“The last time I said I was trying to hurt the only family I ever had. This time I was able to convince myself that I could get away with it without hurting you and Steffie. I hurt you anyway. It didn’t matter whether the sex with him was satisfactory; the other thrill was there. It is a thrill, a deep, dirty thrill, and that’s what I did it for. I’m sorry now—involuntarily sorry, if you can understand that. It’s not like after the automobile accident, when I could close my eyes and see us heading toward that pole again. I’ve tried to keep my mind clear, just so I could be of some use to somebody—myself. But it’s as if I were getting physically sick. I feel it coming up inside me, a sick feeling.”

She was not saying that she would not do it again, and because she wasn’t he had to believe what she was saying. He wanted her to tell him when and if she felt it coming again, but even as helpless as he was, he could see that that was futile for them both as well as humiliating for her. The way she described it, in the beginning she would be safer and kinder in lying to him. As long as he was unwilling to explore his misgivings over the final meaning to or even the use of what they were going through, he had to take his chances.

Twice before the end of the month she called him at work to ask him to come home. The second time, he was out of the building and not expected for an hour, and she broke down. It frightened the man with whom she was speaking and Richardson heard the commotion. He cut in on his extension and she hung up. There was no controlling it now. In a week Captain Leland was asking Richardson if he knew anything about his son’s wife. Richardson played dumb. Some of the men Leland saw infrequently quit asking about his family. Leland had only Richardson’s word about what they knew. The reporter who asked about his private life during the Leikman case had gotten the story easily. By that third week in March she was doing better and most of his doubts were put aside. Her resistance to the jolts of everyday life was lower; she was quicker to say what displeased her. He could not tell if things were going to ease. She was trying. She was suffering with the effort she was making, even if it was largely misplaced. She was trying to be a good wife, which took no trying from her. He was waiting to hear her express some interest, even dreamy, of going to work again. She was at her best when she was working, and he was surprised that she did not know it herself.