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wanted to kill her.
    Walter skipped lunch and sat at his desk, trying to make sense out of Dick’s notes on the Parsons and Sullivan interviews. Walter read one passage over and over, without being able to decide whether a piece was missing or whether his own mind could no longer attach a meaning to the words. Suddenly he reached for the telephone and dialed Jon’s number. Walter asked if he could see him right away, in Jon’s office.
    â€œIs it about Clara?” Jon asked.
    â€œYes.” Walter hadn’t known his voice would betray him, but only Clara could put him in such a state, and Jon knew it.
    Jon had whiskey in his office and offered Walter some, but Walter declined it.
    â€œClara’s in the hospital in a coma. She may die,” Walter said. “She took sleeping pills last night. Every pill in the house. She must have had about thirty.” Walter told Jon about their talk of a divorce, her threatening to kill herself, and his leaving the house.
    â€œThis was the first time you talked about a divorce, was it?” Jon asked.
    â€œNo.” Walter had told Jon months ago that he was considering a divorce, but he hadn’t told Jon that he had talked to Clara. “She threatened to kill herself the first time I asked her for a divorce. That’s why I didn’t believe her yesterday.”
    â€œAnd that’s why you patched it up the first time, because she threatened?”
    â€œI suppose so,” Walter said. “One of the reasons.”
    â€œI know.” Jon stood up and looked out of the window. “And you reach a point finally, don’t you—as you did yesterday?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œYou reach a point where you say, ‘All right, I’ll damn well let her kill herself. I’ve had enough.’”
    Walter stared at the large brass penholder on Jon’s desk that he had given to Jon on the first anniversary of his magazine. “Yes. That’s it.” Walter put his hands over his face. “That’s a kind of murder, isn’t it?”
    â€œNo one would say it’s murder who knows the facts. You don’t have to tell anyone about it, anyone who doesn’t know the facts. Stop turning it over and over in your mind, the fact that you walked out.”
    â€œAll right,” Walter said.
    â€œShe’ll probably pull through. She’s got a tough constitution, Walt.”
    Walter looked at his friend. Jon was smiling, and Walter gave a little smile in return. He felt suddenly better.
    â€œThe real problem is, what happens when she wakes up? Do you still want your divorce?”
    Walter had to force himself to imagine Clara well again. His mind was obsessed with remorse, with pity for her. “Yes,” he said.
    â€œThen get it. There are ways. Even if you have to go to Reno. Don’t let yourself be paralyzed by a pint-sized Medusa any more.”
    Walter felt a rise of resentment, and then he thought of Jon, paralyzed by his love for his wife when she was having the affair with the man called Brinton. Walter had sat with Jon almost every night for two months, but finally Jon had got over it, and got his divorce. “All right,” Walter said.
    Walter drove by the hospital on the way home that evening. Now her fingernails were bluish. Her face looked puffier. But the doctor said she was holding her own. Walter didn’t believe it. He felt she was going to die.
    He went home, intending to take a hot bath and shave and try to eat something. He fell asleep in the bath-tub, which he had never done before in his life. He only awakened when Claudia called him to tell him his dinner was nearly ready.
    â€œYou’d better get some rest, Mr. Stackhouse, or you’ll be good and sick again yourself,” Claudia said to him.
    Walter had told her that Clara was in the hospital with a bad case of flu.
    The telephone rang while he was eating, and Walter ran for it, thinking it was