On the way home I think about my feelings of envy for Claude. I want a baby, but do I really want to be in her place? In her chic suburb with her asshole husband? Still, I do, I envy her. She’s secure enough to do it, in spite of her asshole husband, she is her own supporting wall. That is what I envy. It’s not that she has a perfect life or marriage, it’s that she feels sufficient unto herself. She says she’s going to keep studying, no matter what Jibé thinks, that even if it takes her longer she’ll finish her degree, she’ll do her internships, she’ll be a therapist. She’ll keep coming to our group. The answer is never the husband, she tells me, the group is the answer.

I think maybe I chose wrong, that I followed the heat of those early days into a marriage too quickly, without being sure we wanted the same things. Henry doesn’t want a baby. He is still a baby himself, he says. And I know I can’t argue with that. He goes off to the club with Jibé in Jibé’s hot little two-seater, I know all about it, it’s the source of much frustration for Claude, how are they supposed to get around with a baby when there’s nowhere to put it? He just laughs at her and says he’ll buy her a station wagon, and then she smacks him in the face, because he wants to turn her into a maman, in her unwieldy family vehicle, while he gets to zip around town, a single guy to all appearances, zip to work she says, zip to the club, unzip whatever it is he’s unzipping, zip home again, zip zip zip. He is so modern.