Summary

It had been two days since Aaron found out that Marisa is pregnant, and “the slow drift of his thoughts drowned him … what kind of man … gets a girl pregnant, then doesn’t have a friend he trusts enough to tell about it?” (480). Helen calls multiple times, but he cannot imagine anything that could motivate him “to reenter the bright world of fact and consequence, in which dates had to be reconciled, dissertations had to be written, and a small floating fetus in the belly of a woman who didn’t love him” (480). Helen asks him to call the Eastons so they can get inside the house; the professor did not need to know “Aaron had already burnt that particular bridge” (481). On the bus to Richmond, Aaron wonders whether he had ever loved Marisa, or if he had “just been aiming himself at her...