“Seed on the wind,” he said, gazing after it. “That one’s out of luck, destined for powder in the sand. Or who can tell, if the breeze stiffens a bit it may be lifted far across the lake and finally come to rest against a dirty board fence in a vacant lot in Gary. Ha, it will exclaim triumphantly, I guess this shows what a determined seed can do. Never say die.”
After a while they undressed again and plunged back into the water, laughing and shouting and leaping, and swam out to the little island and clambered up onto its ledge of rock.
But the second time she got a scare. On the train on the way back she was suddenly taken by a cramp in her abdomen that made her bend over double and bite her lip to keep from crying out. Pete, seated beside her, put his hand on her shoulder and leaned down to look at her face.
“My god, you’re as white as a sheet,” he said, startled, “we’d better get off at the next stop and do something.”
“It’s nothing,” she gasped, “I’ll be all right in a minute.”
And in fact she was. Before they reached Chicago the pain was entirely gone, and she decided that it was merely that she had gone in the cold water too soon after eating. But she had been thoroughly frightened, and for days afterwards, when alone, she would put her hand on her belly and rub it softly, with a thoughtful and questioning look in her eyes.
Then something else came to drive that out of her head: the day of Pete’s departure for Canada was definitely set, July twelfth. He was really going. Originally he had meant to leave sooner, almost immediately after commencement, but there had been no specific date for it. Now it was different, you could count it up — just six more days! July twelfth. Five days after that, according to the doctor, she would know about the other business beyond all peradventure — though for that matter she knew that already, it was accepted. With Pete gone too — well, she thought, this is going to be altogether a little more than I bargained for — I don’t know, I really don’t know...
The Sunday before his departure they went again to the beach with the abandoned huts. Lora, afraid to go in, sat on the sand and watched him swimming, floating, diving, hurling taunts at her for clinging to an outworn superstition. The sun made her drowsy and sluggish so that even the thought, this is the last time we shall come here, induced only a dull and vague sadness, nearer to pleasure than to pain. When they left though she cast a lingering glance backward at the spot on the sand in front of one of the huts where she had lain in his arms, under the staring sun; and on the train on their way home she broke a long silence — Pete hated to talk on trains — by suddenly laying a hand on his arm and saying to him:
“I wasn’t going to tell you, but I’ve just got to. I’m going to have a baby.”
He replied at once, “I know it.”
She was amazed. “You know it!”
“Sure,” he said. “I knew it a week ago. Your breasts show it. It’s hard to see, but I was curious, and I looked at them carefully with my scientific eye. I’ve seen them that way before, had it all carefully explained — I tell you, education owes a lot to exhibitionism. There have been other indications, of course, the boomerang tendency of your breakfasts, the hiatus in your tidal schedules...”
“Oh,” said Lora. Her voice wanted to tremble, and that made her furious. But it was simply impossible to say anything else; all she could do was repeat it, “Oh.”
“I thought if you didn’t mention it there was no occasion for me to,” Pete explained. “I can’t do anything anyway; what it takes is money. It can be done as cheap as fifty dollars, but you get a much better job for a hundred. Do you know a doctor?”
Lora did not reply. He looked at her, squirmed around in his seat a little, and went on:
“Look here, it’s my fault, and I’m sorry. I knew you didn’t know anything and I should have been more careful. It’s a damn nuisance, and I’m sorry. This is life, isn’t it lovely? Isn’t it sweet the way they’ve got it fixed up? I said it was my fault — well, it isn’t. That’s a lot of bunk. What if you want a baby — how do I know you don’t? Maybe you do. All right, try and get it and see what happens. What if you don’t want one, and precautions, just once, fail? Just as bad — worse even. It’s one of the major jests.”
“Yes,” said Lora. “Of course that doesn’t help—”
He pulled a card out of his pocket, wrote a name and address on it, and handed it to her.
“That man will do it, he’s comparatively unobjectionable,” he said. “Mention my name if you want to, he knows me. And don’t be frightened, there’s nothing to it if it’s done right. It is said that this particular light of the medical profession cleans up forty thousand a year at this chore; he handles most of the university trade.”
Later that evening, at the room after dinner, Lora told him that she intended to have a baby. She returned the card to him, and he tore it up and threw it in the wastebasket. She wanted him to know, she said; not that it would make any difference in anything, but he was going away and probably she would never see him again and she wanted him to know. When she had said that she saw him bend forward a little, peering at her, with the characteristic stoop to his broad shoulders.
“And you not yet twenty,” he said. “Good god, it’s criminal.”
“It’s all right,” she said. She added, “I’ll be twenty before it’s born.”
He threw up his hands. “And I was about to get sympathetic. You are what is called in superstitious circles a brave little woman, meaning that the cells of a certain portion of your post-Rolandic area are below normal in sensitivity.” He grinned, a twisted grin that distorted his whole face. “By that prosaic fact you escape all the acute and subtle tortures. You’ve no idea what you’re missing. Lucky girl.”
“You’re being smart,” said Lora, “and I don’t want you that way this last night. Don’t.”
“There’s tomorrow.”
“That will be goodbye. It won’t count. I don’t want to think of tomorrow.”
When she got to the office, the next morning she told Miss Goff that she would not be able to be there the following day. It would be her first absence in the six months since she had started to work. Miss Goff made some remark about the annoyance and inconvenience of unexpected absences, whereupon Lora replied that it would perhaps be just as well to make this one permanent. At this Miss Goff took alarm; oh, no, she said, she hadn’t meant to offend, Mr. Graham would be terribly put out if Lora should leave, he thought very highly of her...
So the next morning Lora lay luxuriously in bed till nine. From seven-thirty on she was wide awake, but there at any rate she was, with Pete asleep beside her. At nine she arose and dressed and proceeded to prepare the farewell breakfast, all of Pete’s favorite dishes: a melange of grapefruit and fresh pineapple, Irish bacon, an omelet with anchovies and fresh tomatoes, fried potatoes, preserved watermelon rind, and strong coffee with thick cream. It took longer than she had calculated, nearly an hour, and at the end she hurried a little, for his train was to leave at noon. Pete ate in his shirt sleeves, without a necktie; Lora, already fully clothed, bobbed up and down continually taking this away and bringing that. After breakfast she helped him finish packing; and then after putting on her hat and taking a last look in the closet and under the bed to be sure he wasn’t leaving anything, offered him her parting gift.