
+heart skip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did you tell her? Sure, go ahead? Incest is better
+than nothing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. She wasn’t committing it, she was asking about
+it,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How do you know?” Sunny felt as if she were playing
+<a id="page-123" class="pagenum" title="123"></a>
+dangerously near the cliff of confession: one slip and over
+she’d go. Or was confession unnecessary? Had he already
+guessed? She didn’t think so, because she felt he would
+have asked her about it if he had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, come to think of it, I don’t know whether she
+was or not,” he answered. “Stranger things have happened....
+There you are, all packed. We have three hours
+to get the plane.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did you tell her, Richie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“About the incest? She wondered if it would affect the
+children. Why?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe it was her own baby she was worried about.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe it was.” He stared at her. “My God, maybe it
+was. Why am I so dense about these things? Damn. Takes
+a woman to see through another woman, I guess.” He
+kept staring at her and she had the sudden premonition
+that he would remember at any second.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She got up lightly. She was sweating nervously and
+longed for him to drop the subject. He did, at once, almost
+as if he knew it embarrassed her. If she had trusted
+herself she would have dismissed it with one last silly
+crack, to throw him off. But her composure was riskily
+thin and she was afraid it showed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just don’t let him put two and two together, she prayed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+He drove her out to the airport. They didn’t talk much
+until they got there and checked her bags and went to
+have a drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you really want me to have a martini?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure. One won’t hurt you. Might do you some good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When their drinks came, Sunny said, “Richie, Page
+will find out I’ve gone sooner or later. I didn’t leave any
+note or address, but he knows your name. And it won’t
+take him long to find you, once he knows I’m not in New
+York. It might be tomorrow or a month from tomorrow,
+I don’t know. But I do know he’ll think it’s all your fault.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t worry about it, Sunny. I can handle him. If he
+really loves you, I’ll use his love to convince him. After
+all, you aren’t leaving forever. Once the baby is safely
+delivered and you’ve got your health back, there’s no
+<a id="page-124" class="pagenum" title="124"></a>
+reason why you can’t see him again. He wouldn’t hurt
+you, would he? Physically?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head. “I feel as if I’m dreaming,” she
+said. “This place, those big planes roaring out there.
+I’ve never even flown before. Did I tell you that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It doesn’t scare you, does it?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. I feel sort of numb. I’m glad; I don’t know if I
+could go through with it otherwise.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took her to the gate and handed her ticket to her.
+She turned to thank him, with the wind whipping her hair,
+and found herself crying. Richie put his arms around her
+and held her so hard she thought he meant to crack her
+ribs. But she returned the embrace without protest. At last
+she lifted her head and said, “Thank you.” It was all she
+had composure for, but he could see in her face how
+much she meant it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish I were free to tell you how much I love you,”
+he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she put a restraining finger on his lips and gave
+him a warning smile. “When you see my frantic husband—and
+he’ll be pretty frantic, believe me,” she said,
+“—will you please tell him for me that I love him ... very
+much?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll tell him,” he said, as if to atone for his declaration
+of a moment before. “And remember, Sunny, no matter
+what happens, I’m going to deliver that baby. I’ll see you
+in a couple of months. Take care.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny smiled. She went through the gate and walked
+to the plane, up the ramp, and inside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Settick stood and watched her disappear, then found
+her when she took her seat by a window toward the back,
+and stood with his hat in his hand, waving and cursing
+silently the name of Page Pringle, until she vanished in
+the clouds.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-14">
+<a id="page-125" class="pagenum" title="125"></a>
+14
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+“So you finally lost track of them, then?” Mr. Winkler
+asked Jack disappointedly, accepting a sandwich from
+Laura. It was after three <span class="scall">A.M.</span> In a little while the summer
+streets of Chicago would be light again and hot with the
+June warmth that had scarcely abated in the dark hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” Jack said. “The Rothelis called us and filled us
+in a couple of weeks ago. They were trying to find the
+Pringles to tell them where Sunny was. June thought we’d
+have their phone number. She told us Sunny was in Los
+Angeles. She thought Page and Sunny were headed for a
+divorce and she was pretty worried.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then she still didn’t know the truth? I mean, that
+Page was their lost son, Roger?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. She told us all she knew and we guessed at the
+rest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Winkler’s face was tired but no less interested. The
+sandwich revived his energy and he listened carefully, like
+a student at a lecture who would write a paper on the
+subject as soon as he got home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Jack, by this time, was speaking to him with
+the familiarity of long acquaintance; long only in hours,
+but deep in perception. Jack now knew who Winkler was.
+It made him feel safer and easier in relating the story.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Page brooded silently for four days in New York until
+he could stand it no more. His jealousy was full-blown;
+his loneliness made all the days seem gray.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-126" class="pagenum" title="126"></a>
+He stood in the middle of his living room, trying to
+ignore the phone. At last he grabbed it with a sort of
+sideswipe, pretending he wasn’t quite aware of what he
+was doing and that would make it all right to call her,
+just as it’s all right to do outrageous things in your dreams
+because it isn’t the real you doing them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He dialed her number, rehearsing his speech. It shocked
+him severely when the operator broke in after a couple
+of rings to ask what number he was calling. He told her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That number has been disconnected, sir,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He hung up without answering, standing perfectly still
+and saying to himself, She did it because she doesn’t want
+to hear from me. She did it because she wants me to think
+she doesn’t have enough money in the bank. She’s only
+trying to scare me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Page was frightened. He rushed downstairs and
+hailed a cab, driving over to her apartment with his heart
+pounding in his throat. Her windows were dark, though
+it was nearly eight o’clock. Perhaps she was at a movie.
+Or out with the doctor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The small entrance hall was faintly lighted and he went
+up the stairs to her rooms with noisy carelessness. He
+still had a key and put it to the lock. But it didn’t fit.
+<em>That’s going too far!</em> he thought angrily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chagrined, he shuffled down to the basement in search
+of the janitor, whose room was behind the furnace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hello, Mr. Pringle,” the janitor said amiably, opening
+his door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hi. Say, I seem to have lost my key,” Page said, hoping
+his embarrassment didn’t show. “Could you let me in my
+wife’s apartment?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That lock’s been changed, boy.” The janitor gave him
+a curious stare. “And anyways, she ain’t there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page felt like hitting him. “Where is she?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How should I know? Just left, without no address.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did she go—alone?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Had some young fella to help her. Blond, like you,
+but not so tall. Seemed to think a lot of her.” He smiled
+the lecherous grin of the aged and impotent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Settick!” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned and ran up the stairs with the janitor’s evil
+<a id="page-127" class="pagenum" title="127"></a>
+laughter floating after him. He raced to the nearest drug-store
+with a phone booth. In a moment he had Dr. Richard
+Settick’s home address in his pocket, and in another moment
+he was in a taxi on the way there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was about eight-thirty when Richie Settick answered
+the ring at his door. He opened it with a wide friendly
+sweep, the way he usually did, and froze. He was confronted
+with a strange tense man whose face was bafflingly
+familiar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page was holding himself together by a strict effort of
+will, as if he feared letting go and blowing to bits in front
+of this rival. For a moment Settick thought he had a
+crackpot on his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you want?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My wife.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Richie knew immediately who he was facing.
+Whatever else he knew, or guessed, he didn’t say. Page
+was trembling, and the little twitch around his eyes gave
+warning of the rumbling violence inside him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come in, Page,” Richie said, and such was Page’s
+emotional state that he never stopped to wonder how
+Richie recognized him without having seen him before.
+Richie, on his guard, stepped aside to let Page pass. He
+had expected a noisy, threatening bully. Instead Sunny’s
+husband was stiff and silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where is my wife?” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s on a little trip,” Richie told him. “Sit down,
+Page.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want Sunny,” Page warned, ignoring Settick’s invitation
+with a darkening face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had to send her away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you understand English? Where is my wife?”
+Page was shaking visibly. Richie judged, being smaller and
+not having the advantage of anger, that he’d get a
+shellacking unless he betrayed Sunny. So it took some
+courage for him to declare, “I can’t tell you where she is.
+If you find her she’ll have that baby on the spot. It might
+kill her, Page. And not many babies survive such a
+premature birth, either.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No one can say that for sure. You’re trying to bluff
+me,” Page said in a strong, urgent voice in spite of his
+<a id="page-128" class="pagenum" title="128"></a>
+shaking. He had pride, like Sunny, and he would not let
+himself come apart in front of this man she admired.
+Settick was calm and forceful, well-informed, a man to
+respect. Page could appreciate it without liking it. He was
+ready to hate this man who had persuaded Page’s wife
+to leave him. But he knew Sunny would not listen to an
+ordinary man. Accordingly, in spite of his bitterness, he
+was curious, and he felt no contempt for Settick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m a doctor. I know when a pregnant girl is in trouble,”
+Richie told him. “If Sunny loses that baby you’ll
+have yourself to blame, not just for the baby’s death but
+for what happens to Sunny because of it. And it’ll be
+rough, I can promise you that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page watched him, suddenly recalling his mother, June
+Rotheli, and Pringle’s story of how she had tragically lost
+her mind when he, Roger, was born. Sunny might do that
+if she lost her child. She was a lot like her mother. The
+thought made him weigh Settick’s words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Richie watched his face work around these ideas, wondering
+what it was that made him wince, hoping his own
+words had made some sense.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t want to kill that baby, do you?” Richie
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I just want Sunny,” Page said, astounded to feel himself
+retreating a little. Richie felt it too and began to think
+Page wouldn’t spread him around the living room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then give her another few months,” Richie pleaded
+quietly. “Till the child is born and you know they’re both
+okay. She loves you, Page, she didn’t want to go. I
+insisted because every time she saw you she came all
+unglued. You weren’t living with her, anyway. You rarely
+saw her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I suppose she told you <em>why</em>, you—conniving
+bastard!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, she didn’t. She just said it couldn’t be helped and
+you loved each other in spite of it.” Richie lighted a
+cigarette and continued seriously, “She talked to me quite
+a lot, though, when she came in for her examinations.
+I don’t think she has many problems I don’t know about—or
+couldn’t figure out. Would it help you any to know,
+Page, that I think....” He paused, then proceeded
+<a id="page-129" class="pagenum" title="129"></a>
+cautiously, “... I think this baby will be normal?” He
+waited, ready for a wild reaction from Page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Page deliberately misunderstood him. “Of course
+it’ll be normal,” he said quickly. “She hasn’t starved herself
+<em>that</em> much.” He covered his face with his hands for
+a moment as if he were afraid to comprehend Richie’s
+full meaning, as if his hands could hide his thoughts from
+the doctor. When he dropped them he said, “I’ll ask you
+once more: Where is she?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I told you you’d go straight to her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you know what this is doing to me?” Page said
+roughly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re not pregnant. She is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have to know! God Almighty, are you trying to drive
+me nuts?” He reached the doctor with one giant step,
+pulling him up by the lapels and shaking him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Richie looked him straight in the face. “No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page gave him a stout shove that sent him walloping
+into his door. But Richie caught him on the rebound,
+plowing a fist into Page’s solar plexus. Page hit the floor
+on his knees, struggling loudly for breath while Richie
+watched, unwilling to press his advantage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Page could talk he mumbled furiously, “You’re
+in love with her. You wouldn’t do this otherwise. Damn
+you! Probably going to meet her somewhere.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Richie said nothing. When Page recovered he helped
+him to his feet and pulled him to the front door. “She’ll
+be back as soon as she’s had the baby,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll find her,” Page swore, pushing the tumbled hair off
+his forehead. “If you think I’m going to wait two or three
+months for my wife, you’re crazy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re the crazy one,” Richie answered. “And you
+know it well enough to be ashamed of yourself right
+now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the second time in the past few days, the fight went
+out of Page. He loved Sunny and he had to find her.
+Richie loved her and he had to hide her. Page understood
+that suddenly and understanding made him quieter, less
+desperate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked at Settick with the clear green eyes so much
+<a id="page-130" class="pagenum" title="130"></a>
+like his sister’s, and experienced an irritated gratitude toward
+this man who had cared for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I’d been with her all this time, she wouldn’t have
+had to turn to you,” he said, almost to himself. He wondered
+how he could admit this without feeling cowardly
+about it, or humiliated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish I could hate you for what you’ve done,” he said
+frankly to Richie. “I wish I didn’t understand why you
+did it. I could break your head then with a clear conscience.”
+He smiled tentatively. “You think I’m a dangerous
+character, don’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were, a minute ago.” And seeing Page collect his
+wits, control himself, made an impression on Richie. For
+the first time since his arrival, the doctor saw what Page
+could be like when he had himself in hand, and it made
+him jealous; not of a shadow or a name on Sunny’s lips;
+but jealous of this flesh-and-blood man facing him now
+and showing signs of civilized intelligence at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does it make any difference if I say I had to avoid her?
+And it hurt me as much as Sunny?” Page shot Settick a
+glance. “Will you tell me where she is if I give you my
+word not to frighten her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Richie shook his head. “All you have to do is be there,
+and she’s frightened,” he said. “I can’t take the chance.
+She isn’t that strong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I keep my word, Settick,” Page said. It was as close
+as he could bring himself to pleading.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give her these months, Page. Give her her child safe
+and sound. After that, she’s all yours.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Page saw that until then, she was all Richie’s; not
+in any adulterous sense, but in the sense of safe-keeping.
+More argument with the young doctor would gain him
+nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left, wondering at his own self-control and perception.
+Richie wondered, too, if Sunny hadn’t exaggerated
+her husband’s difficult temper. Both men felt a grudging
+esteem for each other and in different circumstances
+they would very likely have been friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For Page, in the trial of soul-searching and steadfast
+love, found himself changing for the better. He was not
+<a id="page-131" class="pagenum" title="131"></a>
+yet quite a man, but no one could call him a temperamental
+college boy any more, either.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went home and placed a call to the Rothelis, fingering
+the library notes Pat had left on his desk that afternoon.
+Deliberately, he dumped the notes into the wastebasket.
+It would be a while before he wrote anything more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ben answered. It was the first time Page had heard
+his voice since he knew Ben was his father, and he listened
+with new attention, hearing echoes of his own voice in it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page! Good to hear from you,” Ben said, and Page
+felt a melancholy fondness for him. He had been so
+resentful against the Rothelis in the months since he had
+known the truth that it surprised him to feel love for them
+now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ben,” he said, anxiety making him brusque. “I’m looking
+for Sunny. Is she with you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Looking for Sunny?” Ben said, his tone sharpening.
