ANSWER: Yes. I think I was very stupid. I hoped to persuade her to allow a separation. I knew her church doesn't allow divorce, but I thought she might permit us that much. I wanted my baby to have a father, married or not. It's bad, trying to grow up without a father. Mine died when I was seven. I wanted mine to have a father. QUESTION: Yes, that was in the letter you wrote him. ANSWER: Wrote but never mailed. I should have destroyed it. QUESTION: Why didn't you mail it? ANSWER: I'm not sure I can explain that. An obsession is a strange thing, and so is suicidal depression--and so's pregnancy. You don't just sit quiet and work out the mathematics. Your mind shifts and struggles like a thing in a web, tries to decide what matters most. The answers don't always stay the same. The day after I started that letter, I didn't go on with it because then I didn't even want Jimmy to know I was pregnant. I saw it wouldn't work out even if he were entirely free. Too different. We couldn't possibly have lived together. Then later I was trying again to think it might work--and so on. QUESTION: Go on, please. ANSWER: How? Mr. Lamson, I know ten million more things about myself than you ever could, but you're asking me to explain things that even I don't know. How can I? Well, the night before Ann came to see me, Saturday, I had a time when everything looked possible. I wanted to have the baby, I was almost happy, I wasn't thinking of suicide--I even forgot about that poison. Next day, Sunday, I was imagining again that Ann might permit a separation so that he could be with me. Crazy, but that's how I had it lined up that day, that's why I telephoned her, that's how it looked right up until I began to talk with her. Then--card-house fell down. QUESTION: You told her you were pregnant? ANSWER: No, I didn't even get that far. I saw it was no use, waste of time. We had not enough words in common. QUESTION: Not enough words? ANSWER: Oh--oh--whatever I said meant something else in her mind, the way everything I say now means something else to you, heaven knows what. No such thing as a common language. We all talk in the dark. If a bit of light breaks we're frightened and try to blot it out. QUESTION: I don't follow you. ANSWER: Don't try. I'm not going your way. QUESTION: This isn't an occasion for humor, is it? ANSWER: People will tell you I laugh at the damnedest things. QUESTION: If you didn't say you were pregnant, how much did you say? ANSWER: All she understood was that we'd had an affair. QUESTION: Did you quarrel? ANSWER: No. QUESTION: She wasn't angry? ANSWER: No, very forgiving. That's when I was sick to my stomach. QUESTION: Really, Miss Blake! Are you saying-- ANSWER: I don't know what I'm saying any more. QUESTION: Yes, I realize you're having a bad time. I'm not intentionally cruel, it's merely my job to enforce the laws of this community. Naturally your pregnancy entitles you to every consideration, but--