"I guess you don't want me to stay for dinner now," Terry said, glancing at Laura. For answer she only turned away and began to cry. Terry walked over to Jack and knelt before him on the floor, putting his hands on Jack's shoulders. "I do love you, Jack. I never lied about that. I didn't know it was so bad. For you, I mean. I still don't see how it could have been. But I don't want to mess things up for the kid. Shall I go? You tell me." He waited, watching Jack's face.

"I told you to leave me once, Terry. I haven't the strength to say it again. It's up to you."

Terry leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. "If you haven't the strength to say it, I haven't the strength to do it. No matter what she says," he said.

Laura came at him suddenly from across the room. "Go!" she flashed. "Go, d.a.m.n you, and never come back!"

Terry looked uncertainly from Laura to Jack, and Jack covered his face abruptly with a noise rather like a sob.

Terry stood up. "All right," he said in a husky voice. "I'll go. I'll go for the baby's sake. But not forever, Laura, Not forever."

At the front door he turned to her. "You say you love him," he said. "Then you must understand why I can't leave him forever. I love him too." He said it sadly but matter of factly. And Laura, staring at him through tear-blurred eyes, realised that he never would understand what he had done to Jack or how. He thought it was a simple matter of giving a kid a break. And because he loved Jack enough he was able to do it.

"Enjoy your flowers," he said with a rueful grin, and then Terry went out the front door and shut it carefully behind him. Neither Jack nor Laura stirred nor made a sound until they heard the elevator arrive, the doors open, shut again, and the elevator leave.

"He's gone," she whispered. "Dear G.o.d, don't let him ever come back."

Jack rolled over, his back to her, and wept briefly and painfully with desperate longing. There was a moment of silence while she watched him fearfully. And then he stood up and headed for the door. Laura threw herself against it.

"No! Don't follow him, Jack!" she implored, her voice rising.

"I won't," he said, trying to reach past her to open the door, but she threw her arms around him and begged him to stay with her.

"I got him to leave, Jack. He won't dare come back for a long time. Maybe he'll find somebody new. Maybe we'll be lucky and he'll never come back."

"I should be so lucky," he said acidly. She looked at him, dismayed. "Isn't that what you wanted?" she asked.

He stopped trying to grab the doork.n.o.b for a minute to look at her. "Yes," he said, with effort. And after a pause, "You were masterful, Mother. You really played your scene."

She looked at the floor confusedly, hearing all the sarcasm and the hurt and the grudging admiration in his voice. "Do you hate me for it?" she asked.

"No. I'm grateful."

"Do you still love me?" she whispered. "Yes. But don't ask me to prove it now." He got the door open in a sudden deft gesture, but Laura was still clutching him.

"Where are you going?" she asked fearfully. "For a bottle."

"Oh, G.o.d!" she gasped. "Then it's all been for nothing," she said despairingly.

"No," he said. "I'm not drinking this for Terry. I'm drinking it for the baby."

"The baby?" she said tremulously.

"The little kid who wasn't there."

He turned to go and she followed him into the hall.

"But Jack" she protested as he rang for the elevator. "Jack, II" She looked up and saw the long bronze needle moving swiftly toward "three" as the elevator ascended, having barely emptied Terry into the first floor. It seemed to be measuring off the last seconds of their marriage. She had to do something. Trembling and scared, she caught his lapels and said, with great difficulty, "I meant it, Jack."

"Meant what?"

"About the baby."

He stared at her, one hand holding back the door of the just-arrived elevator.

"I'll have a baby," she said. "If you still want one."

For a while they stood in the dim little hall and gazed at each other. And then Jack let his hand slip from the elevator door and, circling her waist with his arm, led her back into the apartment.

"He'll be back, you know," he said, stopping to look at her.

"I know. But by that time he'll know we aren't kidding, she said, looking dubiously at her tight, flat stomach. "By that time you'll be strong again. And ready for him. You'll know he's coming and you'll be able to take it. It won't be like now."

He kissed her. "G.o.ddam it," he whispered, grateful and amazed. "I do love you."

CHAPTER 9.

THE DOCTOR'S WAITING ROOM was crowded, heavy with the eager boredom of people waiting to talk about themselves. It was the fourth doctor they had been to see within a week. Jack, as Laura might have expected, was in a hurry. But he had to find the right man, tooa man he genuinely liked. Not just any bone-picker was going to perform the wizardry to bring his child into being.

Laura had simply sat in red-faced silence through Jack's expositions of their supposed marital troubles, both unwilling and unable to contribute a word. And the whole thing had been lengthy and bewildering and not a little tiring.

