BARBARA told me she was pregnant.

There are certain common rules of human behavior I believe in and others I don’t. Barbara had been with me, devoted and loving, for a long time. She’d been the only one who’d encouraged me in my screenplay writing. She wanted a child desperately, had tried for years without success. She wanted the child that she’d begun to carry. Perhaps I could have stopped her, but I didn’t. I didn’t see whose business it finally was except ours, and I’ve never regretted having that “love” child. Having endured difficulties more trying than those of the ordinary boy, he’s now becoming an exceptional man.

Some people close to me have believed that Barbara “trapped” me. For what? A meal ticket? So what? Didn’t I owe something to the person who’d encouraged me and stood by me? What greater gift can we give each other than encouragement when it’s most needed? And support? If you truly examine your own life, you’ll doubtless find that the most enduring bonds are those of ties stronger than the legalities. I’ve never regretted telling Barbara that if she wanted the child it was all right with me. Knowing my nature, wouldn’t you say she was taking a riskier chance than I was? The difficulties we were to encounter, all three of us—were they more difficult than the usual difficulties of marriage and of life? Of childbirth and of rearing offspring?

But the morality of the matter? Don’t talk to me about that. I’ve seen too much not to doubt conventional standards of morality. I’m aware of the general hypocrisy in our society: one face, another reality.