Consumed by guilt and desire, he would lie awake reading, or get up again and go in and watch the TV in the family room. Carson's parade of guests touting movies and TV shows. Letterman dropping things off buildings and putting on fake bus company ads by Larry "Bud" Melman and sometimes still the guy who lived under the seats. Then flipping around the cable channels, watching two or three bad movies at once, back and forth whenever he couldn't stand how boring or stupid one of them got. And then it was three in the morning and he knew he had to get up and finally, finally he was sleepy, maybe a little sleepy, and then he realized that he had been very sleepy for quite a while, that he had even dozed off in front of the set and now he knew that he hadn't been watching TV because he couldn't sleep, he had been watching TV because he didn't want to sleep, because he was afraid to sleep, and he'd go in to the kids' rooms where they slept with the lights on because they were so scared of the dark and he watched them lying there, Betsy alone in her room with the crib set up across from her, waiting for the new baby, her blond hair spilling across the pillow; Robbie in the bottom bunk in the boys' room, his covers always in knots because he flailed around so in his sleep; Stevie, quiet in the top bunk, his face so beautiful in repose; and Step would stand there at three in the morning, barely awake, feeling like he was in a walking dream, and he'd look at the kids and his heart would break.
Then he'd go to bed, getting in gently so that DeAnne wouldn't wake up; she usually stirred, but rarely did she wake-did she even know how late he stayed up at night? Three o'clock, three- thirty sometimes, sometimes four, and then he'd wake up with his alarm at seven-thirty or eight or eight-thirty and stagger into the shower and get ready for another day, thinking, It's all right if I'm late, it's all right if I take a long lunch, because I have to put in so much overtime at night.
DeAnne asked him once: If you got up and went to work on time, couldn't you get your work done and come home at five? If I packed a lunch, couldn't you take shorter lunc h hours and come home when it's still daylight and you can maybe take a walk with the kids while I fix dinner? And he'd say, I'll try, and maybe the next day he would get up earlier and get to work on time, but then he'd be so tired that he'd drag around all day and hardly get anything done and the deadlines were still looming, weren't they? And most of the programmers were working past five, so they needed him to stay late to fix this or look at that, and so even after getting up early he'd still not get home till seven and dinner was already over and DeAnne would say, "I need the car tomorrow," and he'd say, "Fine, take me to work and I'll catch a ride home with one of the guys," and that would be the end of another experiment in trying to turn himself into an eight-to- five kind of guy.
Those were the days of Step Fletcher, and he hated his life and his job even though he loved his family and his work.
In April they were launching three new games and the Scribe 64 update at the Computer Faire in San Francisco at the Cow Palace, and Ray and Dicky and the marketing people decided they wanted to bring along Step and Glass so that there'd be somebody there who actually knew how the programs worked.
The flight was at two-thirty Friday afternoon, so Step went home at lunch to pack and say good-bye to Robbie and Betsy and DeAnne. Even though Step had authored a top computer game, nobody had ever flown him to one of these computer shows before, and he was nervous and excited. DeAnne wasn't all that excited-it meant a Sunday without him there, getting the kids ready for church on time and then handling them through sacrament meeting. And, as she said to him, "I get lonely when you're not here."
"I'm not here even when I'm here," he said.
"But you are here," she said. "I mean, I know you're coming home. And I sleep better when you're in the house with me."
"I'll be back Sunday night."
"I know," she said. "Knowing that is what will keep me alive over the weekend."
He was horrified. "What are you saying?"
She looked baffled. "What do you mean?"
"You're not feeling suicidal or something, are you?'
"No," she said, outraged at the suggestion. And then: "Oh, Step, I didn't mean that I was thinking of killing myself, for heaven's sake. I was trying to be romantic. I was trying to say that I live for you."
He felt stupid. "Of course. I don't know what I was thinking of."
"Probably wishing you could get a new wife who didn't have this big belly."
"You ain't got nothin' in your belly that I didn't put there," he said. "Besides, I'm the one who's getting fat.
And after nine months of putting on weight, I don't get a prize at the end."
"July 28th," she said. "The hottest part of summer. I can't wait to be carrying around ninety pounds of baby in the summer."
"I'll miss you," he said.
"I'll miss you, too, Junk Man." She wrapped herself around him, melted into him the way she did when she wanted to make love, only he had to go and catch the damn plane, why did she suddenly get romantic now, when there was no time, no way to do anything about it?
"What are you trying to do, make me late?"
"Yes," she said.
"Come on out to the car, Fish Lady, and take me to the airport. We'll take care of unfinished business when I get back."
"You are no fun," she said.
"Yeah, well."
"Our best times were always during the day," she said.
He remembered now that it was true. When he worked at home he also slept a weird schedule, different from hers, with a lot of all- nighters at the computer, either programming or writing on his dissertation. Then he'd get up in the morning, go to class or go out riding, and when he got home and showered there she'd be, waiting for him as he came naked into the bedroom.
That was how this new one got conceived, only that day she hadn't even been waiting fo r him, she'd been sitting on the edge of the bed, talking on the phone. It took only a moment of hearing her say "Mm-hm" and "Of course" and "You poor thing" for Step to realize that she was talking to Sister Boompjes, who was always good for an hour of misery. Not serious misery, not anything that anyone could do anything about; she just needed to make sure that someone knew she was alive, and since her arthritis and her lack of mail and the nasty neighbor children were the only events in her life, that was what she talked about. As DeAnne had said more than once before, for Sister Boompjes's rosary of woes to have a therapeutic effect, someone had to be on the other end of the phone, but it didn't take her full attention.
So while DeAnne was murmuring encouragement to Sister Boompjes, Step methodically removed her clothing. DeAnne's only protest was to roll her eyes-she appreciates the distraction, Step concluded, and so he went ahead. DeAnne never ceased in her sweet reassurances to this lonely sister, even as her husband eased her back on the bed and gave her a slow, thorough workout. DeAnne was usually a little noisy when things went well for her, but she managed to get all the way through without making a sound except for breathing very, very heavily, and of course she had covered the mouthpiece of the phone to conceal that from dear Sister Boompjes, so that the woman got the audience she wanted while DeAnne got laid.
The only real consequence was that DeAnne, having been on the phone, had not prepared herself with contraceptive foam, and sure enough, within a week she was nauseated and two weeks later she didn't have her clockwork period. Tie joke between them was that every time they had unprotected sex they got a pregnancy, and once again it held true. This would be either baby number four or miscarriage number three, all because he got randy while DeAnne was on the phone. They thought of naming the child after Sister Boompjes if it was a girl, but then they decided that no American child named Wilhelmina could live a normal life.
Daytime was their best time for sex, that was true. That had never occurred to either of them when they decided he needed to take a job, that having him gone every day would really foul up their sex life.