When I come back Tony is asleep and the boxes are exactly as I had left them. I go to bed but cannot sleep for a long time, thinking of Tony’s selfishness, of the experiment which has gone wrong, the baby. What if it is born with a deformity, what if it is the kind of child who cries all night or is sick constantly?

I get up in the morning, tired, with a nausea that stays with me all day ….

It is another day. A young, dark-haired woman knocks at my door. She introduces herself as Jane, and tells me that she lives in the house next to ours.

“I came to welcome you and also to invite you to a party on Saturday night.”

“Thank you, we’d love to come. I just have to check with my husband.” Between Tony and me the calendar is always full of appointments. “Is it all right if I let you know tomorrow?”

“Of course. You’ll meet some of the people in the neighborhood.” She looks toward her house expectantly. “I’d better dash now. I hope you can make it to the party.”

Their house, on the night of the party, is dark and smoky.

People have clustered in small groups and some are dancing in the center to loud music. The air smells of marijuana and food. I had been feeling nauseous all day and almost did not come. But showing up at social occasions is as important an obligation as work.

Jane comes over and introduces herself to Tony and then takes us around to meet her husband and the other guests. She is wearing a black dress with huge green poppies on it, which make her pale green eyes seem larger. She is prettier than I had thought at first. Her husband Rob is thin, tall, dark, and laconic, his voice heavy with boredom. In a way they are perfectly matched physically with their almost identical coloring, slow deliberate manner, and the insistent way they look into people’s eyes when they speak.

A little girl wearing a grown-up’s slip, rouge, and lipstick stands above the staircase., looking down.

“Is that your little girl?” Tony asks. “She looks like Jean Harlow.”

“She’s my wife’s child from her first marriage. But we hope she’s not going to be spoiled by all the comments about her looks. We would like her to grow up to be a serious person,” Rob says.

“It would be nice if you could control such things,” I say.

A tall, red-headed woman standing beside us, says, “I feel people with better genes should produce as many children as possible.”

Another woman, standing a step away, glances at her husband. “He may get the Nobel Prize. I have to keep the children out of the way, the house has to be constantly quiet.”

“I know, it’s hard to live with a brilliant man. What makes things even harder for me is that we’re in the same field.”