Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/237

 she to leave Alva, some more sensible plan would undoubtedly present itself. No one expected a father to tie himself to an infant, and if that infant happened to be ill and an idiot well, there were any number of social agencies which would care for it. Assuredly, then she must get away first. But where to go?

She was stumped again and forced to linger, fearing all the while that Alva would fail to return home once he left. She tried desperately to reintroduce a note of intimacy into their relationship, tried repeatedly to make herself less repellent to him, and, at the same time, discipline her own self so that she would not communicate her apprehensions to him. She hired the little girl who lived in the next room to take charge of the child, bought it a store of toys and went out to find a job. This being done, she insisted that Alva begin taking her out once again. He acquiesced. He wasn’t interested one way or the other as long as he could go to bed drunk every night and keep a bottle of gin by his bedside.

Neither, though, seemed interested in what they were doing. Both were feverishly apprehensive at all times. They quarrelled frequently, but would hasten to make amends to one another, so afraid were they that the first one to become angry might make a bolt for freedom. Alva drank more and more. Geraldine