she said, staring.
“Why not?”
“You can’t.”
“You don’t want me to?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Are you enjoying this?” she asked. Her face was white and she had forgotten to smoke the cigarette. It burned slowly up toward her fingers, the long gray ash precariously clinging.
I wanted to reach out and put my hands on her arms, to take hold of her, but her eyes held me away. I could see the battle going on behind them.
“You came down here to tell me to stay away, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“But I hadn’t said anything then. Before you came tonight.”
“Do you think I’m blind?” she said harshly. “Don’t you think I could see, there at the house?”
“Yes,” I said. “And you weren’t the only one who could see. There were two of us there.”
“Stop it!” she lashed at me.
I threw the cigarette in the fire. “Tell me,” I said I quietly. “Where is he?”
“He’s at the house.”
“He knows you’re here, doesn’t he?”
“No.”
“How could he help knowing it?”
The face was as white and still as smoke. “Because he’s drunk. He’s passed out.”
“You can’t go back—”
“Why not? I’m used to it.”
I leaned forward and took her wrist in my hand and lifted the cigarette from her fingers. “You’re going to burn yourself,” I said, and threw it in the fire. She pulled back on the arm and I could feel my fingers shaking as they tightened. She hit me with the other hand, across the mouth, and stood up with her face held together only by an effort of will, and I could hear the dry sound of the crying in her throat. “Listen,” I said. “Doris—” She jerked away from me and ran through the darkness toward the edge of the lake. Before I could get there I heard the splash as she went in, and when I got down to the edge of the water she was gone. I could hear her swimming away in the darkness.
Five
There was no use trying to sleep. I built up the fire enough to see by, packed everything and stowed it in the boat, and went out and picked up the trot line. It must have been around two o’clock when I started down the lake on the oars. After about five miles I could see light in the east, and when the darkness over the water had begun to wash out to the thin gray of early dawn I cranked the outboard. She’s back at the house, I thought, lying there beside a passed-out drunk, looking up at the oak shakes and waiting for another day to start.
I was back home by eight o’clock. Parking the old Ford and the boat trailer in the back yard, I went in through the back door, taking a long time to find the right key. Louise wouldn’t be back until the middle of next week. I noticed she had left the light on in the kitchen, and when I went into the bedroom her nightgown and robe were dangling from the back of a chair and the bed was unmade. I undressed and went into the bath. There were some pants and a pair of nylons hanging on the curtain rod in the shower. I grabbed them off and threw them in on the bed. After a hot shower and a shave, I dressed and went out in the kitchen, remembering I hadn’t had any breakfast. There were some unwashed dishes in the sink, and I couldn’t find any orange juice in the refrigerator. The hell with it, I thought. I’ll eat in town. I got a bottle of whisky out of the cupboard and poured myself a big stiff drink for a bracer because I hadn’t had any sleep.
I sat down at the kitchen table as I drank it, trying to put her out of my mind. I’ve got to stay away from there, I thought. Somehow I’ve got to do it…There’s no way out of a thing like that. Without any way that I could stop it, my mind was thinking, this is Saturday. There’s Sunday, and Monday, and Monday night…I won’t go back, I thought. And then I could see the white, unhappy face and hear the dry sound of her crying.
I went out and backed the Olds out of the garage. Forty-five-fifty a month from now until the time we need a Cadillac, I thought. It was already hot in the square and the town was beginning to fill up with people coming in for Saturday. I parked