Assuming that a ticket on the windshield was as good as a parking permit, Peter continued his search. Running, his eyes filmed with sweat, he covered as much of the park as he could, as anyone could in an hour’s time; he looked everywhere. He could have sworn that several times he heard Delilah calling his name, though each time he stopped to listen there was only the wind and the troubled noise of his breathing.
When he returned to the cab, defeated by exhaustion, Delilah was awaiting him in the back seat as though she had never been gone. Peter drove off without a word, the ticket still on his windshield: it had his number, it clapped in the breeze. Any applause was better than none.
Delilah yawned, played with her golden hair. “Take me home,” she said in her mother’s voice.
He did, though it took a while, the traffic being much heavier at four-thirty, at times almost impassable.
Delilah hummed to herself in back; Peter banged on his horn whenever the traffic bogged down altogether. Occasionally, while humming, Delilah would tap her foot to another music — the dull buzz of impatience. For the duration of the trip it was their only communication (whose fault was it?). Enraged, he worried.
She left the cab without paying him, without offering to pay. And curiously, he didn’t mind: that was the kind of day it was. After another fare — two middle-aged men celebrating “our fifteenth wedding anniversary,” they told him — he called Dr. Henderson. And got his answering service.
“Do you want to leave a message for the doctor?” a woman’s musical voice asked. He wasn’t sure whether it was recorded or not. It was that kind of voice.
“I have no message for the doctor at this time,” he said, his own recording, and hung up, sweating with relief. Afterward he wondered why he had called. Why had he called? It was simple: he had, because … because … No answer admitted itself. After another fare he tried to call Lois and let the phone ring fifteen times before he gave up. At dinnertime he saw Lois in every fashionable restaurant he could look into, and even in some — especially those — he couldn’t. That was why, he told himself, his chest aching. Still, he wanted to believe, it was better knowing the worst than living forever in the chaos of doubt.
After two more fares, breaking even on the day (including the ticket), Peter turned in his cab and went home for dinner, himself precooked, ready to be eaten in his own sauce. And his in-laws, Mildred and Will, were there for the white meat.
On Friday; on Peter’s day off, they went together, Lois and Peter (and Herbie), to see Dr. Henderson. Herbie and Peter sat in the waiting room among Esquires, AMA Journals and Saturday Evening Posts while Lois was being examined inside.
“Take it easy,” Herbie kept saying, swatting his lap intermittently with a rolled-up Esquire, as Peter paced about the waiting room. “It’s only an examination she’s getting, kid.” To cheer his brother up, Herbie wore a huge smile, like a striped college tie. “Take it easy, huh?”
“I’m taking it easy,” Peter growled. “What the hell are you smiling about?”
Dr. Henderson came in, a large youngish man with thick horn-rimmed glasses, bearing a striking resemblance, so it seemed to Peter, to Clark Kent, Superman’s alter ego.
They followed the doctor in single file, Peter last, into a large office room with an extraordinary number of modern-looking machines, and beyond it to an even larger office which, though adequately equipped, seemed makeshift by comparison.
“Well,” the doctor said, rubbing his hands together, turning to Herbie. “You’re the prospective father, I presume?” Lois, who was sitting like a rag doll on the side of the examination table, continued to stare at the floor.
“No, I am,” Peter said in a loud voice, pushing his way in front of Herbie, startling the doctor, who stepped back as if Peter was about to attack him. Lois looked up, a smile at the corner of her mouth; she loved her husband at his worst.
Dr. Henderson nodded, readjusting his thick glasses. “Then may I ask who you are?” he said to Herbie, an edge of suspicion in his toneless voice.
“You ought to know,” Herbie said.
The doctor squinted behind his glasses. “Why is that?”
“Because,” Herbie said, smiling at Peter, nodding to Lois, “I was here before. Don’t you remember, Henderson? About ten months ago I brought a girl to see you.” He gave a pitilessly accurate description of Gloria, Peter hating him.
The doctor showed no sign of recognition. “What was her complaint?” he said, chewing on his lip as though it were edible.
Peter exchanged a sour glance with Lois, regret gnawing at him. They would have the child, he decided, a sudden lover of children; a brave man in his best dreams, he would bear it himself if necessary.
Herbie’s smile melted out of shape. “I think we better go,” he said to Lois, meaning Peter too. No one moved.
“Wait a minute,” the doctor said, his eyes like distant points of light behind the thick lens of his glasses. “It’s possible that I remember you.” Then, turning to Peter: “This girl is a little run-down,” he said in the resonance of his professional voice. “Not much, a little. Otherwise, to the best of my knowledge, everything is normal.”
“She’s my wife,” Peter said.
“Yes, that’s my understanding,” Dr. Henderson said in a voice so remote from the face that represented it that it seemed to be coming from a recording mechanism not quite synchronized. He glanced again at Herbie, scowled, then back at Peter. “Your wife’s almost three months along and she seems, aside from a vitamin deficiency, as I said, perfectly all right. You have no reason not to expect a normal baby.”
“Thank you,” Peter said, prepared to leave, glancing at Lois, who was staring at the floor again. “Lois …” Their relationship had become so fragile, he found it unnerving to talk to her, as if the slightest pressure of tension could cause an explosion between them.
“But Dr. Henderson,” Lois said in an unnaturally calm voice, which had the effect of startling them all, “we don’t want this normal child. That’s why we’re here.” She glared fiercely at Peter, who, as though he were driving his taxi, swerved out of her way.
As if to see more clearly, Dr. Henderson took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and put them back on. Sniffed. Then the doorbell rang, and with a ceremonious nod of apology he went out to answer it.
“It’ll be okay, don’t worry,” Herbie said. “He’s got to be careful, you understand. The jails are filled with guys like him.”
“Let’s go,” Peter whispered to Lois.
“No,” she hissed back.
“Don’t worry,” Herbie said, a reassuring smile for both of them.
“Keep out of it,” Peter said to Herbie. “Please let’s go,” he said to Lois. “We can talk about it when we get home.”
Lois shook her head.
“I said we’re going,” Peter said through his teeth, in a murderous mood.
Before Lois could answer, Dr. Henderson returned, glancing again at Herbie as he passed him. “Are you the friend of Ira Whimple?” he said.
Herbie nodded. “Ira was the one who suggested I come to see you the other time,” he said. “He doesn’t know anything about this.”
“I see,” the doctor said, permitting himself a small, private smile. Then to Peter, to the wall behind Peter’s head: “If you want to abort the fetus,” he said, “if that’s your intention, the third month is an apt time for it. The longer you wait, you understand, the more dangerous it becomes.” He removed his glasses. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”