It made David more forbearing with a wife who could only intermittently desire him, and it was never a simple, joyful act as it had been before it was so clearly associated with birth and death. They were fallen creatures.

David wondered if all sexual love must be cast in such shadows. Perhaps it must if it was to survive. How could he speak with Mary about it except in the general platitudes he had already offered? Perhaps it was simply not his place to, but he mistrusted that idea. Like Laura, he increasingly felt he had taught his children too little that was useful to them in their adult lives.

David woke to sunrise and dressed in the cool, pale light of the winter morning, a troubled memory of his wife’s pain-defined face hurrying him out of that room whose ghost had waited for the light of day.

Patsy and Tyler were ready for breakfast. Christine was old enough to sleep the morning away, and, though her mother had left instructions that she was not allowed to do so, David ignored them. It would pass the time better for Christine than a morning of nervous fiddling. An afternoon’s waiting for her first date was long enough.

Tyler was off to play hockey. Patsy was meeting a friend to go skating down at Robson Square. So David was free to fool with windows, to oil doors. He enjoyed his chores. Here in the upper floors of the house rooms were filled with light. He might even, when he was done, try sitting to read a while.

Christine appeared just as David was contemplating lunch, her face still softly exhausted by sleep.

‘The longer I sleep, the more I want to,’ she said.

‘I know the feeling.’

‘Mom says, if I don’t look out, I can sleep my life away.’

‘That’s what your grandmother used to say to her.’

‘Mom never sleeps in,’ Christine said.

‘No, women usually don’t.’

‘I wish I could talk to Mom.’

‘Can’t you?’

‘No. She just gets mad.’

‘What about?’ David asked.

‘Oh, just about anything, you know, serious,’ Christine said, taking a bit of the sandwich David had made her.

They chewed for a moment in silence which David decided not to break.

‘Like sex and stuff like that,’ Christine said. ‘I told her the other day what my friend Julie said her mother told her, that once she started going out with boys, she ought to be on the pill. I didn’t mean I wanted to. I just wanted to discuss it. But Mom just went berserk!’

‘What do you think about the pill?’ David asked, the impropriety of his question so shocking to him that he felt unnaturally calm.

‘Well, for one thing it isn’t supposed to be very good for you,’ Christine said.

David nodded and tried to swallow a piece of sandwich that seemed to swell as he chewed it.