Three Short Novels. Gina Berriault

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      “Sometimes I say it, but I’m afraid when I say it,” she told him. “Every time I say something against you to your face, it’s like a terrible falling, like I’ve cut the ground out from under my feet.”

      “That is the ground under your feet!” he shouted. “That is the ground.”

      “No, it’s true,” she said, twining her fingers. “It’s true what I say. That’s the way she felt, I know. She couldn’t bear you anymore, but she couldn’t cut the ground away. That’s a terrible thing, not to be able to bear the ground under your feet. What do you do then but die?”

      “You blame me for it?”

      She gave him a look of scorn, and was appalled by the slipping away of the ground. He came toward her and she waited, unable to expect that he would strike her. He struck her and she fell to her knees, clinging to him. He grasped her arms and flung her off. When she got to her feet, he followed her. “Go on! Goddamn! Go on! Go on, faster!” he shouted. “You know the way, you know the way. Take off your goddamn nightgown. What’s that on for when you run naked in the hallway? He’ll think you’re dressed to go out, looks like a goddamn dress to go out in.” He grasped the hem of it, but she swung around, striking at him, and, missing him, fell against her son’s door.

      Above her, she saw her son strike Russell in the chest. The boy flew at the man, all his taciturnity released into rage, into shouting and striking. Russell flung him away, and when the boy fell against the wall, struck him in the face with the back of his hand and left them. David helped her into his room and locked the door, and they sat together on his bed, trembling, listening to Russell’s sobs and his screams at the sobs to stay down, and they heard the rush of water in the basin. Then he left the house, raced the engine of his car, and roared away.

      She ran down the stairs and bolted the door, afraid that he would return, afraid that later in the night, wherever he was, in some hotel room, he would be forced to return. She lay down in her bed. She was not concerned with her son; he could take care of himself and his own wounds. If he was trembling, it was with fear of things beginning, of woundings and conflicts beginning; he was not trembling with the fear of endings.