The next morning she did not want to go to his parents’ for Steffie. His mother wanted to know what had happened, and he told her that he had no explanation. She pressed him for one, but there was no plausible lie to fit, so he said nothing. There was a certain amount that she could guess, but the way he felt, he didn’t care.

That evening Richardson said that he could take a leave of absence if he wanted. Leland thanked him and said that he would think it over. It was pointless. In a year or two there would be the same thing all over again.

The next afternoon, Steffie went to the movies with a friend.

“Listen,” Karen said. “She wants to know what’s going on.”

“Tell her whatever you want. I trust your judgment.”

“Joe, I don’t want to start up again.”

“I don’t care what you want. As long as you have anything to do with him, you’re on your own. I didn’t tell my mother anything, but I’m sure that you won’t be able to use her again, at least until I say so. You can go out on my nights off, but the kid will see you and you’ll have to explain somehow. You can see him when she’s in school, of course, but it’s not so good in the daytime—”

She walked out of the room.

She told Steffie that she could no longer sleep on the folding couch. It was a flimsy story, but she could think of nothing better. The next week Jerry Palmer telephoned him at the station. He believed the lies Karen was telling. He wanted to know why Leland was willing to wreck her life, his own, and probably Steffie’s for something that could not work. Leland hung up on him.

There was nothing between Karen and him now. He did not want to talk to her. She tried going out on the nights he was home, but then abruptly quit. Once she said she was going to the movies alone. When she returned she threw an empty popcorn box on the couch beside him.

Without telling her, he spent his afternoons shopping for an airplane. In the middle of December he found a prewar J-3, a two-seater, in excellent condition but not much good for anything but sport. He bought it and told her about it afterward. He asked if she wanted to see it and she said no.

She came in early one afternoon while he was having breakfast. It was the week before Christmas.

“Is the coffee hot?”

“Help yourself.” By the stiffness in her face he knew that he had to wait until she worked around to what she wanted to tell him.

“Who knows about me at the Precinct?”

“Richardson.”

“You told him?”

“The night I saw you. I wanted to come home.”

“How did it feel?”