His right hand pulled back and clamped tensely on the knuckles of his left hand. He squeezed until it hurt. "Just let it go," he said. "Let it go."

"Honey, I'm not just saying it to be nice," she protested. "Don't you think I-"

"No, I don't!" he answered sharply. "And you don't either."

"Scott, I know you're hurt, but…"

"Please, forget it." His eyes were shut, and the words came softly, warningly through clenched teeth.

She was still. He breathed as though he were suffocating. The room was a crypt of futility to him.

"All right," she whispered then.

He bit his lower lip. He said. "Have you written your parents?"

"My parents?" He knew she was staring at him curiously.

"I think it might be wise," he said, holding his voice in careful check. He shrugged ineffectually. "Find out about staying with them. You know."

"I don't know, Scott."

"Well… don't you think it's a good idea to make some recognition of the facts?"

"Scott, what are you trying to do?"

He lowered his chin to hide the quick swallowing movement in his throat. "I'm trying," he said, "to plan some disposition of you and Beth in the event-"

"Disposition! What are we-"

"Will you stop interrupting me?"

"You said disposition! What are we, bric-a-brac to be disposed of?"

"I'm trying to be realistic about this!"

"You're trying to be cruel about it! Just because I didn't know that you-"

"Oh, stop it, stop it. I can see there's no point in trying to be realistic."

"All right, we'll be realistic," she said, face tense with repressed anger. "Are you suggesting that I leave you and take Beth with me? Is that your idea of being realistic?"

His hands twitched in his lap.

"And what if they don't find it?" he said. "What if they never find it?"

"You think I should leave you, then," she said.

"I think it might be a good idea," he said.

"Well, I don't!"

And she was crying, hands spread across her face, tears trickling out between the fingers. He sat there feeling numbed and helpless, looking at her trembling shoulders.

"I'm sorry, Lou," he said. He didn't sound it.

She couldn't answer; her throat and chest were too tight with breath shaking sobs.

"Lou. I…" He reached out a lifeless hand and put it on her leg. "Don't cry. I'm not worth that."

She shook her head as if at a great, unanswerable problem. She sniffed and brushed at her tears.

"Here," he muttered, handing her the handkerchief from his robe pocket. She took it without a word and pressed it against her wet cheeks.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he said. "It's me. I got angry because I felt foolish and stupid."

And now, he thought, he was inclined in the other direction, toward self-castigation, toward self-indulgent martyrdom. The mind troubled was capable of manifold inversions.