Nick maintained a steadily percolating anger toward my family, blaming my father for not giving us money to buy a house. He pushed me to make contact with my father and brothers, to ask for things from them, and he got angry when I refused.

"It wouldn't do any good," I told him, even though that wasn't true. Regardless of my father's attitude, my brothers would have given me anything I asked for. Especially Gage. The few occasions we had talked on the phone, he had asked if there was anything he could do for me and Nick, and I had said no, absolutely not, things were fantastic. I was afraid to give Gage any hint of how things really were. One pulled thread and I might unravel completely.

"Your dad will have to start doing things for us when we have kids," Nick told me. "It would be a public embarrassment for him to have grandchildren living in a damn shack. He'll have to cough up some money then, the stingy bastard."

It worried me that Nick seemed to regard our future children as tools that would be used to pry open the Travis family coffers. I'd always planned to have children when I felt ready, but this situation couldn't begin to accommodate a fussy, demanding infant. It was all I could do to keep my fussy, demanding husband happy.

I had never had problems sleeping, but I began having dreams that woke me up at night, leaving me exhausted the next day. Since my tossing and turning kept Nick awake, I often went to the sofa in the middle of the night, shivering beneath a throw blanket. I dreamed of losing my teeth, of falling from tall buildings.

"It was so weird," I told Nick one morning while he was drinking his coffee, "this new one I had last night. I was in a park somewhere, just walking by myself, and my right leg fell off. No blood or anything. It was like I was a Barbie doll. I was so upset, wondering how I was going to get around without that leg, and then my arm broke off at the elbow, and I picked it up and tried to hold it in place, and I was thinking, 'I need this arm, I've got to find someone to reattach it.' So then — "

"Did you take your pill yet this morning?" Nick interrupted.

I had been on birth control ever since we had started sleeping together. "No, I always take it after breakfast. Why? Do you think the hormones may be giving me bad dreams?"

"No, I think you're giving yourself bad dreams. And I asked because it's time for you to go off the pill. We should start having kids while we're still young."

I stared at him. A huge wave of unwillingness went through me, every cell in my body resisting the idea of a great big hormone-fueled helplessness that would make everything impossible But I couldn't say no. Thai would set off a bad mood that might last for days. I had to work Nick around to changing his mind. "Do you really think we're ready?" I asked. "It might be better to put away some money first."

"We won't need to. Your dad will be a lot more reasonable once he finds out Gage and Liberty aren't the only ones who can pop out a kid."

I realized Nick had less interest in the baby itself than in its usefulness as a way to manipulate Churchill Travis. Would he feel differently when the baby was born? Would he be one of those fathers who melted at the sight of the small person he had helped to bring into the world?

As hard as I tried to imagine it, I couldn't see Nick summoning the patience to deal with a screaming infant, a messy toddler, a needy child. It frightened me, thinking of how tightly I would be bound to him, how dependent I would be once we had a baby together.

I went into the bathroom to get ready for work, brushing mascara onto my lashes, slicking on lip gloss. Nick followed, rummaging through the assortment of cosmetics and hair products I had set out on the counter. He found the round plastic container my birth control pills came in, and flipped it open to reveal the wheel of pastel-colored tablets.

"You don't need these anymore." He tossed the pills into the trash.

"I need to finish the cycle," I protested. "And usually before you try to get pregnant, you go in to get a checkup — "

"You're healthy. You'll be fine." He put a hand on my shoulder, forcing me up as I bent to retrieve the pills. "Leave them."

A disbelieving laugh bubbled from my throat. I had been conditioned over months to tolerate Nick's whims for the sake of harmony, but this was too much. I was not going to be forced into having a baby neither of us was ready for.

"Nick, I'd rather wait." I picked up a hairbrush and began to drag it through my tangled hair. "And this really isn't a good time to talk about having children, with both of us getting ready for work and — "

"I'll decide what we talk about and when!" The explosive intensity of his voice startled me into dropping the hairbrush. "I didn't realize I had to make a goddamn appointment with you to talk about our personal life!"

I went white with alarm, my heart kicking into a violent rhythm. "Nick — "

"Do you ever think about anyone or anything besides yourself?" Anger had knotted his throat and the tiny muscles of his face. "It's always about what you want . . . you selfish bitch, what about what I want?"