+“What do you mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mean she left me. I mean—” He couldn’t describe
+the reasons for their separation. He couldn’t blurt out to
+Ben, <em>You’re my father</em>! There was no adequate explanation
+but the forbidden one. “We quarreled,” he mumbled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What about?” Ben said dubiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t explain it now. Is she there?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What makes you think she’d be here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know. Don’t girls usually go home to their
+mothers when they fight with their husbands?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny wouldn’t pull a trick like that,” Rotheli answered,
+fully alarmed now. “She’s not that kind!” He
+seemed to be trying to convince them both.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, she’s not in New York. And if she’s not with
+you, I—oh God, I don’t know where to look.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s all right, isn’t she? She isn’t sick?” Ben asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, but she’s pretty damn pregnant,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s <em>what</em>?” Ben Rotheli shouted over the phone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Page remembered too late that Ben hadn’t known.
+Sunny made Page promise not to tell anyone until their
+problem was settled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, is my daughter pregnant?” Rotheli demanded.
+His anger snapped over the wires and Page heard June
+cry out in the background.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-132" class="pagenum" title="132"></a>
+“Yes, Ben,” he admitted. “You know how women are
+when they’re that way,” he pleaded. “They change, they
+aren’t themselves. I never dreamed she’d ... Ben, don’t
+be too hard on me.” He didn’t want to antagonize this
+father of his who didn’t know he was talking to his own
+son.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ben remembered how June had been when she was
+carrying her own children and he relented a little. But
+his voice was still cold when he said, “Well, we’ve got
+to find her, fast. You get in touch with the police there,
+and I’ll—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The police? Oh God no!” Page broke in, thinking
+what would happen if publicity brought the truth out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God damn it, Page, you do as I tell you!” Rotheli
+ordered him. “If you’re not going to get the cops to find
+your wife, I’ll get them to find my <em>daughter</em>!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, all right,” Page said, deferring like a dutiful
+son, but only to quiet Ben. He would find Sunny himself,
+without any help from the police. “And Ben—if you hear
+from her, call me right away. I’ll do the same.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They ended the conversation on that agreement and
+Page spent a sleepless night, waiting for daylight and another
+chance at Settick. He sat on his bed and smoked,
+studying maps, trying to put himself in Sunny’s shoes.
+She hadn’t gone home. Was she across the river in New
+Jersey? Or across the continent?
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+He set out early after the doctor, only to discover that
+Settick made his hospital rounds in the morning and
+wasn’t in his office. Page would have to come back at one
+o’clock and sit in the waiting room, a lone buck in a forest
+of pregnant girls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No thanks, he thought. And suddenly he began to
+wonder if Ben had been lying to him. After all, Sunny had
+doctor’s orders not to let Page know where she was.
+Suppose she had been there at Ben’s elbow, full of stories
+about the baby dying, scaring Ben into lying? She would
+have made a convincing actor out of a wooden Indian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Abruptly, Page changed his plans and called the airport.
+There was nothing available immediately but they promised
+him the first cancellation to Chicago. Restless and
+<a id="page-133" class="pagenum" title="133"></a>
+worried, aware of his loneliness like a chronic pain, he
+packed and went out to wait for a plane. Six hours later
+he got a place. He never thought to call the <em>Sunday
+Magazine</em> until he was airborne and then dismissed it with
+a silent curse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He timed his arrival in Hillsburg for nine o’clock the
+next morning, when Ben would be gone for the day. If
+Sunny was there it would be a lot easier to abduct her
+from her mother than her father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He drove up and parked his rented car in the Rotheli’s
+back driveway. There was no sound, no signal to warn
+June, who was washing dishes in the kitchen, that he was
+coming. She saw him standing in the doorway and gave
+a small shriek. A cup hit the sink and shattered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page smiled at her, but his eyes searched the room,
+looking for traces of Sunny.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hello, June,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” At
+the sound of his voice she began to cry. “It’s all right,”
+he said, dismayed at having to comfort her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page!” she exclaimed at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took her into bashful arms and hugged her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is she here? I thought she might have asked you not
+to tell me,” he said, unable to postpone the question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m so glad to see you,” June wept, making him wait
+anyway for the answer. “You terrified us when you called.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But Sunny ... is she—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, she isn’t with us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His face fell. He looked so completely whipped that she
+put her hands against his cheeks, a little caress of Sunny’s
+that touched him. “I probably shouldn’t tell you ... but
+we got a telegram from her late last night. She’s fine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank God!” He leaned heavily against the wall,
+pulling June with him. It was all happening too fast. His
+heart labored like a bellows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We tried to call you right away, but you weren’t
+home,” June said. “And your office this morning said they
+didn’t know where you were either. So then we began to
+worry about <em>you</em>.” She laughed with relief, a laugh like
+Sunny’s that made Page ache. He had never before realized
+how alike they were.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where is she?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-134" class="pagenum" title="134"></a>
+“I can’t tell you,” June said, looking away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now don’t <em>you</em> pull that on me!” he protested. “June,
+she’s my wife. I adore her. I’m going insane without her,”
+he cried passionately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+June had thought she could tell him everything over the
+phone. Instead here he was, sweating and desperate, in
+her own kitchen. His eyes were on her like two green
+lights, and he clutched her arms with his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wanted to tell him. She couldn’t help it. She felt
+the same attraction to him that Ben had when they met.
+But Sunny’s wire was explicit: “Don’t give Page my
+address. Very important.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She said not to tell you, Page,” June apologized.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course she did, she’s <em>mad</em> at me,” he said, using
+any argument he could to soften her up. “June, I’ll die
+without that girl. I can’t help it if I sound melodramatic.
+All I ask is a chance to talk to her, to explain. How can
+I when I don’t even know where she is?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It sounded so logical. June was sentimental and loving,
+and she wavered. Page implored her to give him the
+address. She heard the pain and the love in his voice and
+wished Ben were there to handle him instead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How could two people patch up a marriage if they were
+a country apart? she asked herself. Besides, Sunny was
+pregnant now. June knew how that went, how miserable
+you felt, how irritable and unreasonable. And how terribly
+you needed your husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She thought of her own suffering when Roger was due
+and how hard she had leaned on Ben then, calling him
+names and abusing him. But he had been strong and
+patient, and her gratitude had never faded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was sure Sunny was being stubborn and silly. Whatever
+the quarrel, it didn’t merit a divorce. And yet Sunny
+was setting up residence in another state. June knew how
+the young Pringles loved each other and she finally broke
+in on Page’s disjointed tirade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ben will kill me when he finds out,” she said uncertainly,
+“but I think Sunny needs you as much as I once
+needed him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page waited, afraid to speak for fear she would change
+her mind. At last she pointed to the telegram in a letter
+<a id="page-135" class="pagenum" title="135"></a>
+holder on the kitchen table. Page sprang across the room
+and grabbed it, scribbling Sunny’s address on a paper
+napkin: 4225 Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Los <em>Angeles</em>! What’s in Los Angeles?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny.” June smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My God, the Coast.” He stashed his astonishment in
+a pocket with her address. “June, you’re a saint!” He gave
+her a violent hug and dashed out. June ran after him,
+startled at his odd behavior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, wait! Where are you going?” she called.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To get my wife.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you haven’t been here ten minutes. Ben will want
+to see you. What shall I tell him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Page was already backing out. He waved at her and
+turned down the drive.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+June went back in the house and called Jack and Laura
+Mann. She hadn’t met them but she’d heard Page mention
+them and knew them second-hand through Sunny’s letters.
+She told the Manns where Sunny was and Page was headed,
+and they gave her the Pringles’ phone number.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+June introduced herself to George Pringle in a friendly
+voice, assuring him that Sunny was fine and Page would
+soon be with her. “And they’re expecting a baby!” she
+said cheerfully. “I’m sure they won’t mind if I tell you.”
+But she was surprised when her news seemed to aggravate
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s she doing in California?” Pringle said, in a
+voice sharp enough to hurt June’s feelings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They quarreled,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What about?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny didn’t say. But she’s acting foolish. She wouldn’t
+even give Page her address—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But <em>you</em> did? Aren’t you interfering a bit, Mrs.
+Rotheli?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mr. Pringle, I didn’t have to call and tell you any of
+this,” June replied. “And if you’re going to be unpleasant—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forgive me,” he said hastily. “You must understand
+that I’m worried.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t think you need to be. They’re in love and
+<a id="page-136" class="pagenum" title="136"></a>
+they’ll work it out. It’s hard for a man to comprehend
+what a girl feels like when she’s pregnant. She doesn’t
+believe it now, but her husband is the best medicine for
+her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pringle understood from the conversation that the
+Rothelis had no idea Page was their son. “Mrs. Rotheli,
+I think this is more serious than you realize,” Pringle
+began, but he couldn’t tell her the rest of it. It would
+have been brutal, unforgivably impersonal, over the phone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he felt something had better be done about it at
+once. It was his plain moral obligation to protect Page and
+Sunny from themselves. If he could do it only by following
+them to Los Angeles, that is what he would do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He thanked June and hung up, calling O’Hare Field
+for jet reservations the moment his line was clear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going out there tonight,” he told his wife moments
+later. “I’m certain Sunny went there to escape Page and
+I can’t understand why he doesn’t take this God-given
+chance to let her go. I know how much he loves her. Lord
+knows it isn’t easy for the boy. But she’s done all a woman
+can to help him, and he knows how evil this relationship
+is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“George,” his wife said mildly, “stay home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What?” He stared at her. They so rarely disagreed on
+anything that it shocked him to hear her object. “Somebody
+has to help them, Lucia. They haven’t strength to
+help themselves.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you think they have more strength at their age
+than you have at yours?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left his packing momentarily to explain, “It’s not a
+question of physical vigor, my dear.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“George, I’ve thought about this till my head ached.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course you did. We agreed long ago their marriage
+wasn’t valid.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<em>We</em> agreed. You and I. <em>They</em> didn’t.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are very young, very much in love,” he said
+formally. “You have to remember what that feels like,
+Lucia dear.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I remember,” she murmured. “Do you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why certainly. Only for a woman, it’s different. They’re
+<a id="page-137" class="pagenum" title="137"></a>
+not as reasonable as a man. They have a weaker sense
+of honor and morality.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am an honorable and moral woman, George,” Lucia
+said with great dignity, “and I believe Sunny is, too. She
+deserves a chance to keep Page if she can win him away
+from your stuffy principles.” She stopped, amazed at herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pringle dropped a handful of underclothes and marched
+to her bedside to stamp out the anarchy. “Lucia, do you
+feel well?” he said, restrained but not unkind. She began
+to cry and he added gently, “My dear, I love both of those
+children. I’d give my soul to change things, but I can’t.
+They have to be separated. They are <em>not</em> husband and
+wife, they are brother and sister. Once you understand
+that, you see at once what must be done.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t believe she meant to leave Page forever,” Lucia
+said. “I can’t believe it’s right for us to meddle. They
+don’t want your help, George.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They need it. It’s my moral duty—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s your moral duty to mind your own affairs!” she
+cried with the courage of conviction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My son <em>is</em> my affair!” he declared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps they can build a life together, but not if you
+insist they’re doing something dirty and terrible. Page
+can’t take that and you know it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s why I’m doing it,” he said determinedly. He
+looked at her clear bright eyes and flushed cheeks; her
+anger gave her the look of youth he had almost forgotten.
+He was inexpressibly shocked at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I lie here alone in this bed day after day,” Lucia said,
+unable to return his gaze, “and I think about that boy
+I love so much: how we alienated him with our stingy
+love, our cold, correct home, our speeches about the grand
+old name of Pringle.” She caught her breath. “And then
+I think what it did to him when we called and told him
+about Sunny. I don’t know what’s right and wrong any
+more, George. I only know in spite of my love I’ve lost
+my son. I wouldn’t care if Sunny were his own mother, I’d
+want him to have her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pringle finished packing, silent with heavy disapproval.
+“You’ll come to your senses in a day or two, and see
+<a id="page-138" class="pagenum" title="138"></a>
+that I’m right,” he said finally. “Have Edna call my office
+and tell them I probably won’t be back until Monday.”
+He kissed her cheek. But she was weeping and desolate,
+and because he loved and needed her, he sat down on
+her bed and held her in his arms. “You’re overwrought,
+darling Lucia,” he said tenderly. “I’ll call Dr. Blue.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. No more pills. George, it would almost make me
+well again if you’d stay home and let <em>them</em> patch it up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He put his hand on her forehead. “You’ll feel better
+after you rest,” he said, lowering her into the pillows. He
+tried to believe that it was merely a little fever, an excess
+of anxiety, that prompted her words. To think otherwise
+was to admit he didn’t know his own wife after thirty-four
+years. And that was preposterous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He kissed her once again and walked softly out of the
+room with his suitcase.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-15">
+<a id="page-139" class="pagenum" title="139"></a>
+15
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+“That was about ten days ago,” Jack told Mr. Winkler.
+“The next thing we knew, you were on the phone to tell
+us you’d seen Sunny and Page in California and Page was
+having a change of heart.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They were driving back to Chicago,” Winkler said.
+“They ought to be here in a week or so. I suppose they’re
+trying to figure out how to break it to the Rothelis when
+they get here.” He shook his head. “Amazing story, isn’t
+it? The adoption and all. Hard to believe, even when you
+know it happened. It sounds like the kind of crazy switch
+you’d find in a Gilbert and Sullivan plot, only this one
+isn’t comical.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They all sat quietly for a moment: Jack studying his
+guest; Winkler looking at the floor as if the weird story
+had shaken his composure; and Laura watching the two
+men in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you think they’ll ever forgive the elder Pringles?”
+Winkler asked, his eyes moving slowly up to Jack’s face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If the Pringles will let them,” Jack answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hope it works out,” Winkler said. “You see, I have
+a son just about Page’s age. I’ve been thinking while you
+were telling the story what it would do to me to lose his
+respect, his love. It must be hell for Pringle.” He spoke
+with paternal compassion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t doubt it,” Jack said with a nod.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The clock sounded the half-hour. It was five-thirty in
+<a id="page-140" class="pagenum" title="140"></a>
+the morning, and the chime brought Winkler to his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have to go,” he said. “I shouldn’t have kept you
+youngsters up all night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Our pleasure, Mr. Winkler,” Jack said. “We enjoyed
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you hear from Sunny and Page again, I’d like to
+know whether they’re all right,” Winkler said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll give you a call,” Jack offered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You ... might have trouble reaching me. Page said
+he’d contact you at the end of the week. Can I call you
+then?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure,” Jack said, smiling at the dodge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the front door Winkler turned. “Thanks for the
+dinner, Laura,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m glad you liked it,” she answered, standing beside
+Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Winkler hesitated. “Do you think,” he said, “that Page
+ever really loved his step-father?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think he still does, very much,” Jack said. “It’s just
+a question of pride now. It’s hard to admit you’ve been
+wrong. And Pringle’s in line for a few apologies of his
+own. He shouldn’t have followed them to L. A.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess not. He must have had had the best intentions,
+but ... the road to hell, and all that. Well!” He brought
+himself up straight and back to reality. “Thank you again.
