Because it was not an emergency, it was two weeks before she could get an appointment with a gynecologist, who told her that she was about two months pregnant. During that two weeks she did not answer Paul’s messages, and the people working under her at the bank were scalded by her hottest words at the least provocation. On a Tuesday when she had come home from work, Paul was waiting for her in the hall. He saw how she looked at him, and he whistled.

“You mad, or what?” He put his hands into a new pair of tan slacks.

“Does it show?” She opened the door and stood in it, facing him.

“Is this about going to the forest again? Okay, I’ll go.”

“It’s not about the damned forest.”

He cocked his head at an angle. “What did I do now?”

“Oh, you did the big thing.”

“What?”

She put a hand over her eyes. “You knocked me up. You satisfied?”

He tried to touch her arms, but she backed up a step. “This is great,” he told her.

Colette looked at the beige carpet. “I’d like to know why it’s so great.”

“We can get together again.”

“Yeah. Because I’m pregnant. Everybody will say, ‘She had to go back to him.’ Even we’ll say that, down the line. That’s not a reason to be together.”

“I think it’s a damned good reason.”

She looked up at him and pushed her hair back over her shoulders. “If only you hadn’t gotten me drunk.”

He put up a hand like a cop. “Wait a minute. You the one who went after the tequila like a Mexican bandit.”

“You saw the condition I was in and took advantage of me,” she said.

Her words stung like wasps and he backed up into the hall. It was several moments before he could think of something to say. “You been reading too many of those women’s magazines.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I see ’em on your table there. Cosmopolitan and those others. You read those articles that say every time a man touches you, he drains you, like you’re a flashlight battery or something. That’s bullshit. I didn’t take advantage of you and you know it.” He punched the door frame and Colette saw the blood rise through his neck. “You probably missed a pill or something and won’t admit it.”

“Why would I miss a pill?” she shouted.

“Because the only reason you were taking them was that you were trying to keep from having cramps.” Now he was shouting. “It’s for damned sure you weren’t taking them to protect yourself from me.”

“That’s a fact. But you knocked me up anyway.”