He leaned over me, towering and furious, and I shrank against the mirror. "Nick, I just . . ." My mouth had gone so dry, I could ha rely force the words out. "I'm not saying no. I just want . . . would like . . . to talk about it later."

That earned a look of soul-shredding contempt. "I don't know. It may not be worth talking about. This whole marriage may not be worth a shit pile. You think you did me some big fu**ing favor, marrying me? I was the one who did you a favor. You think anyone else would put up with your crap?"

"Nick — " Panicky and confused, I watched him walk to the bed room. I started to follow, but 1 hung back, fearful of maddening him further. The men in my family were generally slow to anger, and once they worked up to an explosion, it was over soon. Nick's temper was different, a fire that fed on itself, growing until its proportions had far outstripped the cause. In this case, I wasn't sure what the best strategy should be . . . If I went after him to apologize, it might pour fuel on his rage. But if I stayed in the bathroom, he might take new offense at being ignored.

I settled for hovering at the doorway, straddling both rooms, watching for a sign of what Nick wanted. He went to the closet and pushed through the clothing with quick, vicious movements, hunting for a shirt. Deciding to retreat, I went back into the bathroom.

My cheeks looked white and stiff. I brushed on some pink blush in light strokes, but the tinted powder seemed to sit on top of my skin, not blending. The brush caught at the mist of nervous sweat and made ruddy streaks. I reached for a washcloth, about to clean it all off, and that was when the world seemed to explode.

Nick had come back, cornering me, clutching something in one fist. Screaming. I'd never had someone scream into my face like that before, certainly not a man, and it was a kind of death. I was reduced to the level of an animal under attack, unable to slip beyond the whiteness of fear, frozen in mute incomprehension.

The thing in his hand was a striped shirt . . . I had ruined it somehow . . . a mistake . . . but Nick said it was sabotage. I had done it on purpose, he said. He needed it for an important meeting this morning, and I said no, I didn't mean to I'm so sorry but every word brought murderous heat to his face and his arm drew back and the world caught fire.

My head snapped to the side, my cheek blazing, and droplets of sweat and tears went flying. A burning stillness settled. The veins in my face felt huge and pumping.

I was slow to comprehend that Nick had hit me. I stood swaying, blank, using my fingertips to explore where the heat had turned to numbness.

I couldn't see through the blur in my eyes, but I heard Nick's voice, thick with disgust. "Look what you made me do." He went back into the bedroom.

No retreat. I couldn't run from the apartment. We had only one car. And I didn't know where I would go. I held the washcloth under cold water, sat on the closed toilet seat and held the dripping mass against my cheek.

There was no one I could tell. This was something Todd or my other friends couldn't comfort me about, couldn't say it was part of a normal relationship. Shame spread through me, leaking from the marrow of my bones . . . the feeling that I must have deserved it, or it wouldn't have happened. I knew that wasn't right. But something in me, in the way I had been formed, made it impossible to escape that spreading shame. It had lurked inside me forever, waiting to surface. Waiting for Nick, or someone like him. I was stained with it, like invisible ink . . . in the right light, it would show.

I waited without moving while Nick finished getting ready for work. I didn't stir even when I heard him call the Darlington and tell them I wouldn't be in that day. His wife was sick, he said regretfully. The flu or something, he didn't know what. He sounded compassionate and concerned. He chuckled a little at something the other person on the line said. "Yes," he said, "I'll take good care of her."

I waited until I heard the jangle of die keys, and the front door closing.

Moving like an old woman, I reached into the trash and pulled out my pills. I took one, and scooped water into my mouth with my hand, and downed it with a painful swallow.

I found the striped shirt on the floor of the bedroom, and I laid it out on the mattress. I couldn't see anything wrong with it. I couldn't find the flaw that had driven Nick berserk. "What did I do?" I asked aloud, my fingers trailing down the stripes as if clawing through iron bars. What had I done wrong?

The urge to please was a sickness in me. I knew that, and I did it anyway. I washed and starched and ironed the striped shirt all over again. Every thread in the cotton weave was pressed perfectly flat, every button gleaming and pristine. I hung it in the closet and I checked all the other shirts, and aligned his shoes and hung all his ties so the bottoms were all at the same level.