+And good night.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“He’s a funny old guy,” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Probably a lot like Mr. Pringle,” Laura agreed. “Aristocratic,
+high principles, and all. But Jack, you shouldn’t
+have told him—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But, darling, I wanted to,” he said, turning around
+and taking her in his arms. Jack and Laura were about
+the same height, but he always made her feel small and
+feminine. In spite of her own odd nature, she loved him.
+He was her home, her refuge. And his love was her
+security. Through Jack she could understand Sunny’s need
+for Page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m afraid someday you’ll hurt Betsy,” Laura chided.
+“You don’t <em>have</em> to tell people you’re gay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-141" class="pagenum" title="141"></a>
+“I had to make Winkler understand,” he said. “It was
+part of the story.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It shocked him, though.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’ll recover.” He kissed her forehead, in a gesture
+as intimate as things normally got between them, and said,
+“Come on. We can squeeze in a nap before Betsy wakes
+up.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Jack was expecting Page’s call, but not the very next
+day. He was startled to hear the familiar voice saying,
+“Jack, how are you? This is Page Pringle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How are you, old buddy?” Jack answered with a calm
+he didn’t feel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Abashed, Page said, “Did you know we were in
+Chicago?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We knew you were coming,” Jack said. “Talked to
+June. How are you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Okay, thanks. We flew back.” Page, who didn’t deserve
+Jack’s friendliness, was grateful and surprised. He talked
+a little too fast to cover his emotions. “We damn near
+didn’t make it, though. Got lost. On the high desert.” His
+voice was suddenly terribly tired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My God,” Jack said. “Are you all right? Sunny—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am, but Sunny’s over at Wesley Memorial Hospital.
+She’s in labor. It’s a miracle that baby didn’t come out
+there on the sand.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s premature, isn’t it?” Jack said. Laura was hovering
+anxiously over him now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“About nine weeks. Sunny’s doctor just flew in from
+New York. He knows the case and she wanted him here
+for the delivery. They say he’s a damn good man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Settick?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know him?” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure. He delivered Betsy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s right, I’d forgotten.” Page couldn’t say more
+without making some kind of apology, however clumsy.
+“Jack ... I want to tell you—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forget it, boy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, let me say it. I can’t look you in the eye till I
+say I’m sorry. You said a mouthful that night, and I
+behaved like an ass. I guess because you were telling me
+<a id="page-142" class="pagenum" title="142"></a>
+the truth and the truth was so damn painful. Like sandpapering
+a sunburn. And I know all about sunburns now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack, I didn’t straighten out until Sunny and I got lost
+and came to grips with the truth for the first time. You
+saw it before anybody else. Whatever I said that night,
+please don’t hold it against me. I’m not the same guy any
+more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re forgiven,” Jack said. “Where are you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At the hospital. I want to stay as close to Sunny as
+I can.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s still in labor?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yeah. Pretty rough.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Want some company?” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be over in half an hour. With cigarettes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good boy, Jack. Thanks.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m coming too,” Laura said as Jack hung up the
+phone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Honey, it’s turning into a damn convention. The
+Rothelis are with him and I expect the Pringles will show
+up later.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This baby meant the world to Sunny, Jack,” Laura
+said. “If anything happens to it.... Well, June went to
+pieces over her first, and she might do Sunny more harm
+than good. I want to be there just in case.” Laura’s affection
+for Sunny had an undoubted erotic tinge. But at that
+moment she didn’t even consider it. Her concern was
+quite selfless. Jack saw there was no arguing with her and
+surrendered good-naturedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They drove over to Wesley Memorial Hospital, taking
+a carton of cigarettes, apples, a pint of scotch, and a
+plastic pacifier for the baby.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nine weeks early,” Laura mused. “That’s not too bad,
+you know. Betsy was four weeks early and she was almost
+six pounds.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, but you didn’t quit eating. And you weren’t lost
+on the desert, either.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She fell silent, wondering about it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They parked their red Volkswagen two blocks away
+and walked to the hospital, taking the elevator up to the
+maternity waiting room. They saw Page first, talking to
+<a id="page-143" class="pagenum" title="143"></a>
+a handsome middle-aged couple that Laura knew at once
+must be the Rothelis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They approached with caution. Page hadn’t warned
+them whether the Rothelis knew yet who he was and it
+seemed highly unlikely that they did. Page was badly
+sunburned, the skin still red across his nose and cheekbones;
+it had been cruel exposure for his fair skin, and it
+must have been as bad for Sunny’s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page and Ben Rotheli stood up and Page gripped Jack’s
+hand hard with emotion. Jack was absorbed for a moment
+in matching the features of father and son. The resemblance
+was subtle. If you knew about them, you saw it.
+If you didn’t know, and weren’t looking for it, it would
+escape you.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“June ... the baby?” Laura said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not yet,” June said, shaking her head. The strain of
+the wait showed in her eyes. Impulsively Laura put a warm
+hand on June’s and squeezed it, thinking how hard June
+must be trying to control herself now, for everyone’s sake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’ll be all right,” Laura said. “My little girl came
+early, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did she?” June said eagerly, and they launched into
+comforting woman-talk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s been in true labor about ten hours,” Page told
+Jack. “She’s pretty weak after two days on that damn
+sand. It’s incredible how many pints of water you lose in
+that heat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I believe it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The pains started then, actually,” Page said. “But it
+was false labor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How’s it going now?” Jack asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Settick says she’s got a lot of natural stamina. The
+baby’s alive. They can hear its heartbeat. They’re giving
+Sunny injections of saline solution to speed things along.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank God for Dr. Settick,” Rotheli said with feeling.
+“He took right over when he got here. One of the other
+doctors told us he was doing a brilliant job. If anyone can
+bring her and the baby through, he can.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page nodded agreement without a show of jealousy. His
+opinion of the young obstetrician had been drastically
+<a id="page-144" class="pagenum" title="144"></a>
+revised when he understood that Sunny’s life might be in
+his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s got to be all right,” he told Jack. “The baby
+comes second.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can always have more kids, Page, but you’ve only
+got one Sunny,” Ben said gently, putting a hand on Page’s
+shoulder. Jack realized then that Ben and June still did
+not know that Page was Roger Rotheli.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“June, I’m going down for a sandwich,” Ben told his
+wife after a minute. “Can I bring you anything? We
+haven’t eaten since we got here eight hours ago,” he said
+to the Manns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go along with him, June,” Page said. “We’ll get you
+right away if there’s any news.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reluctantly, June let herself be persuaded, largely because
+Ben seemed to need her company. She had no
+appetite herself. She was so tired, her face so like Sunny’s,
+that Page, watching her walk out, felt a great warmth for
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat with the Manns in silence for a minute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have a cigarette,” Jack said finally, offering Page the
+carton. “It’ll calm your nerves.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks.” Page opened a fresh pack and lighted one.
+“What I really need is a wake-up-and-swing pill,” he
+chuckled. “After that desert vacation and this baby business,
+all I want to do is lie down on the floor and sleep
+for a week.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Rothelis don’t know who you are yet, do they?”
+said Laura.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” He sighed a cloud of fresh smoke. “I can’t even
+think about that now. Not till Sunny’s out of danger.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought we’d see the Pringles here,” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t call them. They don’t know we’re back, and
+Mother’s bedridden.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Still quarreling?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, that’s not it. You see, they haven’t met the
+Rothelis, and this seemed like a lousy time for it, with
+all of us so worried. It’d drive me nuts to have them on
+my neck.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
+“How the hell did you get lost in the desert?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-145" class="pagenum" title="145"></a>
+Page told him in a voice that was grim.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+He had arrived out in Los Angeles in the early evening
+and driven a rented car to Los Feliz Avenue. Sunny’s
+apartment was one of the scores lined up in neatly
+landscaped rows on the big avenue. He picked out her
+number behind a waving palm frond, and then had to
+spend twenty minutes finding a parking spot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her rooms were on the ground floor in the back,
+surrounded with freshly watered orange day lilies, their
+leaves weighted with water diamonds. It was a perfect
+setting for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page knocked on her door and waited several minutes.
+He could hear her walk across the room finally and stop
+by the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who is it?” she said and her voice struck joy and
+relief into his heart. But he was afraid to answer for fear
+she would keep the door locked. Then what could he
+do—break in a window?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Brian?” she said, sounding more alert this time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page had no way of knowing Richie Settick’s brother’s
+name. He only knew Sunny seemed to be expecting a man
+and his sudden anger triggered the voice out of his throat.
+“Sunny? It’s me, darling. Page.” Silence. “Let me in.”
+Again, silence. “Sunny, can’t you hear me? Darling, let
+me in.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Very slowly the door opened. Sunny’s face, heart-catchingly
+lovely, gazed out. They studied each other
+warily. She put a protective hand over her stomach,
+Richie’s warning ringing in her ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did you find me?” she said and he saw the alarm
+in her big eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your mother,” he said softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She appeared shocked at this, but she didn’t question
+it. “What do you want?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want you,” he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dr. Settick said—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know what he said. I talked to him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you hurt him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. He gave as good as he got. He’s a good man,
+damn him. Sunny, please come back with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-146" class="pagenum" title="146"></a>
+“To live with you?” She looked at him with yearning,
+resenting his intrusion, his threat to her child, yet knowing
+that if he wanted her back as his <em>wife</em>, she would go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can we talk about it?” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s all we’ve done. It hasn’t helped much.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ve only shouted at each other,” he said. “Sunny,
+don’t make me stand out here in the dark. Anybody could
+hear us. I feel like a damn Fuller Brush man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You stay right where you are and tell me what you
+want from me, Page.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to take you on a honeymoon,” he said, coming
+closer to keep it private. “We’ve never had one. I thought
+we could take our time and see the West and ... maybe
+settle this thing.” He hadn’t known when she opened that
+door what he would say to her. But suddenly he had
+found the words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And fall smack into the same old ugly rut when we
+got back,” she said. “I sit at home for months while you
+make up your mind you can’t live without me. Then we
+meet for a few agonizing hours and yell and hurt each
+other and make dreadful, guilty love because your real
+name is Roger Rotheli. And then home I go to sit and weep
+for another few months. Or have a miscarriage.” Her
+voice rose and he hushed her with a worried stare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll have to do better than that,” she finished more
+quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Abruptly he pushed his way in, moving so fast she
+hadn’t time to thrust the door between them. He took her
+in his arms and kissed her. For all his strength and passion,
+he seemed like a child begging her to make up his mind
+for him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She returned his kisses helplessly. “Page,” she murmured
+while he hugged her and he shuddered at the tears in her
+voice. “I will not tell you what you should do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not asking you to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not with words,” she conceded. “You’re asking another
+way. But darling, you have to face this alone. I’ve made
+up my mind; now you make up yours. Either you take
+me back or you leave me. You can’t have it both ways.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Help me,” he whispered into her shoulder, admitting
+his dilemma at last. “I can’t live like this. I’m so lost,
+<a id="page-147" class="pagenum" title="147"></a>
+Sunny. It all seems clear to Dad. And it seems just as
+clear to you. Only you’re on opposite sides of the fence,
+you two. I’m at dead center and you’re both pulling on
+me till I’m coming apart at the seams. I can’t move one
+way or the other.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Climb off the fence, Page,” she pleaded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say you love me,” he said, searching for comfort,
+trying to forget everything but Sunny’s presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stroked his head and let her random tears fall
+unchecked. “You’ve known that all along, and it just
+makes things worse.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just say it, Sunny. My darling, darling Sunny. Please.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I love you,” she said. “I love you, <em>Roger</em>.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shocked him rigid. He stared at her to see if she
+meant to hurt him. She was bravely serious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good night, my darling brother,” she said, and closed
+the door softly in his astonished face.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Neither of them slept. Page, stripped of his pride and
+wavering between two identities, sat down shamelessly on
+Sunny’s door mat and spent the night watching the stars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He wanted to be up there where there were no riddles,
+no flesh and breath, no incest. Nothing but the fire-punctured
+dark; nothing but the flow of Infinity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our love will last in spite of everything, he thought. The
+only question is, will it hurt more if we’re together or
+apart?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he already knew the answer. He couldn’t fool himself
+any longer. The real question was the one she threw
+at him as she shut the door: was her brother brave enough
+to live with her? Take his sister for his wife? Could he
+survive the horror and scorn they might have to face?
+Conquer his fear and make her the strong, loving husband
+she needed?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He let it spin around in his head, a crazy carousel that
+had no starting place and no stopping; just endless
+indecision.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Sunny lay on her bed and watched the moonlight slide
+across her ceiling. Perhaps, being a woman, her decision
+was easier than his. Her love was her life. It didn’t matter
+<a id="page-148" class="pagenum" title="148"></a>
+whether she was Page’s sister or not. Alone, she didn’t
+know who she was. With Page she did know and she was
+unafraid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her heart dilated with love and pity for him. But if I
+make this decision for him I’ll be open to a lifetime of
+blame, she thought. Whatever goes wrong with us he can
+blame on me. No, if there’s any fault-finding, we’ll have
+to share it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she went cold at the thought that he might leave
+her again, whipped by his fears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny didn’t realize that Page had spent the night only
+fifteen feet from her bed until she heard him talking in
+the morning. His voice came clearly through her front
+door. She dropped her toothbrush and ran to let him in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door opened on Page and George Pringle, and it
+wasn’t any happy chat they were having. They fell silent
+at the sight of her, as, she looked from one to the other
+in surprise, convinced that Pringle must have come along
+to prod Page into saying good-by to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Won’t you come in?” she said frostily. “I might have
+known Page would want to face his wife with a chaperone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Pringle got the point: Sunny had not left Page out
+of any noble desire to end their illegal marriage. Silently
+he ushered Page inside ahead of him, <a id="corr-15"></a>taking off his hat
+as he followed. Sunny shut the door and turned to face
+them, arms folded and eyes contemptuous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t expect this,” she said. “Page has always been
+brave enough to come calling by himself until now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny!” Page flared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page had no idea I was coming,” Pringle said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Really?” Sunny said sarcastically. “Well, you seem to
+have timed it perfectly. Congratulations. I suppose you
+also got my address from my mother?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t misunderstand, Sunny,” Pringle said. “Your
+mother loves you, and she’s very worried about you. I
+couldn’t tell her the truth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re too generous, Mr. Pringle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know I’ve lost your affection because of this thing,”
+Pringle said regretfully. “And it grieves me. I’ll tell you
+the truth, though it has given me a great deal of pain.
+<a id="page-149" class="pagenum" title="149"></a>
+Lucia feels as you do, my dear: that you and Page should—should
+live together as man and wife.” His gaze dropped.
+It humiliated him to admit this, yet it might win him her
+goodwill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother said that?” Page asked, disbelieving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. I was most unhappy, as you must realize. But I
+felt I had to come here, in spite of her objections, when
+I learned that Page had followed you, Sunny. I felt that
+I had a duty to help you two.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have a duty to leave us alone. We don’t need
+your help!” Sunny declared. “We just need each other.”
