“Colette, a husband does not ‘knock up’ his wife. Let’s get the terms straight here. We’re still married.” A door opened down the hall and a middle-aged man looked out, a newspaper pinched in his fingers.

“Keep your voice down,” she told him.

Paul threw a look at the man, who backed in and closed his door. “What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, ‘I don’t know’? What’s the maternity rules for your job?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she said, slamming the door in his face and putting her back against it. She did not hear him walk away. Her name came through the wood and she closed her eyes. He called again, softly, “Colette Thibodeaux,” and she said to herself, “I don’t know.”

The next day, Colette was walking briskly though a suite of offices during the lunch hour, her mind buzzing, making plans, canceling them with the next thought. The building was nearly empty, most of the employees down the street eating, except for a few tellers up front. She clutched a Masonite clipboard against her right side, a new one with a shiny steel clamp at the top that she had just drawn out of supply. She wore a loose-fitting full skirt, a delicate material that floated at her knees. As she turned into her office door, Dirk stepped out and slid his hand up between her thighs. “Baby, he said to her opened mouth, “are you ready to be head of the trust department?” She did not think about what he said, just as she would not think about swatting a hornet that had landed on her sleeve. She brought the clipboard up with both hands and swung its edge at his face. Dirk let out a yowl and fell back against a desk, a long cut above his left eye. Colette felt her heart leap, and then words came to her.

“You slimy son of a bitch,” she yelled, raising the clipboard and swinging again, putting a dent in the top of his head.

Dirk put up an arm and yelled, “Help!” She dropped her hands and glared at him, wanting to hit him again, and then doing it, letting him have the board in a broadside pop. A teller walked in, froze, then turned and left slowly, as though she had seen nothing.

Dirk fished a handkerchief from his coat and held it to his eyebrow, which was pouring blood. He seemed about to cry, and then, to her amazement, he did. “It’s not that much of a hit,” she told him. “A man shouldn’t cry over a hurt like that.” An image of Etienne the giant came to mind, fighting roughnecks with his arm broken in two places.