When Nick got home, the condo was clean and the table was set, and I had put a King Ranch casserole in the oven. His favorite dinner. I had a hard time looking at him.

But Nick came in contrite and smiling, bringing a bouquet of mixed flowers. He handed me the fragrant offering, petals rustling in layers of tissue and cellophane. "Here, sweetheart." He leaned down to kiss my cheek, the one he had struck earlier. The side of my face was pink and swollen. I held still while his mouth touched my skin. I wanted to jerk away from him. I wanted to hit him back. Mostly I wanted to cry.

Instead I took the flowers to the sink and began to unwrap them mechanically.

"I shouldn't have done that this morning," Nick said behind me. "I thought about you all day."

"I thought about you too." I put the bouquet into a vase and filled it with water, unable to face the prospect of cutting and arranging the flowers.

"It was just the last straw, seeing what you'd done to my shirt."

I wiped the counter slowly, moving a paper towel in tight circles. "I don't understand what was wrong with it."

"It had about ten times too much starch. I mean, I could have cut a slice of bread with one of those sleeves." A long pause, and then he sighed. "I overreacted. I know that. But like I said, it was the last Straw. So much other stuff has been driving me crazy, and seeing what you'd done to my shirt was too much."

I turned to face him, gripping the edges of my long sleeves over my fingers until they were shrouded like cat paws. "What other stuff?"

"Everything. The way we live. This place is never clean and organized. We never have home-cooked meals. There's always piles of crap everywhere." He raised his hands as if in self-defense as he saw me start to speak. "Oh, I know, it looks great right now. And I can see you've put dinner in the oven. I appreciate that. But it should be like this all the time. And it can't be, with both of us working."

I understood right away what Nick wanted. But I didn't understand why he wanted it. "I can't quit my job," I said numbly. "We can't afford to lose my salary."

"I'm about to get a promotion. We'll be fine."

"But . . . what would I do all day?"

"Be a wife. Take of the house. And me. And yourself." He

came closer. "And I'll take care of you. You're going to get pregnant soon anyway. You'd have to quit then. So you may as well do it now."

"Nick, I don't think — "

"We're both stressed, sweetheart. This would help take the pressure off, for you to handle all the stuff that never gets done." Reaching out, Nick took one of my hands gently, and brought it to his face. "I'm sorry about what I did this morning," he murmured, nuzzling into my palm. "I swear it'll never happen again. No matter what."

"You scared me, Nick," I whispered. "You weren't yourself."

"You're right. You know that's not me." With infinite care, he brought me against him. "No one could love you as much as I do. You're everything to me. And we're going to take care of each other, right?"

"I don't know." My voice was scratchy and tight. I had never been so torn, wanting to stay and wanting to leave, loving and fearing him.

"You can always get another job if you want," Nick said reasonably. "But let's try it this way. I want you to be free for a change."

I heard myself whisper, "Please don't do it again, Nick."

"Never," he said at once, kissing my head, my ear, my neck. His fingers came very gently to my reddened cheek. "Poor baby," he murmured. "I'm so glad I did it openhanded, or you'd have a hell of a bruise."

CHAPTER FOUR

Little by little our marriage closed around me. At first it seemed like heaven when I stopped working. I had all the time I needed to make the condo look perfect. I vacuumed the carpet so the polyester nap was arranged in symmetrical stripes. Every square inch of the kitchen was sparkling and clean. I spent hours poring over recipes, improving my cooking skills. I arranged Nick's socks in color-coordinated rows in the drawer.Just before Nick came home from the office, I put on makeup and changed my outfit. I had started to do that after he'd told me one night he hoped I wasn't one of those women who let themselves go after they'd caught a husband.

If Nick had been a jerk all the time, I wouldn't have been so compliant. It was the in-between moments that kept me with him, the evenings when we cuddled in front of the TV and watched the news, the impromptu slow dance after dinner when our favorite song came on. He could he affectionate and funny. He could be loving. And he was the first person in my life who had ever needed me. I was his audience, his reflection, his solace, the person without whom he could never be complete. He had found my worst weakness: I was one of those people who was desperate to be needed, to matter to someone.