+Pringle at that moment was her worst enemy. “I know
+exactly what you want to tell us, as if it weren’t already
+branded on our brains: We are <em>brother</em> and <em>sister</em>.” She
+gave the words a hard punch that made them almost unbearable
+to hear, and suddenly found herself weeping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pringle stood alone in the center of the room, embarrassed,
+unsure, full of smothered love. He didn’t know
+how to proceed. He only knew he cared enormously for
+his “children” and he thought he was morally right. “I
+love you both,” he said hesitantly, trying to reach them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then have mercy on us!” Sunny said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I’m afraid you’ll end up together again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We haven’t made any decision yet,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You coward!” Sunny shot at him, forgetting for a
+second what havoc that word had wreaked the last time
+she used it. Her eyes darted to his mutilated left hand.
+Quickly he made a fist of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you really think you can keep each other and live
+normal lives?” Pringle said incredulously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t think at all, God damn it,” Page said. “I’m
+paralyzed until you get out of here!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pringle hesitated a moment and then went to the door.
+“All right,” he said. “But if you can’t separate on your
+own, I warn you I’ll do all I can to separate you myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three of them looked at each other for a second.
+“The hell of it is,” Sunny said to Pringle through her
+tears, “you really do love us. I believe that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My children, I love you very much,” he said gratefully.
+“That’s why I’m here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-150" class="pagenum" title="150"></a>
+They watched him turn and go in silence. Sunny had
+always been fond of her father-in-law, since their first
+warm meeting, and she regretted the hard words she had
+spoken. Yet she had had to say them.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-16">
+<a id="page-151" class="pagenum" title="151"></a>
+16
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+For several moments after Pringle departed, Page and
+Sunny did not speak. Sunny was too proud and hurt to
+start begging again and Page was still too mixed up to
+declare himself. But Pringle had stated the challenge for
+them now, and a decision had to be taken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were afraid of losing the fragile tie Pringle’s
+presence had bound between them, and suddenly they
+spoke each other’s names at the same instant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We seem to have a talent for that,” Page said, smiling.
+He went to her and touched her hair. “Come with me,
+Sunny,” he said fondly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Right now? Without knowing where we’re going or how
+we’ll end up or—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How can we know that now, darling? We’ll figure it
+out while we’re traveling. We’ll get to know each other
+all over again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had sworn she wouldn’t go back to him until he
+made it formal and final that she was his wife for the rest
+of their lives. But, like her mother, she was made to yield.
+She still hoped she could bring him around as long as she
+was physically close to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He saw her indecision and clasped her tightly to him.
+“Sunny, it’s the only way. We can’t leave the thing hung
+up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she began to understand what he wanted: a chance
+to test himself and his temper and his nerves; to test his
+<a id="page-152" class="pagenum" title="152"></a>
+love in different places with different people; to see how
+he and Sunny made it together, confined with each other
+in a motel room or a car twenty-four hours a day. Maybe
+it would work. If it convinced Page he could take it, Sunny
+was willing to try it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right,” she said finally. “But if this doesn’t do it—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He interrupted her with a kiss. She could feel him
+fighting himself, trying to keep things fraternal. But they
+went radically out of bounds in a matter of seconds. His
+mouth opened on hers and he began to rock her with
+his hips. He tried once more to stop, burying his face
+against her neck and shuddering with the effort. Then she
+heard him murmur helplessly, “Oh, the hell with it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the spirit, darling,” she whispered, laughing
+softly. “After all, if it’s going to be a honeymoon....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page swung her up in his arms and carried her to the
+unmade bed. He stretched out with her, and the weight of
+his big body made her groan with pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, God!” he exclaimed, moving over. “The baby!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Baby wants more,” she told him, green eyes twinkling.
+Reassured, he embraced her again. “Mmmm,” he whispered.
+“Pepsodent.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny laughed again and hugged him in a spasm of pure
+joy. When he began that silly intimate teasing that always
+led to love, she knew what he was feeling and she was
+temporarily sure of the world.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“We’ll have to call Mom and Dad,” Sunny said later.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page looked up from the map he was examining. “They’ll
+only worry,” he said. “Let them think we’re still out here
+till we show up in Hillsburg.” He tickled her beautiful
+face. “When are we going to tell them about me, honey?”
+he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny looked at the ceiling, bristling all over with
+alarm. “Never, I hope,” she said with forced calm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that fair? I’m their own child, their first-born son.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It would kill them,” Sunny said. “Page, believe me,
+they couldn’t love you more if they did know ... and the
+knowledge might destroy Mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On the other hand, it might make her very happy,” he
+said. “Women are peculiar creatures. I can’t help it, darling,
+<a id="page-153" class="pagenum" title="153"></a>
+I think they ought to know. My step-parents know.
+Don’t my real parents deserve the truth at least as much?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not when it’s so painful.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re exaggerating,” he said flatly, and she saw that
+he was not going to give in. But thanks to Richie Settick,
+he was afraid to press the argument. Instead he would
+file it away and fetch it out to fluster her with in a day
+or two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He folded the map and said, “Let’s get going, honey.
+I’ll help you pack.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She obeyed him docilely, glad it was Page giving the
+orders now and not Settick. “Poor Richie will worry himself
+sick when he finds out I’m gone,” she said. “So will
+Brian. That’s his brother, darling. The doctor I’m seeing
+out here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, let them worry,” Page said with heartless satisfaction.
+“Damn country is infested with Setticks and they don’t
+care how I worry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny made him call Hillsburg before they left. She told
+the Rothelis they would be in Los Angeles another couple
+of weeks, and allowed June to think they were reconciled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a good day to start a trip: clear and fair and
+warm. They drove east on the San Bernardino freeway.
+Page wasn’t used to the recklessness of Los Angeles’
+drivers, and he wasted some breath swearing at them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They got off on Route 66 in the town of San Bernardino
+and traveled north over the Cajon Pass toward the beautiful
+high desert country. Sunny loved the great green
+mountains and blue vistas, the flat white tape of highway
+pasted over the hills, the cactus and the Joshua trees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By late afternoon they were near Apple Valley on the
+desert, thirty-five-hundred feet above sea level. The air
+was brittle-clear and cooling fast as the sun descended.
+Apple Valley was five miles off the main road, and they
+turned in to spend the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They got a room and had dinner at the Apple Valley
+Inn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I haven’t eaten so much in months,” she laughed. Page
+clasped her hand across the table and smiled at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And Settick told me the mere sight of me would give
+you a miscarriage,” he snorted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-154" class="pagenum" title="154"></a>
+“It nearly did,” she said, sobering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did I make up for it?” he asked, and she nodded.
+They were serenaded during dessert by an ambulant trio
+who took them for newlyweds until they spotted Sunny’s
+maternity dress. Their embarrassment sent her into gales
+of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later they walked around the hotel grounds, hand in
+hand in the starlight. And then went to bed and made
+love and slept like winter squirrels until ten the next
+morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They decided to skip breakfast and drive a while before
+they ate. It was clear and warm with the promise of real
+heat by noon. They went only thirty-five miles before
+Sunny announced she was starving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You see? I’m a good influence on your appetite,” Page
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stopped at the next place they saw: a little
+hamburger joint outside the town of Barstow. Sunny ordered
+two hamburgers and a beer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shouldn’t you be drinking milk?” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not when there’s beer around. I’ll drink a quart of
+milk for lunch, I promise.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re happy, aren’t you, honey?” he said, smiling at
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whatever gave you that idea?” she grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Their breakfast was almost gone when George Pringle
+came in. He made his way toward their table, watching
+them with worried eyes. Sunny gasped when she saw him,
+awed by his determination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sit down, Page,” she told her angry husband, who was
+half out of his seat, “or I swear to God I’ll have this
+baby right now. In your lap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pringle hesitated a second and then sat next to Sunny.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Children,” he began, but Page interrupted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We are not children,” he said sharply. “If you’d ever
+get that into your head it’d solve half our problems.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought I’d lost you for a while when you turned
+off 66,” Pringle said, avoiding for the moment the urgent
+subject that brought him there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-155" class="pagenum" title="155"></a>
+Sunny put a hand on his arm. “Mr. Pringle, we won’t
+go through this again with you,” she said. To her surprise,
+instead of arguing he put his head in his hands in a gesture
+Page had made familiar to her. It dramatized the profound
+influence Pringle had had on his unruly step-son.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I couldn’t let you get away without trying once more
+to make you see reason,” he sighed, looking up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You just make me see red,” Page retorted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s no need for cruelty, Page,” his father said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cruelty?” Page said skeptically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Pringle meant it and his face showed it. He looked
+for the first time like an old man. Page felt a guilty shock
+to realize he was not the only one who was suffering. He
+had never let himself think of George Pringle as a vulnerable
+human being like himself. He cherished the mental
+image of a cold, correct, remote man. It was an image
+Page had formed in his early childhood and one that had
+long since ceased to bear any resemblance to his step-father.
+It had suited Page to think he could lash out at
+Pringle without hurting him. Now the hurt was vividly
+visible and Page had a good long look at it. His shame
+and surprise quieted him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do something for me, Dad,” he asked. “Go back to
+Los Angeles and take the next plane home, before we end
+up enemies. We’ll call you when we get back and let you
+know what we’ve decided.” The affection he had always
+felt for Pringle was reasserting itself for the first time in
+many years, at this odd time and place. It shook Pringle
+up and moved him to surrender. Perhaps if he yielded
+now he could salvage that love Page still felt in spite of
+everything. Perhaps it was worth more than the strict
+morality he was trying to force on the younger man.
+Pringle trembled inwardly with self-rebuke. He was becoming
+as soft and sentimental as Lucia! But he couldn’t stop
+himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, Page, if it has to be that way,” he said with
+misgivings. He seemed too tired, too irresolute, to keep
+battling with them. There was nothing more he could do
+and he even sensed that he might drive them back together
+if they teamed up against him in their resentment of his
+<a id="page-156" class="pagenum" title="156"></a>
+meddling. He left them at last, proud and silent but with
+a noticeable slump in his back.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“So he left you in peace?” Jack asked Page. “Have an
+apple.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was screwy, you know?” Page said as he took the
+fruit. “I thought I hated him. The more he followed us
+the madder I got. But suddenly, in Barstow, everything
+changed. I felt sorry for him. And that made it possible
+for me to love him again. All of a sudden he was a human
+being like the rest of us, and miserable over my unhappiness
+... trying so hard to save us both, as he saw it. And
+he stood to lose even the little love I still felt for him.
+It was a brave thing he did. A little stupid but brave. I
+didn’t know that before.” He took a bite from the red
+winesap in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When Dad caught up with us, another crazy thing
+happened. I felt closer to Sunny; more like a husband
+and less like a brother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why haven’t you told the Rothelis who you are, Page?”
+Laura asked, huddling close to the men so the strangers
+in the waiting room couldn’t eavesdrop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will when Sunny’s all right,” Page said. “They should
+know the truth.” His jaw hardened and he stopped chewing
+his apple.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re right,” Jack said shrewdly. “That’s the way to
+get even with them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Get <em>even</em>? That’s a lousy way to put it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, hell, man, they gave you away when you were
+a baby, didn’t they?” Jack said, and Laura understood at
+once what he was trying to do. “They made you suffer,
+didn’t they? All these years you’ve been miserable because
+you didn’t know who you were. And what were they doing?
+Living comfortably and forgetting all about poor little
+Roger. What the hell, they have Chuckie now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack, that’s a pretty rotten attitude,” Page said stiffly.
+He didn’t recognize his own undressed desire for vengeance.
+He had always hidden it under the robes of justice and
+retribution, and it had looked so noble. Now it was
+parading in Jack’s words like a heartless whore on a streetcorner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-157" class="pagenum" title="157"></a>
+“It’s a perfectly reasonable attitude,” Jack said with
+mock chagrin. “They ought to know what they did to you.
+They ought to suffer a little themselves. That’s fair, isn’t
+it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, they <em>did</em> suffer,” Page said uncertainly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But that was years ago!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack, you’re making it sound like—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No news yet!” Laura broke in, in an over-bright voice,
+and Page shut up as June and Ben rejoined them. They
+sat down next to their tense son, who glowered in silence
+at his old roommate. Jack, afraid Page in this temper would
+blurt out the truth, suggested the two of them go out for
+a drink. It was a chance to patch things up again before
+they got out of hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page refused at once, but everybody insisted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go over to Jocko’s, why don’t you?” Laura said. “It’s
+only a block away. I’ll call if anything happens.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack hauled Page, resisting nervously, down the main
+hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God damn it, Jack, they’ll come to get me and I won’t
+be here,” he said. “They’ll have to tell Sunny I’m out
+getting swacked with a drinking buddy. What will she
+think?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’ll think old Jack did the right thing and got you
+out of everybody’s hair for half an hour,” Jack grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+It was late afternoon, pearly light and mild. Jack hustled
+his charge along for a block and turned him into Jocko’s.
+He ordered two double dry martinis and after a circumspect
+silence, put a hand on Page’s shoulder. “Take it easy
+boy,” he said. “I had no business being so rough on you
+then. You’ve got enough on your mind.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page, in his befogged state, had forgotten his gripe.
+“What? Oh, sure,” he said, lighting a cigarette and singeing
+a finger in the process. “God,” he murmured. “She’s got
+to be all right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Women are a lot tougher than they look,” Jack said
+kindly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page wiped his sweaty forehead with a damp handkerchief
+and made Jack chuckle. “If there ever was a
+nervous young father, Page, you’re it,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-158" class="pagenum" title="158"></a>
+“If there ever was a father with good <em>reason</em> to be
+nervous, I’m it too,” Page countered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the drinks came he emptied half his glass. Jack
+watched him a moment and said, “I have something on
+my mind that I probably should have told you sooner.
+Only things have been so unsettled—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m too far gone for confessions right now,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You ought to know this, though,” Jack insisted. “I
+met your step-father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You did?” Page turned to look at him with an
+interested stare. “How did that happen? Did you call
+him up?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, he called me. In fact he came over and had
+dinner with us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He did? For God’s sake,” Page said. “How did he
+know who you were?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t ask him. The Rothelis, or maybe you mentioned
+us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did he want?” Page asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you know anybody named Winkler?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Winkler? No. What is this, Jack?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Think hard. Anybody?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Some remote cousins of Mother’s have that name, I
+think. But I don’t know them personally.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was enough for Jack. He ran a wet finger around
+the edge of his martini glass until it sang.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your father told us his name was Winkler,” Jack said.
+“I wondered where he picked up the name. He stayed till
+five in the morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page frowned. “What the hell did he do that for?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess he wanted us to reassure him. He’d just gotten
+back from California and he felt as if he’d failed with you.