But when they finally got into Dr. Belden's plush, paneled office, it went well. And she knew, suddenly paying attention to the words of the men, that it was going to be settled. And it was.

She answered the standard questions, her voice low with embarra.s.sment. They always bothered her excessively, like so many spiders crawling over her tender shame. Other girls might not mind, or even liked to yammer to doctors about their intimate selves, but not Laura.

Jack bolstered her up as they were leaving. "You were heroic, Mother," he a.s.sured her. "I know you hate ityes you do, don't lie," he added impatiently when she tried to protest. "It's all right, honey, it's all in a good cause."

"Don't call me honey."

"Why?"

"Terry calls everybody honey." She was in a grumpy mood; he saw it and let her be for a while. "When do I have to go back?" she asked as they rode home in a taxi "A week from Thursday." He looked at her somewhat anxiously as if wishing that Thursday had already come. "You won't change your mind, of course," he said to comfort himself. His voice was calm but his eyes were worried.

"No," she sighed. She looked at her gloved hands until his anxious gaze moved her to give him one and make him smile.

He looked strangely different, almost young. Jack had the kind of a face that must have made him look forty when he was twenty. In a sense it was an ageless face because it had hardly changed at all. Laura supposed that when he was sixty, he would still look forty. But for the few weeks after Terry disappeared it looked young. And Laura thought with an ache of how much of that was due to her. How much she had forced him to depend on her. She was deeply committed now. There was no retreating.

Laura saw Doctor Belden three days in a row, and it was unspeakably humiliating for her. But she endured it. By the time her appointment came due, she was too afraid for Jack not to go. But she prayed when she was alone, with big wild angry sobs, that the artificial insemination wouldn't work; that she was barren or Jack was sterile or the timing was off; any thing. And she felt a huge, breathtaking need for a woman that absolutely tortured her at night.

After her first examination with Belden she went out of the office to meet Jack and told him she was going to the Village.

"I don't know why I need to. I just do," she said.

"Sure, sweetheart," he said at last, standing facing her on the pavement outside the doctor's office. "Go. Only, come back."

"I will," she said, near tears, and turned and almost ran from him. She couldn't bear to touch him, and it was painful even to look at him.

It was mid-day in the Village and mothers walked their babies in the park. Laura hurried past them. Old ladies strolled about in the unusually warm weather, dogs barked, and a few hardy would-be artists had set up shop in the empty pool at the center of Washington Square. A small crowd of students had gathered to offer encouragement and argue.

Laura walked quickly through the park to Fourth Street, and then she turned and walked west, not sure why. On the other side of Sixth Avenue she stopped and found a drugstore and went in for coffee.

I can't see Tris, she told, herself, playing nervously with her hands. I won't see Beebo. Or rather, Beebo won't see me. That's for sure. She tried to think of anything but what she had just been through, but it didn't work. It never does.

Just so it's normal, she thought angrily. I won't hate it but I couldn't stand an abnormal child. G.o.d, I've got to talk to somebody, somebody who doesn't know, who'll put it out of my mind. She thought of Inga then, but she couldn't remember her last name and she wasn't too sure where the girl lived. She had been too drunk that night.

And then, for no apparent reason, she thought of Lili. Beautiful, brazen Lili. At least Lili would talk. Laura wouldn't have to open her mouth. Maybe it would be better that way. She wouldn't betray any secrets to Beebo's old lover about her marriage. But Lili would be only too happy to tell Laura what had gone on between Beebo and Tris if only to see her squirm, and Laura was burning to know.

She went to the phone booth at the back of the store and looked up Lili. She was still listed, still in the same apartment on Greenwich Avenue. It was late afternoon by the time Laura got there. Lili would just be getting out of bed, if she followed the same habits she used to have.

Laura felt very tired and reluctant when she finally found the right building and the right b.u.t.ton to press; afraid and a little ashamed. But she rang anyway, as if she had no will to stop herself. And when the answering ring came she went inside and walked up the stairs.

Lili, hanging over the bannister to see who was waking her up so early, saw her coming. Laura stopped on the first landing at her amazed, "Laura! Again! Are you a ghost?"

Laura gazed up, her long pale hair hanging defiantly free and her eyes blue-shadowed the way they were when she was tired or scared. Now she was a little of both.

"No, no ghost," she said.

"I don't believe you. But come in anyway. I have the most divine friend who's a Medium. Where the h.e.l.l have you been? I thought sure you'd come back, after you saw Beebo a couple of weeks ago." She watched Laura mount the stairs as she spoke and took her by the arm when Laura reached her. "You look worn out, poor lamb," she said. "I'll give you a drink. What do you want?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing!" It was an explosion, not a question. "G.o.d. Next you'll be telling me you've gone straight."

