By morning, the bleeding was done. The baby was gone. It was all different after that. They could try again, John said, but Marian said no, and she did not unbutton her dressing gown again, not for that reason or any other. Their nearest intimacy after that would be lying side by side in bed, and neither of them would reach for the other—never again. John did his work, and they were cordial with each other, and Marian looked at him sometimes and felt an exquisite pain. She wanted to love him, and she wanted so badly for him to love her, but neither of them, it seemed, could understand how.