+He wanted to know your whole story from A to Z, as if
+he’d never heard it. He wanted to know if you’d leave
+Sunny, and if you’d forgive him for interfering the way
+he did.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He asked you all that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not directly. He didn’t want us to know who he was.
+Just said he had run into you in Barstow and thought you
+were a nice young couple. And you told him to look us
+up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-159" class="pagenum" title="159"></a>
+“The old son of a gun,” Page said, shaking his head
+with amazement. “He must have been damn worried to
+do such a thing. It’s not like him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t think so,” Jack smiled. “I hadn’t been talking
+very long before I got the picture. He carried it off pretty
+well, but when he asked questions you could tell the main
+thing he cared about was how a father and son should
+get along. And whether a moral man could tolerate incest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did he take it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, some of it hurt, all right. But he showed guts.
+He heard me out. Now and then, when it got bad, he
+asked the things he had to know, but he didn’t condemn
+you. Or me, either.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did he tell you who he was before he left?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. He got a bit flustered. Wouldn’t let me call him
+for fear I’d find out his real name. I’m still supposed to
+think he’s ‘Mr. Winkler’. Laura never did catch on, by
+the way. Shall I tell her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you want to. I trust you two.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t feel bitter about him now, do you?” Jack
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not any more. There was so much love for us in all
+his bungling. Maybe it’s a good thing in a way that he
+did it. It made me realize how much I mean to him after
+all these years.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you call him? He doesn’t even know you’re
+back,” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure,” Page said, looking at Jack as if it had just
+occurred to him. He left his bar stool and went to the pay
+phone in the back of the bar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he returned Jack had ordered another round.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was pretty relieved,” Page reported. “So was
+Mother. I don’t know what you said to him, Jackson, but
+I don’t think he feels as bad about things as he did. He
+may never approve of us—Sunny said that once—but I
+don’t think he’ll fight it any more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I called the hospital,” Page said. “It’s still going
+on. Ben says they haven’t heard any more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, bottoms up,” Jack said judiciously. “We’ll finish
+<a id="page-160" class="pagenum" title="160"></a>
+this one and head back. You can tell me what happened
+on the desert.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You in a mood for horror stories?” Page said with an
+ironic grin.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-17">
+<a id="page-161" class="pagenum" title="161"></a>
+17
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Pringle’s unexpected visit in Barstow had taken the
+sparkle out of the beautiful morning. Suddenly Page and
+Sunny noticed it was very hot and dry. They didn’t talk
+about Pringle, with a tacit understanding that it would
+only have led to lower spirits and perhaps a fight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on,” Page said, leading her out to the rented
+dark blue Ford. He backed out toward the highway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s do something fun,” Sunny said. “Let’s go see
+something interesting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s to see, sweetheart?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had taken a travel guide map from the glove
+compartment and was studying the territory. They drove
+along while Sunny mentioned various oddities marked on
+the map; old mines, great dry lakes, craters. Page dismissed
+them all as tourist traps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Darling, let’s get off this dreary highway and see
+<em>something</em>,” Sunny pleaded. “This is supposed to be a
+honeymoon. Don’t let your father ruin this, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Okay, honey, you win,” he said half-heartedly. “What’s
+the next stop on the map?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Amboy Crater,” she said. “And Bristol Dry Lake.”
+He made a face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, it says ‘Point of Interest’ on the map,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a sigh he turned south off Route 66 at Amboy,
+a scarcely noticeable desert town, and went a mile or two
+to the crater. Sunny made him stop so she could get out
+and look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-162" class="pagenum" title="162"></a>
+The crater loomed, black and ancient, in a plateau of
+iron-hard rock, all of it weather-cracked, split, and dried
+like a diseased sea. It spread out for miles, rising about
+six feet above the desert floor, and all around the edges
+dead black fingers of lava rock probed the sand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just think, it came out of that crater once, like the
+sea in hell,” Sunny said, awed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gives me the creeps,” Page told her. “Come on, let’s
+find something cheerful.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How about the Dry Lake? It’s only half a mile further,”
+she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not much to see. Not as dramatic and eerie as
+the old crater. Just miles of flat, dry, hard-baked mud.
+They got off the road and drove around on it for a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Make a good race-track,” Page commented. “Gosh,
+it’s big.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Only about eight miles long on the map,” Sunny said.
+But when she looked up it seemed as if they were completely
+surrounded by cracked mud. It was all one could
+see in four directions, except way out in the crystal distance
+where the violet mountains rose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wonder if anything lives out here?” Sunny asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing with any sense,” he said. “Had enough?” And
+he turned the car around.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where are our tracks?” Sunny said, peering over the
+hood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t make tracks on this stuff, it’s like so much
+cement.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They drove a little farther. “We’re kind of low on gas,
+aren’t we?” Sunny said, glancing at the meter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s not far, honey, just a couple of miles. We’ll make
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We ought to be back on that road by now. I’m afraid
+we’ve gone past it,” Sunny fretted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page had not realized how low the gas was, as a matter
+of fact, preoccupied as he was with his father. Sunny fell
+silent, trusting him. But ten minutes later Page began
+to notice that the terrain looked different. It was not as
+smooth as the lake bed. Rocks and clumps of tough weeds
+studded the ground. He figured he had enough gas for
+another ten or twelve miles, and glanced at Sunny beside
+<a id="page-163" class="pagenum" title="163"></a>
+him in the front seat. She was sweating freely, but she
+didn’t look frightened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly a sharp report jolted the front of the car.
+Page stopped as fast as he could and leaped out to see
+the damage. He looked under the hood and abruptly fell
+to his knees at the side of the car, trying to wrench a hub
+cap off. Sunny heard him banging and leaned out his window.
+“Can I help?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The keys!” He grabbed them from her hand and
+opened the trunk, coming forward quickly with a lug
+wrench. But he was too late.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mystified, Sunny said, “What’s the matter, darling?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s all right,” he said, but his face was worried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat down in the driver’s seat, trying to wipe the
+wrinkles off his forehead. “Damnedest thing. I guess we hit
+a loose rock. Bounced up and struck the fan and bent one
+of the blades.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that bad?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m afraid so, honey. The blade sheared the radiator
+tubing. We’ve lost all our water. I was hoping to catch
+some of it in the hub cap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What can we do?” She was more scared than she
+wanted him to know. The desert is haunted with ghastly
+tales of the uninformed and unprepared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess we can drive a way without it,” Page said. “We
+can’t be more than half a mile from that road.” And yet
+he knew that at some point they had driven out of the
+lake, and God only knew where they were now. He prayed
+they weren’t going around in a fatal, sandy circle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Resolutely he started up again. There was no road, no
+sign, no hut, no human being. Nothing but bigger rocks
+and softer sand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sand, in fact, was becoming treacherous to drive
+on. Inevitably, the car gave a mushy jolt and began to
+slow down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is the gas gone?” Sunny said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Damn sand,” he muttered. As he spoke the car
+sank to a standstill. Page gunned the motor a few times
+and cut it off. “No sense wasting what’s left,” he said.
+He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Darling, don’t be
+<a id="page-164" class="pagenum" title="164"></a>
+afraid. We’re so close to civilization, we can’t go too far
+wrong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We <em>were</em> close,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He squeezed her knee and then got out. “You stay
+there and try not to sweat,” he told her. “I never let my
+pregnant wives pull the plow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But his cheerful mood faded rapidly. He labored in
+the unblinking sun for almost two hours, digging tracks
+under the wheels, shoving while Sunny tried to back out,
+creating traction out of bath towels and deflated tires.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Worse than shoveling maple syrup,” he gasped to
+Sunny, tearing the shirt off his hot back. The air he was
+inhaling so hard felt like steam in his lungs. By the time
+they got out of the hole he was trembling with heat and
+fatigue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Move over, sweetheart, let’s get out of here,” he said,
+sliding into the driver’s seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On half a gallon of gas?” she said. “Besides, all the
+sand looks the same. You can’t tell the soft from the
+hard.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll try another direction,” he said, heading in what
+he judged was a northerly route. “I think this will have
+us back on 66 in no time.” He could sense that she
+wanted to believe him, and he fell silent, afraid anything
+more he might say would only scare her. He felt his limbs
+quaking and his heart working overtime, and he didn’t
+know what he would do if they got stuck again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re awfully tired, darling, I can tell,” Sunny said
+softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not in shape for pushing cars across the desert,”
+he cracked. He was painfully thirsty. She must be, too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ground became progressively rougher, with big outcroppings
+of rock here and there. Through them Page
+threaded a cautious trail. Sunny studied the map.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It shows rocks for a hundred miles in all directions,”
+she said. “We could be just about anywhere.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a big help.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought you said we were going back to 66,” she
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I think we are, sweetheart. But I’m not sure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Page,” she whispered and he took her hand and
+<a id="page-165" class="pagenum" title="165"></a>
+held it hard, trying to encourage her. “At least the sun’s
+going down,” she said bravely. “It won’t be so hot.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the engine coughed and there was a grinding
+wrench along the underside of the car. Page stopped and
+opened the door in almost the same motion. He dropped
+to his knees in the sand and slid under the motor to see
+what had happened. Moments later he emerged, dusty and
+splattered. Sunny didn’t dare ask him what he had found.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, we’ve run over a goddam rock,” he said angrily.
+“There’re so many after a while you just don’t notice
+them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It can’t be too bad,” she said hopefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. It just pierced the crankcase housing, that’s all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can you fix it?” Her voice was small and scared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All the oil has poured out. Also, the motor’s had it,
+without water. I’m afraid this buggy is finished,” he said.
+He spoke matter-of-factly, but for the first time since he
+realized they were lost, he was genuinely frightened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wearily he climbed up on the seat beside her. “We
+shouldn’t have rented this car, we should have bought
+it,” he said. “At least we could collect the insurance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She burst into tears. “Page,” she wept, and he took her
+in his arms. “What will we do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Rest. And save our strength. Did we bring anything
+to eat? Or drink?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing,” she said. “Not one crumb. And I even
+thought of asking you to pick up a six-pack of beer in
+that lunch place.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They thought about the cold wet beer for a moment
+and then he said with a vigor he didn’t feel, “In the
+morning I’m going to try to walk back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And leave me here in this wilderness?” she cried,
+terrified. “Darling, you’ll get lost. We might be fifty miles
+from the road.” She clung to him in a panic, but he only
+held her, unwilling to give up the idea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hungry, thirsty, exhausted, they huddled together in
+the car while the vast world of hot rocks and sand around
+them began to cool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s try to sleep,” he said. “Here, honey, get in the
+back seat and lie down. You can use that blanket in your
+bag.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-166" class="pagenum" title="166"></a>
+“I’d rather have an air conditioner,” she said. “What
+about you, darling? Where will you sleep?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Under the car, I guess,” he said, covering her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aren’t there snakes?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If there are, they’re cooked.” He took her hand. “I’ll
+be all right, sweetheart. You go to sleep.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She lay in the uncomfortably short back seat and
+tried to rest, while Page sat up for a while, wondering
+how to get them out of there. His overpowering worry
+was Sunny. How well could she bear up under that deadly
+sun?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before he crawled under the car to sleep he leaned into
+the back seat and kissed her face tenderly. “Darling,” he
+whispered. “My love. Sleep tight.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+At the first sign of light Page sat up to watch the dawn.
+It was warm, with the temperature near ninety. The sun
+came out early, climbing up the sides of the distant hills.
+It surprised Page when he first saw the brightening sky.
+He had expected the sun from another direction. Sunny
+awoke in time to see his consternation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s the matter?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The sun ... the damn thing does come up in the
+east, doesn’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ordinarily.” She stared at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then we’re headed west,” he said. “<em>Not</em> north. Back
+to L. A. God! If we keep on going pretty soon we’ll
+reach the ocean.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Or a lemonade stand,” she said wistfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He smiled at her. “You’re a good girl, Sunny,” he
+said. He spoke with such love that she bent and kissed
+his hair as he sat on the ground. His neck was scarlet and
+throbbing hot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page, you got burned yesterday,” she said with concern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not bad,” he lied. But his scalded skin had been
+robbed of water and oil, and from neck to waist he was
+a painful red.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny lifted her head and gazed around the sand. “What
+are we going to do?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’re going to get out of this damn oven,” he said,
+<a id="page-167" class="pagenum" title="167"></a>
+thumping the rear fender as he shoved <a id="corr-19"></a>himself to his feet. “Before
+it bakes us to a turn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She climbed out and shook herself carefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How do you feel?” He was hyper-conscious of her
+condition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m all right, darling,” she said. She couldn’t start
+the day by telling him how thirsty and faint she was. She
+felt a kick in her abdomen and was momentarily overwhelmed
+with an uprush of love and anguish for the poor
+little creature she was carrying. Her fate was his. She
+would want to die if the baby didn’t live.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page took her hand and led her to an outcropping of
+rock some forty yards from the car. The short walk made
+her tired. He settled her there, spreading the electric
+blanket under her to keep her off the sand, and sat down
+beside her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We ought to have some shade here for most of the
+morning,” he said, squinting at the high-rising rock. “In
+the afternoon we can move around to the other side.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do we do at noon?” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We fry,” he answered briefly. He scanned the area
+with tightly narrowed eyes, standing up to look around.
+He couldn’t sit there on that sand and wait for the world
+to come rescue him. He had to do something.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In less than an hour they heard the buzz of a plane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God damn! Of course! I should have thought of that,”
+he cried, running back to the car. He wrenched the rear
+view mirror off its bracket and jumped out, holding the
+mirror toward the sun. A series of bright flashes resulted,
+but the plane, cruising over twenty thousand feet in that
+mountainous country, proceeded eastward indifferently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny discovered a package of gum in her purse and
+when Page came dejectedly back with the mirror, she
+shared it with him. It took them some time to soften it
+in their dry mouths, but the sugar tasted wonderful. Page
+took only one stick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny saved the rest. “Three sticks of Doublemint,”
+she said. “All our worldly goods. It makes me feel like
+crying.” The tears began to fall, and Page put his arms
+around her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I’m all right,” she said, ashamed of herself. “I
+<a id="page-168" class="pagenum" title="168"></a>
+guess it was seeing that plane. Those people up there, so
+cool and comfortable. Eating a big breakfast and looking
+out the window at all the damn rocks.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There must be a lot of air traffic around here,” Page
+said. “Hell, the big army bases, the commercial flights,
+private parties. I’m going to pile up a mess of stuff in
+that clear space in front of the car and the next time one
+goes over I’ll light it. Maybe it’ll fire up bright enough
+to catch somebody’s eye. I’ll have to use your clothes,
+honey. Okay?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anything,” she said. She leaned back weakly against
+the rock shelf. It was hot in the shadow, the temperature
+rising steadily through the nineties. She looked at her
+watch: not quite nine <span class="scall">A.M.</span> Where will we be when it’s
+nine in the evening? she wondered. Oh, God, please save
+us. All three of us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page spent the next hour building a pyre out of their
+suitcases, their clothes, and a spare tire from the trunk.
