Before they married, she and Morton had the Conversation. An astute reader of human nature, he had been the one to bring it up. He was open to the idea, he said. More disinclined than inclined, but open. He was not young; his life was established; marrying late, marrying at all, was bound to shake things up. That was good, he believed, at heart. If being married to her meant having a child with her, well, then he was willing to think about it.

She for her part had said truthfully, or at least truthfully at the time they spoke, that she never thought she would have children. Her own childhood had not been happy. Her mother had been unmaternal, self-absorbed, and severe. And although she felt deeply loved by her father, and deeply loved him in return, he was not, in the end, a successful example of a parent either, since with his suicide he broke what she considered to be the fundamental pact you enter into when you have a child, which is that you will stick around as long as you possibly can to help your child live her life.