"What do they think I'm going to do?" he burst out. "Go on letting them play with me? Oh, you haven't been there, you haven't seen. They're like kids with a new toy! A shrinking man, Godawmighty, a shrinking man! It makes their damn eyes light up. All they're interested in is my 'incredible catabolism.' "

"What difference does it make?" she asked. "They're still some of the best doctors in the country."

"And some of the most expensive," he countered. "If they're so damned fascinated, why didn't they offer to give me the tests free? I even asked one of them about it. You'd've thought I was insulting his mother's virtue."

She didn't say anything. Her chest rose and fell with disturbed breath.

"I'm tired of being tested," he went on, not wanting to sink into the comfortless isolation of silence again. "I'm tired of basal-metabolism tests and protein-bound tests; tired of drinking radioactive iodine and barium powdered water; tired of X rays and blood cultures and Geiger counters on my throat and having my temperature taken a million times a day. You haven't been through it; you don't know. It's like a, an inquisition. And what the hell's the point? They haven't found a thing. Not a thing! And they never will. And I can't see owing them thousands of dollars for nothing!"

He fell back against the seat and closed his eyes. Fury was unsatisfying when it was levelled against an undeserving subject. But it would not disappear for all that. It burned like a flame inside him.

"They weren't finished, Scott."

"The bills don't matter to you," he said.

"You matter to me," she answered.

"And who's the 'security' bug in this marriage, anyway?" he asked.

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it? What brought us here from California in the first place? Me? Because I decided I just had to go into business with Marty? I was happy out there. I didn't-" He drew in a shaking breath and let it empty from his lungs. "Forget it," he said. "I'm sorry, I apologize. But I'm not going back."

"You're angry and hurt, Scott. That's why you won't go back."

"I won't go back because it's pointless!" he shouted.

They drove in silence for a few minutes. Then she said, "Scott, do you really believe I'd hold my own security above your health?"

He didn't answer.

"Do you?"

"Why talk about it?" he said.

The next morning, Saturday, he received the sheaf of application papers from the life insurance company and tore them into pieces and threw the pieces into the wastebasket. Then he went for a long, miserable walk. And while he was out he thought about God creating heaven and earth in seven days.

He was shrinking a seventh of an inch a day.

* * *