+Afterward he found the towels he had used to get the
+wheels out of the sand and made an S with them. He
+walked over to Sunny and squatted beside her, wiping
+his sweaty face with a grimy cloth. “Sunny, I need the
+blanket,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What for?” she asked, rolling off it without protest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m making an S O S in the sand over there. If they
+see the fire, they’ll come low enough to read the letters.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took out the pen knife he carried in his change
+pocket and, with Sunny’s help, cut the blanket into
+several strips. Sunny held it taut while Page sawed through
+the material.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That should do it,” Page said a half-hour later,
+gathering up the long wool streamers and heading for the
+S made of towels. Sunny started to follow him but a
+sudden hard cramp sent her back to the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For fifteen minutes, while Page worked on the distress
+signal she sat motionless, paralyzed with the pain. Her
+instinct recognized it. She had never had a baby before,
+but she knew that she had just had a labor pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She leaned against the rock, grateful for the shade, and
+told herself, <em>I will be calm</em>, over and over. Maybe it will
+go away. The books talk about false labor. I’ll sit here
+<a id="page-169" class="pagenum" title="169"></a>
+and take it easy.... If that little mite comes out here, it
+won’t live five minutes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It didn’t occur to her that she wouldn’t, either. Her
+whole being revolved around that baby. Sunny had a lot
+of sense and a great desire to save her child. She forced
+herself to lie down on the sand and remain quiet. Time
+passed, one straggling second at a time, but the cramp
+did not repeat itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Page came back she told him nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s it, darling,” he said. “Save yourself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You, too,” she murmured. “Lie down, Page.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat instead. They were both stunned with the sky-rocketing
+heat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How hot do you think it is?” Sunny asked. Little
+streams of sweat were trickling into her ears and down her
+breasts and arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Seems hotter if you talk about it.” He scanned the
+shiny blue sky, shading his eyes with his left hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page estimated it was well over a hundred degrees by
+then, but didn’t tell her so. “There might be some moisture
+left in the radiator,” he said. “Give me your hanky,
+I’ll soak it up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If there is, it’ll be hot enough to brew coffee,” she
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page left her briefly. The heat pierced the soles of his
+shoes and traveled up his legs like shock waves, and the
+sun felt hot enough to melt his hair. He returned on
+shaky limbs with a pitiful small dampness. “Suck on it,”
+he told Sunny. “It’s all there was.” He stroked her cracking
+lips with it. They had not eaten or drunk now for
+twenty-four hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny would have insisted on sharing the moisture
+with him had it not been for that cramp. Now she felt
+an obligation to be selfish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly another plane began to drone toward them.
+Sunny sat halfway up, searching the sky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There it is,” she said. “Quick, light the fire.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Too high,” he said, shaking his head. “Probably a
+jet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny lay down as the plane passed, too faint to lower
+herself carefully. Page watched her drop back with worried
+<a id="page-170" class="pagenum" title="170"></a>
+eyes. He knelt and wiped her forehead with the
+sleeve of his shirt. The rising heat made her face pink,
+but it was not a healthy color.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I might find a little water in these rocks somewhere,”
+he said. “There are mineral springs in the desert sometimes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t leave me,” she whispered, frightened. Her worst
+fear was to die abandoned on the sand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll just go a short way and whistle so you’ll know
+where I am,” he promised. “Darling, I’ve got to try something.
+You need that water. It isn’t ten-thirty yet.” He
+didn’t need to remind her of her empty stomach or the
+dry fuzz forming on her tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a tired struggle with herself she said, “Keep
+whistling.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will.” He kissed her, bending over her with his
+hands planted in the sand. His burned lips scratched her
+skin lightly. Then he got up and walked. In twelve minutes
+he was back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God. It’s a furnace out there,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Find anything?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A few scraggly cactus plants. I tried one. Tasted like
+rotten vinegar.” He stretched out beside her in the narrow
+margin of shadow they had left as the sun sailed up the
+sky toward high noon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page made seven or eight trips altogether, whistling to
+comfort her. But he came back from the last search
+staggering from the furious heat. He looked at the yellow
+world prostrate under the sun, the savage sun that plainly
+meant to murder them. And he hated it illogically as
+though it had a human conscience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny was sitting up, huddled against the last few
+planes of shady rock. Already sunlight was slanting down
+the steep western slope and on the east there was no
+shadow at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Noon. The sun’s hour of hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page dropped to his knees, panting. One swallow of
+water and he thought he could move mountains. He
+couldn’t leave Sunny here in the blaze of the hammering
+heat. Her eyes were clenched shut and her face was taut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Darling,” he said from a sandy throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-171" class="pagenum" title="171"></a>
+“No water?” she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook his head, <a id="corr-22"></a>taking her in his arms. She half-collapsed
+against him. “I’m so thirsty,” she admitted out
+of her weakness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where’s that gum?” He fumbled in the purse and
+pulled out a stick. “Here, honey. It’s not wet but there’s a
+little sugar in it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m so dry,” she murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Try. Come on.” She worked on it for some minutes
+and finally it began to yield. It tasted pathetically good.
+She chewed all the sweetness out of it and then swallowed
+the whole lump. Perhaps the hunger pangs could be
+fooled for a minute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going to take you back to the car and we’ll lie
+underneath it, till we’ve got more <a id="corr-23"></a>shade here,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She let him pull her unsteadily to her feet. He started
+out, guiding her slowly and carefully. But about halfway
+to the car she suddenly folded in the middle. He caught
+her and carried her the rest of the way, laying her on
+the sand when he got there and pushing her under the
+car. Then he slid in beside her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page put a hand on Sunny’s leg, close beside his, but
+their mutual heat was unbearable and he had to remove
+it. The pulsing air swirled and waved up from the desert
+floor, liquid orange with heat. It crushed their chests and
+stuffed their burning noses and drained the vital fluids
+from their flesh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another plane went over. Page scrambled out to look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s pretty low,” he called, and ran over to the bonfire
+site, lighting the inflammable clothes first. They caught
+at once and Page stepped back. It seemed insane to add
+even this small heat to the radiant desert, but it couldn’t
+be helped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The plane was small, probably private, and not impossibly
+high. An alert pair of eyes, studying the desert floor,
+might catch that fluttering light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was only a matter of minutes before Page
+realized they hadn’t seen. They were going on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He watched them go, fighting off despair. The fire had
+reached its peak. There was no way to save it now for another
+try. He stood with his head in his hands—the
+<a id="page-172" class="pagenum" title="172"></a>
+Pringle gesture Sunny knew so well—and tried to compose
+himself for her sake. He had been in tight places before,
+but always by himself, and always with a way out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He crawled under the car again. “It’s two-thirty,” he
+told her at last. “When the sun gets a little lower I’ll
+take you back to the rock. Could you chew another piece
+of gum?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He didn’t press her, but he was afraid her mouth would
+be so dry that even the tiny jot of sugar in the gum
+would be inaccessible to her before long: so much powder
+on her tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We might as well go now,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Carefully, he dragged Sunny after him, out from under
+the car, and saw at once that she was dangerously weak.
+There was no possibility of her walking back to the shade
+of the rock. The safest way to move her was to pull her,
+and Page fashioned a cloth sled out of the blanket strips
+in his S O S. He laid her on it tenderly and towed her as
+fast as he could force himself to move over the sand to
+the rock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He fell down beside her in exhaustion and slept for a
+while. When he awoke it seemed as if centuries had
+passed. He lifted his head, only to feel an alarming dizziness
+come over him. He lowered it at once and a few
+minutes later tried again. It was better this time. It was
+still daylight, still stupefyingly hot. Five minutes after
+three. The terrible sun stuck jealously in the sky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rock Page leaned against rose twelve or thirteen
+feet from the ground. It was a bad shape for climbing,
+but new hope made him get up and try.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The thing had a number of sheer walls and a couple of
+rough ones, with few spots for secure footing or handholds.
+Page chose the best side and started doggedly up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to the eyes like a short way to the top, but
+to his limbs and lungs it was a taxing struggle all the
+way. Page fell back twice before he collapsed on the
+sharp summit. The burning stone cut his midriff. Quickly
+he lifted himself up for a look, dizzy again with the climb
+and the endless blasting heat. He straddled the thin ridge
+and looked around.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-173" class="pagenum" title="173"></a>
+Rocks and sand ... rocks and sand ... black rocks and
+yellow sand.... The car, the broken S O S, the pile of
+useless ashes where the fire had been. It didn’t look promising.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He climbed down, letting himself fall most of the way
+into the soft sand. Sunny was a strange flushed color,
+breathing noisily, lying quite still. He thought of Richie
+Settick. Perhaps Sunny was weaker than Page wanted to
+believe. He needed to hear her voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s after four now,” he said. “Sun’ll go down soon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her lips began to work and he leaned very close to
+hear her. “This is hell,” she said with the merest flutter
+of breath behind her words. “The sun never sets in hell.
+You have to look at your mistakes in broad daylight for
+the rest of eternity. You have to burn straight through
+until you’re pure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going to get you out of here,” he said. “Sunny,
+do you hear me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s too late,” she moaned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My God, darling, what do you mean? We’re alive,
+aren’t we?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It doesn’t matter, Page,” she said. He had to read her
+lips to grasp her meaning. She made almost no sound.
+“The baby....” She put a hand across her stomach. “I
+think it’s ... dead.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was stricken silent. After a tortured pause he said,
+“How do you know?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Doesn’t move.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That doesn’t mean it’s dead. Sunny, I won’t let you
+give up. Sunny, Sunny, I love you so,” he said. “Darling,
+this isn’t any supernatural punishment we’re going through.
+If I weren’t such a stupid jerk we wouldn’t be here, and
+I’m going to do something about it.” She smiled wanly and
+tried to quiet him but he said, “No, I have to tell you
+now,” and she knew he meant there might not be another
+chance. So she listened in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, there isn’t any right or wrong any more,” he
+said. “There’s only life. And love. To live is right, to
+die is wrong. Nothing else makes sense. There is no
+logic but love. No morality but survival.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He kissed her captive hand and spoke again with his
+<a id="page-174" class="pagenum" title="174"></a>
+mouth moving against her skin. “Darling, all I understood
+these past few months was that you were my <em>sister</em>. When
+I knew that, it was as if you stopped existing as a wife.
+You were my own flesh and blood and everything else
+came second: love, happiness, the baby—everything. But
+I was wrong, Sunny. And I damned near ruined both
+our lives.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was so moved and heartened to hear him talk this
+way that she found herself almost willing to hope again
+for a miracle. Her eyes, green drops in her tired face,
+remained fastened on him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now that I know where I was wrong, the rest falls
+into place,” he said, putting his head down in the sand
+next to hers. “... I climbed the rock here,” he told her.
+“But everything looks the same. Just a few more rocks to
+the north. That’s the only—” He stopped talking, feeling
+a jerk of pressure in her hand. “What, honey?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“66—is north,” she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yeah, but how far? A day’s walk? Two days? I can’t
+leave you that long,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must have seen the lava bed ... the black
+rocks....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, the bed looks like a big strip of dusty tar. This
+was just more stones.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But the stones—get thicker—near the bed. The crater—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sunny, we’ve left that lava bed maybe thirty or forty
+miles behind us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Check the map. There’s another bed,” she panted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Another one?” He came to life, lurched to his feet,
+and weaved back to the car. The map was still on the
+front seat. Page opened it, moving and seeing somewhat
+like a drunk. His eyes were unfocussed for a moment, but
+he finally found Amboy Crater where they had turned
+off the big highway. He ran a finger slowly in a westerly
+direction, the way they must have taken. The terrain was
+represented as rugged and rocky. And sure enough, maybe
+thirty-five miles from Amboy, lay another lava bed: a
+long thin one with its own crater, which intersected Route
+66.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My God, we must have crossed right over it. I never
+<a id="page-175" class="pagenum" title="175"></a>
+even saw it,” he said to himself. If that mass of black
+rocks to the north was really it, they might be as close
+as three or four miles to 66. Or as far as ten miles. Either
+way, it seemed suddenly possible to reach it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page looked up at the sky. The sun was sliding down
+the western side toward the blue peaks. He judged the
+temperature to be still well over a hundred degrees. In
+another two hours, without the pitiless sun up there, he
+might be able to start walking—if that was in fact the lava
+bed ahead. But in the fast-falling desert dark he might
+also lose his way, and lose Sunny too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stared northward, balancing his chances. We can’t
+live through another day, he thought. I have to do it
+now, while I can still see.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going up to the highway,” he said in her ear. “You
+were right, that bed can’t be far. I’m starting now, so we
+can get you out of here this evening. You can’t take any
+more sun tomorrow. Do you understand? Sweetheart,
+don’t be afraid. I’ll be back before you know it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go,” she murmured, unprotesting. “I’m in labor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page couldn’t disguise the shock and alarm on his face.
+“Dear God! I can’t leave you now. You can’t have that
+baby alone, Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pains ... still far apart,” she said laboriously. “Won’t
+be for a while ... hours, maybe. Phone Settick.” It hurt
+to talk; she was afraid of triggering another cramp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll get an ambulance and call the doctor,” he said,
+recovering himself a little. “There must be a good hospital
+in Barstow. You’re going to be all right, darling.”
+He kissed her mouth. “When we get out of here—I’ll
+never leave you again,” he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She watched him rise, tying her white handkerchief
+around his neck. He set out after one last look at her,
+wrapping a towel around his head like a turban.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page walked, as nearly as he could judge, straight north.
+He thought of nothing but Sunny ... Sunny, his wife ...
+alone and sick and terrified in the small shade of a rock.
+He thought of the pains she was experiencing, and the
+baby.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every fifty yards or so he turned back to look at her
+big brown rock. The car soon disappeared from view,
+<a id="page-176" class="pagenum" title="176"></a>
+and little by little the rock sank with it. Ahead he searched
+for the low black shelf that would mark the border of the
+lava bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stumbled forwards in this manner, half afraid his
+heart would collapse like punctured plastic beneath his
+ribs. It was about seven o’clock, with the sun nearly hidden
+at last behind the hills, when he saw the headlights of a
+car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page stood blinking at them in a near-stupor. At first
+he thought he was gazing at a mirage. They seemed to
+be coming right toward him, though they were still far
+away. But abruptly they swerved and headed east.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No! No!” he croaked. “Over here!” For a sickening
+instant he thought his first and last real hope had evaporated.
+But another pair of headlights materialized about
+where the first had, followed by several more in quick
+succession. And then some coming from the east and
+traveling west.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The road!” He fell on his knees and wept. And suddenly
+lifted a bewildered head. Where was the lava bed?
