She returned to their bed. She had to lie again to Steffie, saying that there must have been something the matter with her back, and the girl seemed to believe it. Steffie was closer to her than him and really, now especially, he was glad. If Karen ever thought of Steffie learning of Palmer, she was not intimidated, and her husband had to wonder if it were not the girl’s confidence that kept Karen going. His own relationship with her was as taut as a wire.

In the late spring the School Board informed her that a job was open for the next year, and she ignored the letter. A month later, without previously speaking with him, she went looking for work downtown. He decided to see what was going to happen. She had trouble, but she did not tell him much about it. The first week in June, she started work as an assistant buyer in a department store. He was sick over it. It was a terrible job for her. It was a waste of her abilities.

It did not make her happy. It drained her emotionally; she resisted him more than before. The salary was ten dollars above what she would have made as a teacher but far below his salary as a detective lieutenant. There was no pooling of money as there had been the previous year; he paid the running expenses as he had been doing and she put most of her money into improvements in the apartment or clothing for Stephanie or herself. One evening he saw her making a list of the things she had bought. He had to keep still. Another night, he started to make love to her and she put him off.

The next night, when he kissed her, she would not open her mouth for him.

“What’s the matter tonight?”

“I don’t feel like it, that’s all.”

“Are you having trouble again?”

“No. No.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’m not in the mood. I just don’t feel like putting in the effort.” She reached for her cigarettes. “We’re beyond the honeymoon stage, anyway.”

“We’ll both decide that,” he said.

“Are you going to push me around again?”

“When have I pushed you around?”

“Oh, come on, Joe, I don’t want to fight. I don’t even want to talk. I want to be left alone. I’m doing all right.”

“The hell you are.”

“What does that mean?”

As clearly and calmly as he could, he tried to indicate his objections to her attitude toward him and the way she was handling herself with her money. The two of them were living lives that were proximate and parallel, but nothing more. In the darkness he could feel her growing angry.

“Do you want me to quit?” she asked at last.

He did, but he could not bring himself to say it.