Free The Man Who Loved His Wife by Vera Caspary Page A

standing up, drinking, under the lamp. Fletcher wondered if she noticed the contrast in their bodies and appreciated his superiority. He pulled in his stomach, straightened his shoulders.
    â€œWhy don’t we sit down?” she said.
    They did. The patio lamps thrust bright artificial rays upon them. Cindy took a cigarette from the box on the table; Don bent over to light it. Ralph stretched back on a chaise lounge, trying not to look at Elaine. She recrossed her legs. Fletcher studied his drink in which small flecks of lime drifted like tiny fish under the glass of an aquarium. Conversation lagged. The group seemed as static as models in a color advertisement. Then Ralph turned his head and caught Elaine’s eye. Both looked too hastily in opposite directions. He hurried to swallow his drink and to say that he must not outstay his welcome. No one was sorry to see him go.
    FLETCHER CAME TO Elaine’s bed that night. On a high wave of elation, the conquering male who had shown up two inferior young men, he had chosen his best pajamas, opened a bottle of French cologne, combed his hair, and in the mirror found a man. The surge of youth was strong. He strutted down the short corridor. This was to be the night of the miracle, the end of anxiety, the fulfillment promised by doctors, the reward deserved by his loyal wife.
    He found her reading with such intensity that she neitherheard nor saw him at the door. He watched her turn a page with a graceful hand, enjoyed the rise and fall of her chest, the sheen of lamplight upon her dark hair, the lace falling off her breast.
    â€œLovable!”
    The whisper was so light that he had no need of the lost larynx. Her smile acknowledged the first step of the miracle. She knew he would not have come to her room to risk failure. Fletcher did not speak again lest the broken voice distress the mood. Elaine made room in the bed beside her. For the first moments they lay quiet, a husband and wife loving and normal at the end of a day.
    â€œYou’re such a beautiful man. You’ve got a wonderful body.”
    So she had noticed! Praise nourished his self-confidence. He played with her hair. From time to time she looked up sideways from her niche under his arm. Her brimming smile showed belief in the possibility of a miracle.
    Nothing came of it. “I’m sorry,” Elaine said, as always taking upon herself the blame for their failure. As always the damn owl sat on the telephone pole, squawking derision. Fletcher shuffled off to his room. In the closet, hidden in a riding boot he never wore, he kept a vial of jewel-colored pills as lovely as fruit candies in a crystal jar. Whenever he had the strength to forego one or both of the two pills doled out to him at bedtime, he added to his hoard. Elaine was firm about the pills. She would never give him more than two. “You mustn’t get into the habit of taking an extra one. The habit grows,” she told him. Often, in the tormented dark when sleep was denied and the fear of sleeplessness brought about panic, he had stolen from his hoard.
    Inevitably on such nights he was haunted by the memory of the spastic shoelace vendor. The boy was young, had no experiences to remember; how had he faced the thought of hopeless days? Perhaps the boy had been blessed with dull wits. One could not tell from the sputtering speech whether the infirmity had touched his mind. Separate from life, the boy was spared the anguish endured by a man who yearned for a past he could not recover. Fresh agonies were born. Specters vomited nostalgia;visions of virile years possessed him; he was visited by ghosts of long-forgotten women, recollections of high-spirited nights, of jokes and singing, of victories in business, of solemn board members shouted down and conquered by Fletcher Strode’s vitality. Relived in sour retrospect, these pictures reflected only the glories, never the pain and struggle, of earlier years.
    With the vial of pills