+He rose shakily to his feet and turned around twice before
+he saw the black table to the east.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must be the second bed, all right. We came back so
+far we overshot it, he thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He ran forward to the highway, dropping the towel as
+he went. It had only taken him, weak and lost as he was,
+three hours to reach the road. Sunny couldn’t be far behind
+him at that rate.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-18">
+<a id="page-177" class="pagenum" title="177"></a>
+18
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+“The car that finally stopped was a beat-up ’34 Chevy,”
+Page told Jack in the cool softly-lighted bar. “Had an old
+desert rat in it named Norcross. He took charge. Fed me
+sandwiches and tea from his food box. Stopped some
+guy in a station wagon and sent him back to Barstow for
+an ambulance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He knew that desert like his own hand. Drove in on
+a dirt road just east of the lava bed—the one I was looking
+for and missed—and found Sunny in forty minutes.
+She drank a quart of that tea. He made her take it in
+small doses. I swear I wonder what would have happened
+if we hadn’t gotten to her so fast.” His face was drawn
+as he thought of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was a miracle, and that’s the word for it. Norcross
+drove us back to 66 and the ambulance picked us up there
+a few minutes later.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did you get Settick so fast?” Jack asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We got Brian first. The guy who got the ambulance
+for us called him in L. A. He got out to Barstow in a
+private plane. But by the time he arrived Sunny’s pains
+had remitted. She wanted to come back to Chicago and
+have the baby, and you couldn’t talk to her about it. I
+never saw a girl so set on anything in my life. There
+weren’t any other symptoms yet and she swore she’d
+make it back. Brian was against it at first but she told
+him she wanted her mother. And she wanted Richie to
+deliver the baby. She promised him, or something, and
+<a id="page-178" class="pagenum" title="178"></a>
+she was convinced if he didn’t she’d lose the baby. He
+could never have made it all the way to Barstow but
+Brian called him in New York and they arranged to have
+him leave that night for Chicago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think the worst fear Sunny had was that the baby
+would die. That was why she wanted June, and no other
+doctor but Richie. Brian said it might make the difference
+as to how well she pulled through it herself, so we hired
+a hospital plane and flew back here last night. Richie was
+waiting for us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Turned out to be an expensive honeymoon, didn’t
+it?” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You said it,” Page agreed. “But if she makes it, it’ll
+be worth every damn penny. Come on, boy, it’s been over
+thirty minutes. I want to get back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack slid off the bar stool and they walked out into the
+early evening together. “So you brought her straight to
+the hospital then?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, and called the Rothelis. They came in about five
+this morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You still think you’re going to tell them <a id="corr-27"></a>who you are?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s not get started on that again, Jackson. You’re
+too good a friend. I don’t want to lose you twice.” He
+walked in silence for half a block and then he added,
+“It’s not as selfish as you think. I mean, they’ve been
+looking for me all these years, too, just the way I’ve been
+looking for them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And here you are, a member of the family twice over.
+What a handy arrangement.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Spare me the humor,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sorry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s my decision, that’s all. Not yours.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yours and Sunny’s,” Jack said. “Is Brian Settick still
+here?” he asked while they waited for the elevator.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. He delivered us safely to Richie and flew back.
+It was damn nice of him to come all that way with us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What about Richie?” Jack said as they entered the
+elevator.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is his vacation. A little earlier than he planned,
+but....” They looked at each other. “I know,” Page said
+quietly. “He’s in love with her. But he’s in there saving
+<a id="page-179" class="pagenum" title="179"></a>
+her life and maybe my child’s. I can’t feel too bad about
+the guy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack smiled at him with a new respect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went directly to the maternity waiting room where
+Ben and June and Laura greeted them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Still no news?” Page said, disappointed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not yet,” June said. “One young man came in ten
+minutes ago to say it wouldn’t be long, and everything’s
+still all right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page sat down wearily next to Laura. Jack stood by the
+door for a minute and finally said, “I can’t stand the suspense.
+I’m going to mosey around a while.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They hardly paid him any attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack went out with an idea of getting the truth on
+Sunny’s condition. It was possible that the nurses and
+others were trying to soften things for her relatives. He
+looked around the halls, joshed with the nurses at the
+central desk, and tried to pump them for information.
+But they were evasive.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+After fifteen minutes he decided it was no use and
+started back toward the waiting room. He was nearing
+the door when he saw a young man, blond and stocky,
+pulling a white surgical cap from his head as he hurried
+toward the room from the opposite direction. Jack stopped
+him at the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Excuse me,” he said. “Dr. Settick?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” Settick said impatiently, reaching for the door.
+Jack caught his arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m Jack Mann. Laura’s husband. You delivered our
+daughter, Betsy. Remember?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Settick looked up at him then. “For God’s sake,” he said
+with a tired smile, and gripped Jack’s hand. “I sure do
+remember. What are you doing here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Came to hold a friend’s hand,” Jack said with a
+smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, how are you? How’s Betsy? She must be quite
+a young lady by now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure is—and we’re all fine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jack can you hold on a minute?” Settick said. “I have
+a difficult case here and I want to tell her family—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-180" class="pagenum" title="180"></a>
+“Sunny Pringle?” Jack interrupted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Richie, about to enter the waiting room, turned again
+to gaze at Jack. “You know her?” he said, surprised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s why I’m here. Page is an old buddy of mine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor rubbed his forehead, frowning, and his expression
+alarmed Jack. “No kidding,” Richie said. “Maybe
+you’d like to give them the news, then. I’m pretty beat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure,” Jack said. “How’s Sunny?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He watched Settick’s face and experienced abrupt relief
+when he smiled again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s exhausted, but she’s okay,” Richie said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack hesitated. “A million thanks, doc,” he said at last.
+“I speak for her family, too, especially Page.... Then I
+guess the baby came?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, it came.” He spoke quietly, obviously holding
+himself in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No go?” Jack asked, almost afraid to know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Richie said. “There’s some
+hope. Quite a bit, in fact. It’s pretty small, only three and
+a half pounds, and dehydrated, but we’re going to keep
+a twenty-four hour watch. You know, Sunny’s had problems
+all through this pregnancy....” He hesitated, not
+sure how much Jack knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Jack nodded. “I know all about it,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Richie gave him a fleeting glance of surprise. “Well,
+<em>that</em>, and its coming so early.... I wouldn’t want to say
+anything for sure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Boy or girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A boy. I think she wanted a boy. She never said so,
+but when I told her I wish you could have seen the look
+on her face. She looked the way she did the day I told her
+she was expecting.” He smiled to himself, and Jack understood.
+That was one fine intimate moment Settick had
+shared with Sunny; probably the last. And it had happened
+while he was delivering another man’s child to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack felt a strong sympathy for him. Settick had no
+way of knowing that Jack knew his feelings for his favorite
+patient. And Jack had no intention of humiliating him
+with the knowledge. But the sympathy communicated itself
+to Settick and he opened up a little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He isn’t deformed?” Jack asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-181" class="pagenum" title="181"></a>
+“No, he’s perfect. Just so damn tiny, and I don’t know
+how strong he is. Any little kid who can live through that
+desert and a premature birth must be pretty tough, though.
+We can’t feed him for a little while yet—I don’t think he
+could take it. But I want to get him started on water as
+soon as I can. He needs the fluids badly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little silence fell and Jack took advantage of it to
+press a question that had made him apprehensive for many
+months. “Doc,” he said, speaking cautiously. Richie, lost
+in himself, looked up. “What do you think—about talking
+to Page and Sunny?” Jack said. “It’s a hard thing to
+ask you, but somebody’s got to and they’ve had an earful
+from me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Talking to them? What about?” Richie said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know what about,” Jack <a id="corr-29"></a>said simply. “I wouldn’t
+ask you otherwise.” He saw from Richie’s face that he
+understood and was on his guard. All the doctor had to
+go on was Jack’s word that he was Page’s friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack pulled him to the wall out of the stream of corridor
+traffic, and spoke with hasty urgency.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The incest, Doc,” he said. “Let’s not beat around
+the bush. Page was the one who fought it, the one who
+feared an abnormal child and all the rest. If you’d give
+them just five minutes—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They’d resent it,” Settick objected. “I’ve stuck my nose
+too far into their business as it is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One more inch,” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He wouldn’t leave her now, would he?” Richie said.
+“With the baby and all?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What if they lose the baby? Somebody’s got to get to
+him before that, if it happens.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But he’s jealous of me. I mean—” He stopped himself,
+but Jack shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’d be surprised what a big boy he’s getting to be,”
+he said with a grin. “He can take it. Do this for them,
+Doc. Sunny would always remember it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Richie turned away for a minute of self-argument.
+“Would it save the marriage?” he said. “Because that’s the
+only justification for it. Sunny doesn’t know I know about
+her and Page. And I tried to tell Page once, but he didn’t
+catch on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-182" class="pagenum" title="182"></a>
+“It might be the only thing that could put Page on the
+right track permanently,” Jack said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another pause, this one briefer, and Settick said, “Okay.
+I’ll do it for Sunny.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack clapped him on the back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t mind telling her family about the baby?”
+Settick said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not a bit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks. Tell them they can see her for a minute when
+she gets to her room. I wouldn’t let them ordinarily till
+she’s rested, but she needs her mother. And Page. The
+baby’s in the nursery if you’d like a look.” He started
+to walk away, but Jack called him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Richie,” he said. “I’m glad you got here in time. Page
+said Sunny was determined to get back here for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m pretty glad myself,” Settick said. And then he
+turned and walked off down the hall.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Jack entered the waiting room, walked over and sat
+down, and looked at everyone. Page was brooding in
+silence, the others conversing quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a boy,” Jack said. They all looked up slowly and
+suddenly June gave a gasp and clutched Jack’s arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What?” Page cried as the words registered in his head.
+Jack smiled. “It’s a boy. Sunny’s fine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And the baby?” they all asked together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s very small,” Jack said. “Three and half pounds
+and Settick says he’s had a hard time of it. But he’s perfectly
+formed and he has a chance. He’s in the nursery
+now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, my God,” Page said. A heavy pulse was visible in
+his throat. June cried freely and so did Laura. Rotheli
+was speechless with joy and relief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ran into the doctor in the hall,” Jack explained. “He
+was beat to the bricks. Told me to tell you the good news.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can I see Sunny now?” Page said, springing up and
+heading for the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Calm down, old buddy,” Jack said, chuckling. “What
+would she do with a nervous nitwit like you in her room?
+The nurse’ll come get you when it’s time. Relax boy, she’s
+okay.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-183" class="pagenum" title="183"></a>
+They filed up to look through the nursery windows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look at all the babies,” Jack said. “Makes you realize
+what they mean by ‘population explosion.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura shushed him and they walked along looking for
+name-tags on the plastic bassinets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here he is!” Rotheli exclaimed. He had gone off to
+investigate on his own, and called them from the end of
+a corridor where he was looking through the glass into
+a special room for the premature babies. Page rushed up,
+followed by the others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lord,” he said, astonished by the impossibly small
+baby in the incubator. “Is that all?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that <em>all</em>?” June cried, amused and dismayed both,
+as Laura and Jack joined them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s so wrinkled. He looks like the map of Asia,”
+Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s absolutely beautiful,” June whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s absolutely bare, too,” Page said. “What’s the
+matter with these damn nurses? The poor kid will freeze
+to death.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s in an incubator,” Laura said with a smile. “It’s
+body temperature in there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, doesn’t he need diapers like the rest of them?”
+Page asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“After two days on the desert?” Jack grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s too little to stand dressing yet,” Laura said gently.
+“He’s okay, new papa. They know better in there what to
+do with him than you do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A young nurse came in and hung a card reading:
+“Baby Boy Pringle” on the end of the incubator, and then,
+seeing the crowd outside the window, she smiled at them.
+Jack pointed at Page, who went red with the first flush of
+fatherly pride.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hey,” he said, turning curiously to Rotheli. “She just
+put that sign up. How did you know it was our baby?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He looks—well, a little like both of you. God, I
+remember when I first saw Roger,” Rotheli said nostalgically.
+“I must have told you about Roger, Page. He was
+our first. We lost him.” His eyes were fixed on his grandson
+with a wonderful expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page stared at him. “Was—Roger that little?” He had
+<a id="page-184" class="pagenum" title="184"></a>
+been going to say, Was <em>I</em> that little? The near miss made
+him shaky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not <em>that</em> little, but he was small, and had those same
+eyes....”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The most beautiful eyes,” June whispered, surprising
+them all with this recollection salvaged from sickness.
+Page watched her, fascinated, the way children are, to hear
+his own mother speak of him with such love in her voice.
+He cherished every word and never afterward forgot it.
+“You watch,” June said. “This one will have eyes like
+that when he gets them open. Great big dark blue eyes
+that dominate his whole face. Like two plums pressed in
+a cookie. So bright and sweet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page wanted to embrace her. Here he was, a man and a
+father, with the living proof of his virility in that bassinet,
+and he wanted to put his arms around June and selfishly
+tell her everything and be mothered. There was nothing
+of revenge left in his feelings at all. But he responded
+to Jack’s tug on his sleeve and got hold of himself. Jack
+had been keeping an eye on him and he could see what
+was building up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page looked back at his infant son: so small and homely,
+face screwed up, chest working, small fists clenched tightly.
+He felt love and hope and fierce anxiety all at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have to see Sunny,” he said. “I <em>have</em> to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think you’re tired,” Jack reminded him. “Let the
+poor girl catch her breath.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moments later a nurse came to fetch Page. But when
+the others tried to tag along she held up a hand to stop
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Usually we only let the
+fathers in. Dr. Settick wants to see them together for a
+minute. Mr. and Mrs. Rotheli?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ben nodded at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll come for you when the doctor is ready. Your
+daughter is anxious to see you. She’s been through quite
+a lot, you know. I don’t know how long you’ll be able to
+spend with her today. Mr. Pringle, you come with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went off with a starchy rustle and Page rushed
+after her. Jack called after him, “Keep in touch, boy!”
+but Page was too distracted to hear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-185" class="pagenum" title="185"></a>
+June turned and told Jack, “I’ll tell him for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page went directly to Sunny’s bed. He leaned over
+her, pausing for a moment to look at her and reassure
+himself, and then kissed her very gently. He didn’t even
+notice Richie Settick in a corner of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Darling, you’re wonderful,” he whispered. “I’m so
+proud of you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was weak and quiet beneath her falsely healthy
+sunburn, but profoundly happy. She knew the whole truth
+about the baby’s chances, but she knew the scope of
+Richie’s ability, too, and her hopes were strong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you see him?” she asked. “How does he look?
