Tilting the Balance

Her answering smile was wan. “I’d love to go back to the place, but if you don’t mind, all I want to do is lie down, maybe take a nap. I’m tired all the time, and my stomach isn’t what you call happy right now, either. Is it okay? ” She sounded anxious.

“Yeah, it’s okay, ” Yeager answered. “Fifteen years ago, I probably would have fussed and sulked, but I’m a grown-up now. I can wait till tomorrow. ” My dick doesn’t think for me the way it used to, he thought, but that wasn’t something he could say to a new-wed wife.

Barbara let her hand rest on his. “Thanks, hon. ”

“First time I ever got thanked for getting old, ” he said.

She made a face at him. “You can’t have it both ways. Are you a grown-up and saying it’s okay because it really is, or are you just getting old and saying it’s okay because you’re all feeble and tired? ”

“Ooh. ” He mimed a wound. When she wanted to, she could get him chasing his tail like nobody’s business. He didn’t think of himself as dumb (but then, who does? ), but he hadn’t had formal training in logic and in fencing with words. Trading barbs with ballplayers in his dugout and the ones on the other side of the field wasn’t the same thing.

Barbara let out a loud, theatrical groan as she got to the top of the stairs. “That’s going to be even less fun when I’m further along, ” she said. “Maybe we should have looked for a place on the ground floor. Too late to worry about it now, I suppose. ”

She groaned again, this time with pleasure, when she flopped onto the sofa in the front room. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable on the bed? ” Yeager asked.

“Actually, no. I can put my feet up this way. ” The overstuffed sofa had equally overstuffed arms, so maybe that really was comfortable. Sam shrugged. If Barbara was happy, he was happy, too.

Somebody knocked on the door. “Who’s that? ” Sam and Barbara said in the same breath. Why doesn’t he go away? lay beneath the words.

Whoever it was didn’t go away, but kept on knocking. Yeager strode over and threw open the door, intending to give a pushy Fuller Brush man a piece of his mind. But it wasn’t a Fuller Brush man, it was Jens Larssen. He looked at Sam like a man finding a cockroach in his salad. “I want to talk to my wife, ” he said.

“She’s not your wife any more. We’ve been through this;” Yeager said tiredly, but his hands bunched into fists at his sides. “What do you want to say to her? ”

“It’s none of your damn business, ” Jens said, which almost started the fight then and there. But before Yeager quite decided to knock his block off, he added, “But I came to tell her good-bye. ”

“Where are you going, Jens? ” In her stocking feet, Barbara came up behind Sam so quietly that he hadn’t heard her.

“Washington State, ” Larssen answered. “I shouldn’t even tell you that much, but I figured you ought to know, in case I don’t come back. ”

“That sounds as if I shouldn’t ask when you’re going, ” Barbara said, and Larssen nodded to show she was right. Coolly, she told him, “Good luck, Jens. ”

He turned red. Because he was so fair, the process was easy to watch. He said, “For all you care, I could be going off to desert to the Lizards. ”

“I don’t think you’d do that, ” she said, but Larssen was right: she didn’t sound as if she much cared. Yeager had all he could do to keep from breaking into a happy grin. Barbara went on, “I told you good luck and I meant it. I don’t know what more you want that I can give you. ”

“You know good and well what I want, ” Jens said, and Yeager gathered himself again. If Larssen wanted that fight bad enough, he’d get it.

“That I can’t give you, I said, ” Barbara answered.

Jens Larssen glared at her, at Sam, at her again, as if he couldn’t decide which of them he wanted to belt more. With a snarl of curses, some in English, others in throaty Norwegian, he stomped off. His furious footfalls thundered on the stairs. He slammed the front door of the apartment building hard enough to rattle windows.

“I wish that hadn’t happened, ” Barbara said. “I wish-oh, what difference does it make what I wish now? If he’s going away for a while, that may be the best thing that could happen. We’ll get some peace and quiet, and maybe by the time he gets back he’ll have figured out he can’t do anything about this. ”

“God, I hope so, ” Yeager said. “What he’s put you through ever since we got here isn’t right. ” He’d been riding the roller coaster himself, but he kept quiet about that. Barbara was the one who’d had the tough time, because she’d been in love with Jens-right up to the minute she found out he was still alive, Sam thought. Since then, since she’d chosen to stay Barbara Yeager instead of going back to being Barbara Larssen, Jens had done his best to act about as unlovable as a human being could.

Barbara’s sigh showed a weariness that had nothing to do with her being pregnant. “Very strange to think that a year ago he and I were happy together. I don’t think he’s the same person any more. He never used to be bitter-but then, he never used to have much to be bitter about, either. I guess you can’t really tell about someone till you see him when the chips are down. ”

“You’re probably right. ” Sam had seen that playing ball-some guys wanted to be out there with the game on the line, while others hoped they wouldn’t come up or be on the mound or have the ball hit to them in that kind of spot.