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wasn't possible to face nine months cooped up in a three-room apartment with a person so depressingly silent as Eddie. She knew what his silence meant. He was sore clean through. He didn't want a baby. She would often look up at him and find his eyes fixed upon her, and the expression in them was one of terror. He dreaded the thought of a baby who would cry in the night, who would take nine-tenths of her time, who would consume the money they had used in dance halls and chop suey restaurants. That's what his terrified expression meant. What else could it mean?

She couldn't face months of this. She had to talk to him, try and straighten things out. They had to face the future together.

She was lying on the bed. Fifteen minutes before, she had been violently ill. Her stomach had become a petulant, complaining beast that had not retained more than a slice of toast in three weeks. The odor of coffee would bring on a sudden weakness. Lamb chops acted the same way. Dot tried to laugh at herself, but it was not easy with Eddie pacing the floor, cursing under his breath. Of course it wasn't pleasant for him, but still, Dot reflected, it was her stomach that reeled with nausea. She could tell him that, but her desire was to bring them closer together again, not to begin arguments that could end only in further distance between them. That had become her aim—to see Eddie in a good humor again.

"Eddie," she said, "I don't want a baby, you know."

She saw him look up from his paper. He was stretched crosswise on the bed with his chin resting on his hand.