"I came to ask about Beebo," Laura said.

"Oh," said Lili knowledgeably. "I thought so." She went about fixing Laura and herself a drink in spite of Laura's objections. "Well, lamb, what about her?"

"Are she and Tris living together?"

"Mercy, who told you that?" Lili turned to stare at her.

"A friend of mine."

"Your friend lies. They aren't living together and they never did. Oh, Tris spent the night with her a few times. You know how it is." She laughed sociably, coming toward Laura with two filled gla.s.ses. "Here, lamb, I insist. It'll revive you. My doctor says"

"Tell me about Tris and Beebo."

"Well," Lili said, confidentially. "It was just an affair."

"What does that mean?" she said.

"It means when you can't get what you want you take what you can get," Lili said archly.

"They saw each other all the time. Beebo even had Tris going into the gay bars. I know this, Lili, don't hide it," Laura said.

"All right, all right," Lili said soothingly. 'Tris had to go to the gay bars to find Beebo, that's all. Beebo's never home. You know how she is. And she didn't chase Tris so Tris had to chase her."

Laura felt an ineffable lightening of the heart. Somehow, if it had to happen, that was the best way.

'Tris was nuts about her," Lili said juicily. "She came over when she got back from Long Island last summer ... without you, if you recall."

"I recall."

"Yes. Well! Beebo was pretty low. You may remember that, too." She looked at Laura sharply, and Laura looked at the floor and refused to answer. "Anyway, Tris fell into her arms and Beebo just caught her. I wish I could say that Beebo fell for her. I think it would have spared her some of the agony you inflicted on her." So now it was out in the open. Lili spoke dramatically, but it wasn't all playacting. She had loved Beebo once, and she didn't like to see her hurt as Laura had hurt her.

The two females eyed each other, wary but curious, each eager to know what the other could tell her. Lili was ready to hurt Laura to find out. She had seen what happened to Beebo when Laura left her, and it was shocking. Laura didn't know about it, and to Lili it seemed as if she was nothing but a spoiled, headstrong little b.i.t.c.h who didn't care whom she hurt ... a little like Lili herself ten years before, and that made Lili even more critical.

If Laura were told how hard Beebo had taken ithow intensely she had suffered and torched for hermaybe it would touch her and make her sorry. Lili enjoyed the idea of Laura on her knees to Beebo, and Beebo kicking her out. For she knew what Laura did notthat Beebo was a different girl now. And to Lili's way of thinking it meant that Beebo would never take Laura back.

So they were agreed, without having said a word about it, that Lili would talk and Laura would listen to her; Lili because she had to hurt and Laura because she had to know.

Lili lighted a cigarette and stuck it carefully into an ebony holder with a water filter, a rather bulky conversation piece. Everything she did was staged.

"I'm going to talk turkey to you, lamb," she informed her guest. "Now that I have you in my clutches." She smiled slightly, a warning smile.

'Talk," Laura said. "But I'd appreciate it if you'd spare me the sermon."

'"I'm sure you would." Lili gazed at her. "But, unfortunately, you need a sermon. Oh, just a little one, of course. I won't be crude about it."

Laura ignored her, picking up the drink she didn't think she wanted and sipping at it.

"Well," Lili began. "You almost killed her. I suppose you could have guessed that."

"I knew it would be hard for her," Laura said, "but not that bad." Her voice said she thought Lili was exaggerating, but in her heart she was afraid ... afraid it was true.

"It was bad enough to send her to the hospital with a stomachful of sleeping pills. I know. I took her over." She said this with her green eyes flaring and her voice low enough to make Laura strain a little to hear her.

"Oh, d.a.m.n it, Lili, don't make up a melodrama for me!" Laura cried.

"I thought I was stating it rather plainly. But I'll try again."

"Beebo wouldn't take sleeping pills!" Laura said contemptuously, and this she really believed. "It's not like her. It's tooI don't knowphony. It's more like something you'd do than Beebo."

"Luckily I'm not in love with you, pet," Lili countered. They glared at each other. "You don't know her at all, do you?" Lili went on. "You lived with her for more than two years, and you just don't know her at all."

"I know her better than anybody! What do you mean?"

"All right, lamb, we won't argue the point. Anyway, when she got back from the hospital she was terribly despondent. I kept telling her you'd come back. Everybody did. I didn't believe it, of course, but I was afraid if I told her you were gone for good she'd try something worse than sleeping pills."

"Did she drink awfully hard?"