Five days later, on the last day of her shift, Mary Walden wrote the address of her appointed father's hypoalter, Conrad Manz, with an indelible pencil on the skin just below her armpit. During the morning, her father and mother had spoiled the family rest day by quarreling. It was about Helen's hypoalter delaying so many shifts. Bill did not think it very important, but her mother was angry and threatened to complain to the Medicorps. The lunch was eaten in silence, except that at one point Bill said, "It seems to me Conrad and Clara Manz are guilty of a peculiar marriage, not us. Yet they seem perfectly happy with it and you're the one who is made unhappy. The woman has probably just developed a habit of taking too much sleeping compound for her rest day naps. Why don't you drop her a note?" Helen made only one remark. It was said through her teeth and very softly. "Bill, I would just as soon the child did not realize her relationship to this sordid situation." Mary cringed over the way Helen disregarded her hearing, the possibility that she might be capable of understanding, or her feelings about being shut out of their mutual world. After the lunch Mary cleared the table, throwing the remains of the meal and the plastiplates into the flash trash disposer. Her father had retreated to the library room and Helen was getting ready to attend a Citizen's Meeting. Mary heard her mother enter the room to say good-bye while she was wiping the dining table. She knew that Helen was standing, well-dressed and a little impatient, just behind her, but she pretended she did not know. "Darling, I'm leaving now for the Citizen's Meeting." "Oh ... yes." "Be a good girl and don't be late for your shift. You only have an hour now." Helen's patrician face smiled. "I won't be late." "Don't pay any attention to the things Bill and I discussed this morning, will you?" "No." And she was gone. She did not say good-bye to Bill. Mary was very conscious of her father in the house. He continued to sit in the library. She walked by the door and she could see him sitting in a chair, staring at the floor. Mary stood in the sun room for a long while. If he had risen from his chair, if he had rustled a page, if he had sighed, she would have heard him. It grew closer and closer to the time she would have to leave if Susan Shorrs was to catch the first school hours of her shift. Why did children have to shift half a day before adults? Finally, Mary thought of something to say. She could let him know she was old enough to understand what the quarrel had been about if only it were explained to her. Mary went into the library and hesitantly sat on the edge, of a couch near him. He did not look at her and his face seemed gray in the midday light. Then she knew that he was lonely, too. But a great feeling of tenderness for him went through her.