The circles under his eyes came in for a good deal of comment, and he was still receiving congratulations — and feeling some pleasure that at least there was another topic of conversation for the staff besides Cox’s death — when nine o’clock arrived. His patient was tense, this morning, in response to God only knew what inward pressures, and he felt a little sorry, considering his own weariness, that he had not canceled. Still, here she was, and they had better make the most of it.
He had not been wrong. It was a rough session; one of the roughest he had ever taken part in with her. Partly, he supposed, because of his own weariness; partly because of something she caught from him and then transferred back again. But she spent nearly all of the fifty minutes berating him, in a high, unnatural childlike voice, not running over with violence but under a strange and defeating control. In a diminishing order of precedence she took apart his personal idiosyncrasies, his supposed crimes against her person, and the furnishings of his small room.
She disliked what she regarded as the disorder; she disapproved of the pictures for their preponderance of sea themes and she complained about the reading matter. A lot of it, of course, was repetition and embroidery from before. But he was noting the peculiar intensity of the attack, (she had complained, too, that his automatic pen was noisy and distracting) when there was a laden pause.
He paused, also, his pen waiting above the notebook and his mind alert to something coming. Then, her voice not changing but growing wary all the same, said with considerable scorn, “Psychiatrists. The whole breed of you.” When he failed to answer the baited contempt there was another pause and then she rushed on, “If I were your wife I’d kill you.” And when he failed to answer that, repeated, “Did you hear me? I said if I were married to you, I’d murder you.”
His pen, which had stopped, moved on, and he thought, of course. The wish — and went on writing. But another part of his mind, suddenly awake, walked off and stood thinking, thinking.
She left, finally and tearfully, after his firm, “Tomorrow morning, then,” and Craig walked back to his desk. He was sweating and vaguely excited. He thought for a moment, and then called Miss Cadbury.
“Martha? Dr. Craig. Be a good girl and cancel my other hours for today, won’t you? Yes, yes. Thank you very much. Yes, we’re delighted to have a boy. Yes, she’s fine. Thank you.”
He sighed, and put his head in his hands for a moment. Then he went to the washroom, doused his face in cold water and straightened his tie.
V
On the maternity floor at University, Dr. Craig paused. By turning right, he could see Marianne, see the baby, have a restful interval before the thing he knew he must do. Paused only for a moment, however; and then turned left.
Vicki Cox was lying in bed, in a room which had been heavily darkened against the expressed orders of the charge nurse. Her eyes were swollen indecently, her face puffed and her whole manner a strange combination of bitter grief and angry resentment. When she recognized Craig she began to weep again, noisily.
He sat beside the bed, waiting for her to stop. Then, “I’m sorry, Vicki. How are you feeling?”
“Terrible. Terrible,” she sobbed. “How could this awful thing happen to me? What’s the matter down there, that they can’t control the patients? Don’t you have any supervision? This is an awful thing.”
“Yes, it is,” he said in tight control. “Where are the children, Vicki?”
She looked at him, arrested for a moment from her orgy of weeping. “With my mother. We sent them up a week ago; when I found out I was going to... going to...” she couldn’t go on, and buried her face in a corner of the sheet.
“Yes, yes, I know.” He looked down at the tips of his shoes, considering, and then without looking up he said quietly in the best therapeutic voice he had, “Why did you do it, Vicki?” and when she did not answer, still without looking at her, “Because he asked for a divorce?”
For a terrible minute she laughed. He couldn’t help looking up then, startled at the outburst. She lay with her head back on the pillow, as out of control as before, but in a different way. Then she stopped abruptly, and gave him a hostile, scornful stare.
“Divorce? Al Cox would never have divorced me. He knew that, even when he asked me for it. The only person who didn’t know it was Kay Ballard, the little fool. No matter what any other woman had, or could give him, he owed me too much to go through with any divorce. He hated me, Dr. Craig. But he never would have been able to forget those rotten poverty-stricken years I spent with him, in filthy little apartments, pregnant all the time. Keeping the kids quiet so he could study; taking the kids out to a park so he could cram for exams. Eating wheat germ and two-day-old bread so he could pay his fees. If I had given him a divorce he wouldn’t have taken it. He couldn’t. Too much guilt on his conscience.”
She stopped, and Craig forbore to reply. Then, she went on, in a low, singsong voice that was more frightening than either her weeping or her laughter, “No, it wasn’t the divorce. We’d stop talking about that three days before. It was about — me. He hated the way I took my pregnancy. He hated the way I cried all the time. He hated the way the apartment looked. He hated the fact that I never entertained, like the other doctors’ wives. He hated the fact the kids always had buttons off and wore unmatched socks. He hated the way I cooked, and finally, that morning, he stood up to cut himself a slice of bread, and yelled because the knife wouldn’t cut. He said we never had anything that worked in the house, not even a decent knife. And he stomped out.”
She stopped, looked at Craig under dark lashes, and as he settled into silence went on: “I felt pretty bad. This was what you might call a normal enough morning, for us. It’s been that way, I don’t know, seven or eight years now. But when he left I didn’t have anything to do. I piled up the breakfast dishes. I missed the kids. Funny. If they’d been there I’d have taken it out on them, but they weren’t and I missed them.
“I went out. Oh, sometime, I don’t know — maybe ten or eleven o’clock. I felt mad about the things he’d said. But I wanted to prove he was wrong, some way. I wandered down to Sears. Bought some curtains. Bought a cushion for the couch. I don’t know, random things, sort of. And bought a butcher knife. A new, shiny knife with a sharp edge.”
This time Craig ventured, softly, “And?”
“And I came down here to see him; to talk to him. No; no. First I went to a movie some place. And stopped and got some coffee. I felt light-headed. And then, I knew he had duty that night. But I thought I’d try to catch him after he finished supper. I came down and walked in, the back way. Nobody saw me. I had my bag in my arm. Al’s office was open, and I went in. I knew he’d come back there before he went on duty, to smoke or to make a call. And when he came in there I was.
“I came down to make peace with him. That’s funny, isn’t it? But we got to quarreling again. Finally he said he had to get to work, and walked out. I followed him down to the underground corridor. He was on his way to the other building. I didn’t mean to follow him. I knew how mad it would make him. But I’d started to cry again. And finally he turned around and sneered, ‘Go away, go away, will you? Why don’t you try talking to me some time when you aren’t crying?’ ”