Cassada by James Salter

didn’t mean to. I just forgot.”
    Without saying anything more, Isbell turned away. After a while he brought two large bags, their side compartments bulging, into the hallway and set them down with a faint click of the metal studs on the bottom that helped them stand upright. Marian continued to read when he came into the living room.
    â€œI set the alarm for six,” he said. “If the weather’s good we should be getting off first thing.”
    â€œIt’s supposed to be good, isn’t it?” she said, still reading.
    â€œThe forecast is good.”
    â€œSix. Well, you’d better get to bed then. You’ll need your sleep.”
    â€œWhat about you?”
    â€œI think I’ll finish this chapter,” she said.
    â€œHow long is it?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know.” She held apart about thirty pages. “That much.”
    Isbell walked into the kitchen. There was the sound of ice being broken out of a tray. “You want a drink?” he called.
    â€œNot really.”
    She knew the moment it started, what he would say and the way he would walk and act. It was the awful familiarity of it, of everything, the sound of him brushing his teeth and spitting in the sink, the moment when that stopped and light flooded the dark hall as he opened the bathroom door and with ominous weight lay down beside her. And afterwards when she lay awake looking out the window at other apartments, dark too, and seeing a bathroom light come on, just as they saw hers. They knew what was happening. She had asked him once not to turn it on.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?”
    â€œPeople see it.”
    â€œWell, so what?”
    â€œThey know what’s going on,” she said feebly.
    â€œNo, they don’t. That’s absurd. How do they know? It could be the children. It might be anything.”
    â€œBut it’s not just anything.”
    Isbell came out with a drink and after a moment sat down and started to read a magazine. Marian found herself going over the same sentence two or three times. Her mind would not do what she wanted. She could hear him lazily turning the pages, moving in his chair, yawning.
    â€œYou sure you don’t want a drink?”
    â€œNo, thanks.”
    â€œCome on.”
    â€œI don’t feel like one.”
    He turned a few more pages.
    â€œWe’re going to be down there for almost five weeks,” he said.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œThat’s more than a month.”
    She did not say what she felt which was, what difference does one time make? She simply didn’t feel that way. It was a cold act, there was something selfish at the heart of it. Why was it that important? It wasn’t; just some kind of male itch. But in the morning, she knew, he would be brief and irritable, even with all that lay ahead, Rome, crossing the Mediterranean, the islands, the North African shore. It would all be her fault. Why couldn’t he just accept it, she thought? What did the other husbands do?
    â€œIt’s getting late,” Isbell finally remarked.
    â€œI guess so.”
    â€œHow much longer are you going to read?”
    â€œOh, a little while,” she said.
    â€œCome on.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œYou know what I mean. You can read all the time I’m gone. You’ve got five weeks.”
    â€œJust one more chapter,” she said.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Marian?”
    â€œNothing, really. I don’t feel very well,” she added.
    â€œStomach again?”
    â€œI don’t feel well, that’s all.”
    He hated the whine in her voice. He went out on the balcony then. It was small, four or five paces long, and he stood there, leaning on the railing and looking out at the housing area. Lights were still on in many apartments. Only a few floors had dark stretches. The night was cold. The roads had ice on them and there was snow on the ground. The wind was whipping the shirt against his