Free This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith Page B

saying something about dinner.
    â€œI’m not feeling well tonight. I won’t be coming down,” David said to her.
    Her presence reminded him of where he was, and when he had closed the door after her, he listened until her footsteps were out of hearing, then picked up Annabelle’s letter, his eyes falling on certain words though he refolded it quickly, put it back into its envelope, and set his ink bottle on it with a thump. He took his coat, left his room without locking the door, and went quietly downstairs just as Wes came into the hall from the dining room.
    â€œThere you are. You’re not feeling well?” Wes asked with concern.
    â€œI’m all right. Not hungry tonight.”
    â€œYou’re green . What happened?”
    â€œNothing. I’ll just get a little air. See you later,” he added weakly, and went out the front door.
    For the first time in months, perhaps ever on his walks, he went to Main Street, where there were lights and people. Many of the stores were closed, but many also stayed open for Christmas shopping, and there were people enough on the sidewalk, the dull-faced peasant types that from David’s first days in the town had surprised him by their preponderance and repelled him. Aware suddenly that he walked on Effie’s side of the street, he crossed over so as to have less chance of running into her. The windows of cheap shoes, women’s dresses, drugstore windows crammed with toys, flickered past in the corner of his left eye. Constantly he stepped aside to avoid the oncoming drifters, gawking at the windows. A huge, dangling Santa Claus, laughing drearily on a too-slow phonograph record, made him dodge sharply, but when he looked he saw that the black oilcloth boots were at least four feet over his head. A record store boomed “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.” Through this chaos David carried precariously the small, concentrated chaos of the Situation like a ball held up in the air by jets of water from below it. When the sounds and the light grew dimmer, and a dark, silent vacant lot stretched out on his left, he found a thought in his head: Annabelle was not herself now, wasn’t able to see anything in perspective, because of the baby. No, he didn’t think she had lied about the baby; Annabelle wouldn’t stoop to trickery. But it was no wonder she was immersed, drowned now in what she considered reality. Naturally, a baby was real, pain was real, dirty diapers, hospital bills, and of course the stupid husband. What Annabelle couldn’t see now was that there was a way out still.
    If Annabelle could not come to him he would go to her. He decided to go this Sunday, when he would most likely find Gerald Delaney at home too. He would go to his house in Ballard Friday evening as usual, and leave around nine Sunday morning for Hartford. He would not call her first, he thought, and give her the opportunity to beg him not to come. He would call her in Hartford and insist upon seeing her and Gerald too. Then he began to plan, as methodically as he could, his argument.
    David credited himself with an ability to maintain a self-possessed manner, regardless of his emotions. And though the letter from Annabelle had been shattering, had prevented him sleeping the night of the evening he received it, neither Wes nor Mrs. Beecham—who measured him for socks—nor anyone at the factory commented on a change in him Thursday and Friday. He remembered the flowers for Effie and sent them to her with a thank-you note. On Friday, around 5:30 P.M. , Wes left Mrs. McCartney’s in a resigned and cynical mood to go home to Laura.
    With a swiftness that made Wes drop a package he was holding, David swung around and caught Wes by the shoulders and shook him. “ Try it again, for Christ’s sake! You’ve had your vacation!”
    â€œGood God, Dave!” Wes said, readjusting his jacket. “What on earth’s the matter with