“You don’t see it, do you,” he went on, a little more gently but still accusing. “We don’t have a marriage any more; you do, you and the baby, you’re a marriage and you and I don’t have anything. You hang over him as if he’s going to disappear if you’re not around. Well lady, I’m going to be the one that disappears, because there’s no future for me in this kind of arrangement. Let the kid grow up on his own a little. It’s not going to hurt him and if you don’t he’s going to turn out to be a freak.” A freak, my Elliott, I opened my mouth to argue, to protest, but again he didn’t let me.

“Obviously things are going to have to change, and obviously I’m going to have to be the one to force it. For a start, you and I are going to go out at least one night a week, just the two of us, and we’ll find a regular sitter. When Elliott starts to cry we’re going to leave him for a few minutes, to see if he stops the way he did tonight. I’m not suggesting we neglect him, but let’s try to keep things in perspective.”

I loathed him. I wouldn’t talk to him. But still it was almost a false anger, because I did not think he could be serious. No, I amend that. I knew he was serious, but I did not imagine that he could maintain this firmness. We had spent years together, and I had not seen him stubborn, holding out, fighting. There had been nothing until then, I suppose, worth fighting for. I did not realize that he was strong, and I thought that soon my anger would defeat him. It was in that way a false anger, magnified and conscious of manipulation, although there was a real rage there, too.

When we got home I ran next door. I barely spoke to Jeannie, sure that at some point in the evening she must have done some damage to my child.

He was fine. He was asleep when I got him, and he barely woke. There was nothing I could point to and say, “There, see, I knew we shouldn’t have left him.”

We went to bed in silence, Stephen stern and unyielding, me rigid and angry. In the morning it was the same, and after Stephen went to work I held Elliott and rocked him and promised I’d make sure nothing ever hurt him. I must have been holding him too tightly, for he began to cry and I had to walk the floor with him until he stopped.