"Tell you, Jill," he said, "skating on thin ice. Crash through any minute ... I don't know." He stared at her with a fixed, puffy expression that he could feel but not correct. "Serious," he said.
He ran his hand over his face, tried to put it all out of his mind for a minute. He took out a cold half quart of Lucky from the fridge and popped the aluminum top. His life had become a maze, one lie overlaid upon another until he was not sure he could untangle them if he had to.
Now he was having an affair, for Christ's sake, and he didn't know what to do about it. He did not want it to go on, and he did not want to break it off: you don't throw everything overboard in a storm. Al was drifting, and he knew he was drifting, and where it was all going to end he could not g…
[...] She touched the ewdding band on her ring finger with her thumb. She turned onto her side and then onto her back again. And then she began to feel afraid, and in one unreasoning moment of longing she prayed to go to sleep.
Please, God, let me go to sleep.
She tried to sleep.
"Mike," s…
"Morning," I said, offering the letter.
He took it from me without a word and went absolutely pale. He tottered a minute and then started back for the house, holding the letter up to the light.
I called out, "She's no good, boy. I could tell that the minute I saw her. Why don't you forget her…
