On those few occasions when she was able to catch him at work, Larry either ignored her outright or made it clear that he was too busy to be bothered. She thought it would be easy to tell him about the pregnancy but there was always someone else around whenever she tried to talk to him—he seemed to make sure of that. Then came the afternoon when he’d stopped by the store for his check and found her waiting for him when he got back to his car.

“Ain’t this supposed to be your day off?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“Well, hey, y’know, I want to see you, too, but I’m kinda busy right now. Gotta get to the bank and—”

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

“‘Cause I don’t want everybody here knowing my business, that’s why. They see us talking, just by ourselves, and they’re gonna start thinking that maybe you and me got something going on.”

“Something going on? You fucked me, Larry. It was the first time I’d ever been with a man like that and you act like it was...was—”

“You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

“While it was happening, yes, but everything since has made it seem so—”

“—I don’t need this shit from you, not today. You got something to tell me, then just say it, please?”

It was the “please” that did it, that should’ve said nothing at all but told her everything she needed to know, because when he said it a corner of his mouth twitched, curving slightly upward, a smile-in-progress abandoned at the halfway point, the syllables rising half an octave in pitch before they tripped over something caught in his throat and he coughed a false cough, looking down at his feet, and in that moment, because of those simple, telltale signs, Lucy knew it was hopeless, and saw in a flash what would happen if she were to tell him: he would start by denying that the baby was his, might even demand a blood test; then, when confronted with the truth, he’d try to defend himself by saying she’d wanted it just as much as he had, maybe even accuse her of having initiated the sex, and if the question of birth control came up he could always get Jim and Wanda to say that he’d wanted to put on a rubber but she’d been too hot to trot and how could she do this to him; even if he were to surprise her and accept his share of responsibility, the terrified look in his eyes and the tightness of his face told her he’d be an awful father, ignoring the kid, maybe even abusing it because it was the child’s fault his youth came to a screeching halt just when it should have been gaining momentum, he’d hate the kid, he’d hate her, and she might even wind up hating herself worse than she did right now—God, how could she have been so stupid? To get involved with a guy who used his cock like a divining rod to guide him from one pussy to the next, doing whatever it took, saying whatever words were necessary to get the panties down and the legs spread wide—