After supper, he marked seventeen sets of papers desultorily in red pencil, then got up to look for the baby book. There were four dog-eared paperbound volumes with smiling infants' faces on the covers, but the one he wanted wasn't there. He looked behind the bookcase and on the wicker table beside it. "Moira!" "Hm?" "Where the devil is the other baby book?" "I've got it." Len went and looked over her shoulder. She was staring at a drawing of a fetus lying in a sort of upside-down Yoga position inside a cross-sectioned woman's body. "That's what he looks like," she said. "_Mama._" The diagram was of a fetus at term. "What was that about your mother?" Len asked, puzzled. "Don't be silly," she said abstractedly. He waited, but she didn't look up or turn the page. After a while, he went back to his work. He watched her. Eventually she leafed through to the back of the book, read a few pages, and put it down. She lighted a cigarette and immediately put it out again. She fetched up a belch. "That was a good one," said Len admiringly. Moira sighed. Feeling tense, Len picked up his coffee cup and started toward the kitchen. He halted beside Moira's chair. On the side table was her after-dinner cup, still full of coffee ... black, scummed with oil droplets, stone-cold. "Didn't you want your coffee?" he asked solicitously. She looked at the cup. "I did, but--" She paused and shook her head, looking perplexed. "Well, do you want another cup now?" "Yes, please. _No._" Len, who had begun a step, rocked back on his heels. "Which, damn it?" Her face got all swollen. "Oh, Len, I'm so mixed up," she said, and began to tremble. Len felt part of his irritation spilling over into protectiveness. "What you need," he said firmly, "is a drink." * * * * * He climbed a stepladder to get at the top cabinet shelf which cached their liquor when they had any. Small upstate towns and their school boards being what they were, this was one of many necessary financial precautions. Inspecting the doleful few fingers of whisky in the bottle, Len swore under his breath. They couldn't afford a decent supply of booze or new clothes for Moira. The original idea had been for Len to teach for a year while they saved enough money so that he could go back for his master's degree. More lately, this proving unlikely, they had merely been trying to put aside enough for summer school, and even that was beginning to look like the wildest optimism. High-school teachers without seniority weren't supposed to be married. Or graduate physics students, for that matter. He mixed two stiff highballs and carried them back into the living room. "Here you are. Skoal." "Ah," she said appreciatively. "That tastes--_Ugh_." She set the glass down and stared at it with her mouth half open. "What's the matter now?" She turned her head carefully, as if she were afraid it would come off. "Len, I don't know. _Mama._"