The first day I went back to work, after that wonderful week in Florida with Ray, Walter told me to meet him in his apartment that afternoon instead of going home at five-thirty. I cried and tried my best to make him understand that I was in love with Ray and did not want to be unfaithful. I was so upset I didn’t know what to do. At first, Walter laughed at me and joked about my concern. After that, when I kept on begging him to let me go, he became very angry and said he would tell Ray we had been lovers for two years if I did not do as he wanted me to do. Maybe I should’ve told him to go ahead and tell Ray anything he wanted to, and then maybe everything would have been different after that. Probably that would have been the wisest thing to do. Or maybe I should have told Ray that I had been intimate with Walter. I think Ray would have forgiven me at that time, because we were so much in love and it seemed like there would never be an end to our honeymoon. In either case, I could have given up my job in Walter’s office and found work somewhere else. But I was afraid of Walter Greenway. I was afraid of what might happen if I refused to go to his apartment with him, and so at five-thirty I went up to the third floor instead of going home to Ray.
Walter made gin fizzes and we sat there looking at each other for a long time. It was summer then, and warm, and occasionally a languid breeze from the Gulf passed through the open windows. I was thinking of Ray and the little house we’d rented. I could see him waiting at home for me and I knew how hurt he would be if he knew where I was and the reason for my being there. I couldn’t hold back the tears after that.
“There’s no use taking on like that, honey,” Walter said after a while. He sat down beside me and put his arms around me and kissed me. I wanted to resist him and drive him away from me, but I knew how useless it would be to try. He was accustomed to having his way with me at will, and I could tell how determined he was then to continue making love to me. By that time I was so weak and limp with fear and unhappiness that I was completely helpless. When I opened my eyes at last, it was growing dark everywhere, and after that I lay there sobbing for a long time. Later, I heard Walter say, “You’re going to feel a lot better about this now, honey. You’re not the kind of girl who’d want to put an end to all we have. We’ve known each other too long for that to happen now. This can go on forever, and you know it, don’t you?”
“I don’t know... I don’t know!” I cried. “All I know is that I want to go — please let me go, Walter!”
“You’re excited now, honey. Just be calm, and you’ll feel a lot better.”
“I’m going to tell Ray — I’m going to tell him everything as soon as I get home!”
“If you do, it’ll be the last time he’ll be around to listen to you. You’d better think about that.”
I could feel myself trembling all over.
“Oh, dear God!” I cried weakly.
Walter left me and went to the other side of the room.
“I’m going to make some more gin fizzes,” I heard him say. “That’ll help.”
When I got home at ten o’clock that night, I wanted to tell Ray everything that had happened and beg him to forgive me and help me. He saw at once how upset I was, and he tried to get me to tell him what the reason was for my being like that. He took me into his arms and held me tightly, but even when I clung to him I still couldn’t bring myself to tell him. Every time I remembered the threat that Walter had made I was afraid something terrible might happen to Ray. I knew Walter once had killed a man in an argument about a woman, and I was afraid something might happen to Ray now.
That’s why I didn’t tell Ray that time, or the next time I was with Walter. And so for two years I’ve continued going to Walter’s apartment every time he’s told me he wanted me to go. That has happened at least once a week, sometimes two or three times a week. Ray believes I work late at the office those nights, and I don’t think he has ever suspected the reason why I come home late so often.
Ray has never stopped talking about our having a child since we were married two years ago, and I’ve waited all this time, hoping every day that Walter would let me go. Ray has been promoted to assistant manager of his office now, and he’s earning three times the salary he was getting when we were married. Several times lately he’s said he thinks it’s time for me to stop working. Night after night, lying awake in the darkness beside Ray, I’ve hoped and prayed that Walter would find somebody else he wants more than me. But it’s been the same week after week, and he still says I’m the most desirable woman he knows, and now I’m pregnant and I’m not sure whose child I’m carrying. I love Ray too much to let him think he was the father of a child when I could never be certain if he or Walter is the father. As long as I lived, no matter how much I loved the child I gave birth to, I’d be miserable and unhappy for Ray’s sake.
It’s too late now to beg Walter again to let me leave my job and stop seeing him, because even if he did let me go, I would still never know whether he or Ray was the father of the child.
I can’t tell Ray now, and ask him to forgive me, because even if he did forgive me, we would still be living in that awful uncertainty. I wish now I had told Ray about Walter two years ago. I should have told him everything that day I went back to work after our honeymoon — I should’ve told him even before that. That’s what I ought to have done. But it’s too late now — oh, so late.
I’m suffering for what I’ve done, and now that the baby is on the way, I can’t endure this torture another day.
There’s only one thing left for me to do. I just can’t live any longer. I’ve got to go ahead and do what I’ve decided. I couldn’t endure waking up in the morning one more time and having this terrible feeling for even one more day. It’ll be better for everybody, too. It’ll be better for Ray.
There may be other ways, but I can’t think of any now. I’ve thought and thought until my mind refuses to be a mind any longer. I’ve got to go ahead and do what I’ve decided to do.
... My name was Amelie.
The Drifter
by Robert S. Swenson
The truck was late, so Pete and Joe had nothing to do but sit around and wait. That was why the trouble started.
Joe Morelli and Pete Lane sat on the steps of the general store. It was hot, the way New England can get in late September. The men had taken off their jackets and piled them on the two battered suitcases that were set behind them on the porch of the store. They both wore white shirts, open at the collar, with the sleeves rolled up.
They were drifters, both about thirty-five, and, having worked the summer as dairy hands on one of the neighboring farms, they were on their way now to spend the winter in Florida. They had been promised a ride to New York in a truck, and their ride was over an hour late. It was a fact that irritated Pete Lane a great deal and Joe Morelli not at all.
Occasionally a car came drifting through the town on the narrow, twisting highway, and until a broad, low, mongrel beagle trotted around the corner of the building, it was the only movement in the town.
When the dog saw the two men he changed his course abruptly and came over to sniff the end of Pete Lane’s shoe. Pete watched the dog for about three seconds and then he shot his foot out and kicked the dog in the face. The dog gave a sharp yelp and pulled back quickly. He stared at Pete in a much bewildered way, and then he trotted off, licking the end of his nose.
“What a dull, rotten, filthy town this is,” Pete said. He took out a soiled handkerchief and mopped his face with it, and then he resettled himself against the square supporting post of the porch. He lit up a cigarette and blew out a thin cloud of smoke and, as he did, he looked up the highway, listening and watching for the long overdue transportation. At that moment a man came into sight around the bend of the road.