Three Women by March Hastings

manage."
    He took a long slug from the beer can and swallowed with a grimace of distaste. A thin line of foam clung to the shadow of his mustache. "That's tough," he said.
    There wasn't anything she could do. She wheeled and stalked out of the place, hating Phil for not helping her in the slightest. Surely he understood what was happening. Even if she had hurt him, he could be big enough to overlook it in this case. He felt very much like Mike, probably. Unwanted. Unneeded. So they teamed up against her. It was too ridiculous.
    By the time she got home, Ma had pulled herself together. Two portions of ham and eggs were waiting. Paula knew that Ma was too sick inside herself to have an appetite. She had fixed dinner for only Paula and Mike.
    Seeing Paula alone, her fine dark eyebrows came together in question.
    "I found him,'' Paula volunteered. "He's over at Phil's place and he doesn't want to come home."
    "Did you really expect something different?" She put a single serving on the table.
    "Yes. I expected him to act like an adult."
    "Well, eat your supper. He’ll calm down by tomorrow. Don't worry about it."
    Paula sat down and played with the fork. Her own appetite was gone but she knew she should try to eat. "I'm not worried. I'm disgusted. He's sixteen years old."
    "Weren't you?"
    It was an unfair reply. She was working so hard to be brave and keep things organized. And even her own mother wasn't helping. She pushed a piece of bread into her mouth and chewed it slowly. The whole world was ganging up on her. Phil thought she was a traitor. Mike was living in a fog of hurt feelings more important to him than anyone's life or death. And here was Ma taking everybody's side but hers. The supper was going down in lumps but she forced herself to keep on eating.
    Mike didn't come home that night. Paula paced around her room, cursing his stubbornness. She felt trapped and miserable. Wasn't there anyone who could understand her feelings? She climbed into bed and dug her face into the pillow. The memory of patient warm fingers massaging the cold flesh of her feet swept through her. She saw the freckles crinkling with laughter across the nose, the steaming coffee offered to warm her.
    Oh, Byrne, she whispered, take me away!

CHAPTER 4
    All through Tuesday, Paula fought to stay calm. She had to type letters three and four times to get them right. Her fingers refused to move sanely on the keys. They leaped and jumped and stumbled unmanageably. The girls, usually so talkative, started conversations with her but soon drifted away, sensing that Paula was in no mood for light chatter.
    She hadn't bothered to take lunch along. When twelve o'clock came, she went to the coffee machine in the cafeteria and drowned herself in gallons of black liquid. She knew she was tired under everything. But the blood raced through her veins and her mind sped dizzily along its crazy channel of thought.
    How could she leave the house tonight and go to Byrne? What excuse could she give Ma for deserting her?
    But she had to see Byrne. She couldn't stay in that hopeless apartment caged by those dismal surroundings. Byrne, cool Byrne, flowed like clear water through the desert of her life. She would rather die than not go tonight.
    She lit a cigarette from the stub of another and put her head in her hands. Around her the chatter and clinking of dishes went unnoticed.
    I don't even know her last name, she thought. I can't even phone her and explain why I can't come.
    Instantly she thought of phoning Phil and asking him. Then she rejected the idea. Even if he didn't ask, Phil would want to know why. He might even get in touch with Byrne to find out what was going on.
    The afternoon dragged on with its usual businesslike boredom. The round clock on the wall ticked but its hands didn't seem to move. Paula lived a hundred years before five o'clock came.
    When Paula came home, the doctor had already paid his visit. She noticed that there were no more pills in the