+Is he in an incubator?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. He looks like the future president of the United
+States,” Page laughed. He kissed her again while she
+smiled at him and would have kept on kissing her, but
+Richie cleared his throat and Page looked up suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sorry to butt in,” Richie said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Page turned to face him. “Don’t apologize,” he said
+quickly. “That’s my department.” He held out his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Richie came over to take it but added uncomfortably,
+“I have one more thing to say to you. You may not
+feel so apologetic afterwards.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve earned the right to speak your mind,” Page
+told him. “Shoot.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny stiffened a little. She hadn’t expected any
+speeches from Richie and for a dread moment she
+imagined him confessing his love for her. She watched
+him anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wanted to say this to you now,” Richie said, “before
+I have to leave. Before we know for sure how things
+will turn out for the baby, and all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say what?” Page said. Sunny tried to interrupt but
+Settick silenced them both with a wave of his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This isn’t easy for me—or for you,” he said self-consciously.
+“But I—oh hell, I don’t want to sound like
+a pompous idiot. I just want you to know that I—I
+understand what the problem is between you two.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped a moment and looked at their faces, both
+<a id="page-186" class="pagenum" title="186"></a>
+turned toward him with amazed attention. “This is the
+first time I’ve ever seen you together,” he went on quietly.
+“You look a lot alike.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny’s mouth dropped open and Page made a sudden
+move as if to break in on the doctor. But something
+in Settick’s expression stopped them and they let him
+finish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know whether it’ll make any difference to you—what
+I’m going to say,” he continued. “I figured the
+whole thing out months ago, Sunny. The incest thing.
+It wasn’t your fault I did. You were too unhappy to keep
+secrets very well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page—if you’ll forgive me—there’s only one thing
+wrong with your wife. And I don’t mean the fact that
+she’s your sister.” The Pringles stared at him. “I mean
+the fact that she’s afraid of losing you. If she knew your
+marriage was secure for the rest of your lives, she’d be
+a well woman right now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know why you objected to the marriage, Page, and
+I respect your reasons. God knows I’m not passing judgment.
+I only want to make you see, if I can, that the
+reasons don’t stand up any more. Sunny’s life is at stake,
+and maybe your sanity. Don’t worry about the baby. I’m
+going to watch that child day and night if I have to stay
+here a month. Whatever happens, I can assure you of
+this much: there’s not a damn thing wrong with his
+heredity. If he makes it he’ll be strong and sane and
+healthy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a little silence while Richie girded himself
+for the last and toughest thing to say. Sunny and Page
+waited intuitively for him to go on. Settick walked to
+the door and put his hand on the knob. At last he turned
+back and added, “I can’t tell you to go back together.
+I can only ask you to, and recommend it ... not as a
+‘professional man,’ but as a friend.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He smiled a little. “For God’s sake, Page, don’t let
+her go. Don’t ever let her go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two men looked hard at each other and then
+Richie left them alone together.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-19">
+<a id="page-187" class="pagenum" title="187"></a>
+19
+</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+Jack and Laura were permitted to see Sunny in the
+evening. It wasn’t the usual hospital procedure, but Sunny
+wasn’t the usual hospital case, and Settick had arranged a
+few privileges for her. Anything that would keep her spirits
+high was granted, and the Manns were near the top of her
+list.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they arrived, she had just wakened from a long
+nap and was talking intimately to Page. She looked beautiful
+in spite of the harsh burn on her face when she turned
+to greet them, and Laura felt a catch in her throat as she
+bent to kiss Sunny’s cheek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny took her hands with affection and thanked Jack
+for nursing Page through the delivery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You look great, honey,” Jack said. “And so does the
+baby.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does he?” She beamed. “They won’t let me see him
+till tomorrow. He can’t be moved tonight and I can’t get
+out of bed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack and Laura obligingly launched into friendly praises
+of little Pringle, talking with the comfortable closeness
+of long acquaintance, until Jack finally said, “I can’t wait
+any longer, Page. I have to ask. What did you do about
+the Rothelis? Did you tell them who you are?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Sunny who answered him. “When they came in
+this afternoon they were so happy, so relieved,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Her parents had chatted with her and Page for a little
+<a id="page-188" class="pagenum" title="188"></a>
+while. Sunny was tired but full of Demerol, a synthetic
+derivative of morphine, that made her unnaturally talkative.
+Her parents didn’t keep her long—just enough to reassure
+themselves she was all right. Before they left, Ben asked
+what they planned to name the baby.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny and Page drew a blank. They hadn’t talked about
+it since the happy night Sunny revealed her pregnancy to
+Page and he suggested calling the child Ben, after her
+father. After that they dropped the subject as if to mention
+it was to put a hex on the child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny, thinking fast, said, “‘Baby Boy Pringle,’ just
+like on the card,” and they laughed. But Page broke in and
+took over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’re going to call him Roger, Ben,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the laughter stopped abruptly. Ben looked at his
+son-in-law with disbelief at first and then a slow grateful
+smile spread over his face. He put his arms around Page
+and gave him a bearhug that made Page groan and chuckle
+all at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My God!” Ben exclaimed, savoring it at last. “It’ll be
+like a chance to watch our own Roger grow up. You have
+no idea how much they look alike. Page, you didn’t do
+this just for us? You don’t have to bribe us to babysit,
+you know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did it for all of us, Ben,” Page said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Ben, oppressed suddenly with the memory of his
+first son, went to Sunny’s bedside. “I want you to understand
+something, honey,” he told his daughter. “There’s
+something your mother and I never told you. Right now,
+with everything happening the way it is—I feel as if you
+ought to know. It’s about our Roger. You see, he—didn’t
+die when he was a baby. We had to give him out for adoption.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He threw June a hasty glance to see how she was taking
+it, but she nodded at him to go on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunny, taken aback at the confession and wanting to
+make it easier for her father, said at once, “I know, Dad.”
+And bit her lip, realizing too late that in his view, she
+couldn’t possibly know.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know?” he repeated, shocked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mean—you never said he <em>died</em>, Dad. You only said
+<a id="page-189" class="pagenum" title="189"></a>
+you <em>lost</em> him. Never in all these years did you tell us he
+died. Chuckie and I figured out years ago that something
+else might have happened to him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ben stood gazing irresolutely at her for a minute until
+June said, “It was done through our doctor. He gave
+Roger to a fine family. A man and his wife who’d wanted
+a son for years and could never have one of their own.
+We never knew them, but the doctor told us they were
+wonderful generous people and they’d bring him up with
+love. That was the most important thing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, of course,” Sunny said softly. She was afraid she
+would start crying if she said any more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We had to do it, Sunny,” Ben said. “Your mother—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know, Dad.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was the only tragic mistake I think we ever made
+in our marriage,” Ben went on. “We’ll never stop wondering
+where he went, what happened to him. But in a
+way I think it’s just as well we don’t know. He might not
+want to know us, he might resent us, he might even disappoint
+us. I wish him much happiness, wherever he is. But
+now that we have Page in the family....” He smiled at
+him. “We’ve got a son.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a moment Sunny felt the shattering confession close
+to the surface, and she watched Page tensely, holding her
+breath. But Page had seen his parents looking at his own
+son a little while before, and he knew he was as close
+to them as he would ever be. The desire to confront them
+with the truth had dissipated when they were confronted
+instead with his child. He would never tell them now.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“Then they never really lost Roger at all,” Laura said
+softly. “I’m so glad, Sunny. So awfully glad.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have the Pringles seen the baby yet?” Jack asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“June and Ben are going over to their place tomorrow
+for lunch. It’ll be their first meeting,” Page told him.
+“Looks like you called things right, Jackson.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jack ignored the compliment. “Are you planning to go
+back to New York one of these days?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Damn right,” Page said. “I don’t know what the <em>Sunday
+Magazine</em> will want to do about me. But I know what
+<em>I</em> want to do: stay in that town and write.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-190" class="pagenum" title="190"></a>
+“Alone?” Jack said, glancing at Sunny.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you kidding? With three mouths to feed instead of
+two?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Sunny laughed at him the way she used to when
+Page was courting her, and kissed his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+“What if they lose little Roger?” Laura asked Jack going
+down in the elevator at the close of visiting hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They won’t, if sheer love can keep him alive,” Jack
+said. “If not ... it’ll be bad, but they’ll have each other.
+And I have the feeling Page is willing now to have more
+children, whatever happens.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you think they’ll be happy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you doubt it?” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Page is a funny guy, Jack. He never actually said she
+was his wife now, in so many words. And a scandal could
+still hurt him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Could hurt anybody, sweetie,” Jack said, putting a
+hand on her neck and tickling it lightly. “But not half as
+much as a divorce. I think they could face a scandal all
+right, if they ever had to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laura turned to smile at him. “Well, they’ll never have
+to on my account,” she said. “No one will ever get that
+story out of <em>me</em>.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He knew she was scolding him gently and he said, “You
+mean ‘Mr. Winkler’? He was Page’s step-father, honey—George
+Pringle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her mouth fell open and he hugged her as the elevator
+door opened on the ground floor, laughing at her surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The elder Pringles are not fools, after all,” he said.
+“And neither are the younger Pringles. They’ll make it.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="end">
+<span class="line1">THE END</span><br>
+<span class="line2">of an Original Gold Medal Novel by</span><br>
+<span class="line3"><a id="corr-30"></a>Ann Bannon</span>
+</p>
+
+<div class="ads chapter">
+<p class="hdr">
+Blood of the Grape
+</p>
+
+  <div class="hang">
+<p>
+ROSE was old before she was thirty,
+searching for the right man but a
+sucker for the wrong one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GINNY was jailbait with big scared
+eyes, fifteen years old and already
+running from the law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+NITA was a Spanish spitfire in high
+heels who saved her energy for fast
+living when the sun went down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MITCH was the hiring boss, and ex-pro
+football punk who gave out
+small jobs in return for large favors.
+</p>
+
+  </div>
+<div class="centerpic medal">
+<img src="images/medal.jpg" alt=""></div>
+
+<p class="book">
+Wild Harvest
+</p>
+
+<p class="aut">
+by Stephen Longstreet
+</p>
+
+<p class="cb">
+A bold, earthy story of the
+girls who work the fields
+under the California sun, by
+the author of THE CRIME,
+THE PEDLOCKS, etc.
+</p>
+
+<p class="price">
+ONLY 35¢
+</p>
+
+<p class="gm">
+GM #S1068
+</p>
+
+<p class="gm">
+Gold Medal Books are available<br>
+wherever paperbacks are sold.
+</p>
+
+<p class="dealer">
+If your dealer is sold out, send 35¢ plus 10¢ for postage and handling
+to Gold Medal Books, Fawcett Publications, Inc., Greenwich, Conn.
+If order is for five or more books, no postage or handling charge is
+necessary. Order by number and title. No Canadian orders.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="ads chapter">
+<p class="hdr">
+AN EXPLOSIVE NOVEL<br>
+A POWERFUL MOTION PICTURE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was as lush as the countryside, as
+fertile and as hard to tame. She was
+a sharecropper’s daughter, and at a
+ripe eighteen she’d already put a price
+on herself.
+</p>
+
+<div class="centerpic medal">
+<img src="images/medal.jpg" alt=""></div>
+
+<p class="book">
+Desire in the Dust
+</p>
+
+<p class="aut">
+by Harry Whittington
+</p>
+
+<p class="cb">
+And now Harry Whittington’s best-selling
+story of backwoods passion has been brought
+to the screen in the big new CinemaScope
+picture starring Raymond Burr and Martha
+Hyer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="price">
+ONLY 25¢
+</p>
+
+<p class="gm">
+GM #1050
+</p>
+
+<p class="sale">
+ON SALE NOW WHEREVER PAPERBACKS ARE SOLD
+</p>
+
+<p class="dealer">
+If your dealer is sold out, send 25¢ plus 10¢ for postage and handling
+to Gold Medal Books, Fawcett Publications, Inc., Greenwich, Conn. If
+order is for five or more books, no postage or handling charge is
+necessary. Order by number and title. No Canadian orders.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<div class="centerpic">
+<img src="images/backcover.jpg" alt=""></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="trnote chapter">
+<p class="transnote">
+Transcriber’s Notes
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The original spelling was mostly preserved.
+A few obvious typographical and punctuation errors as well as variations in hyphenation
+were silently amended.
+All other changes are shown here (before/after):
+</p>
+
+
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>
+...  huge picture window looking out on Lake Michigan. Sunny ...<br>
+... <a href="#corr-2"><span class="underline">a</span></a> huge picture window looking out on Lake Michigan. Sunny ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... “<span class="underline">You</span> rather have the baby than me, is that it?” he said ...<br>
+... “<a href="#corr-4"><span class="underline">You’d</span></a> rather have the baby than me, is that it?” he said ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... <span class="underline">and</span> earful of Page’s escapades over the years and never ...<br>
+... <a href="#corr-5"><span class="underline">an</span></a> earful of Page’s escapades over the years and never ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... “Am <span class="underline">it</span> talking as if I didn’t?” ...<br>
+... “Am <a href="#corr-7"><span class="underline">I</span></a> talking as if I didn’t?” ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... restrained at first, but Laura’s warmth and concern <span class="underline">shined</span> ...<br>
+... restrained at first, but Laura’s warmth and concern <a href="#corr-9"><span class="underline">shone</span></a> ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... him because he’s damn fairy!” ...<br>
+... him because he’s <a href="#corr-11"><span class="underline">a</span></a> damn fairy!” ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... he ushered Page inside ahead of him, <span class="underline">talking</span> off his hat ...<br>
+... he ushered Page inside ahead of him, <a href="#corr-15"><span class="underline">taking</span></a> off his hat ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... thumping the rear fender as he shoved to his feet. “Before ...<br>
+... thumping the rear fender as he shoved <a href="#corr-19"><span class="underline">himself</span></a> to his feet. “Before ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... He shook his head, <span class="underline">talking</span> her in his arms. She half-collapsed ...<br>
+... He shook his head, <a href="#corr-22"><span class="underline">taking</span></a> her in his arms. She half-collapsed ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... underneath it, till we’ve got more <span class="underline">share</span> here,” he said. ...<br>
+... underneath it, till we’ve got more <a href="#corr-23"><span class="underline">shade</span></a> here,” he said. ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... “You still think you’re going to tell them you are?” ...<br>
+... “You still think you’re going to tell them <a href="#corr-27"><span class="underline">who</span></a> you are?” ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... “You know what about,” Jack simply. “I wouldn’t ...<br>
+... “You know what about,” Jack <a href="#corr-29"><span class="underline">said</span></a> simply. “I wouldn’t ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... <span class="underline">Vin Packer</span> ...<br>
+... <a href="#corr-30"><span class="underline">Ann Bannon</span></a> ...<br>
+</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78780 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/78780-h/images/backcover.jpg b/78780-h/images/backcover.jpg
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diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
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+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78780
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78780)
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