January 1976

Three months later

"Do you have any idea what people are saying?" Kathryn Stone demanded as she and Ben ate dinner one Sunday evening. She had been horrified and disgusted when he had told her the news that he and Evelyn were engaged and that she was expecting a baby. She had ranted and raved down the phone and had, the previous evening, reduced Evelyn to tears.

"Your mother hates me!" she had sobbed in his arms, "she hates me and I'm trying so hard…"

"I'll sort it," he told her, "I'll go and see her." So, he had made the drive to Cambridge to try and make her see sense. "I don't care," he replied, "and you shouldn't either."

"Well I do!" Mrs Stone retorted, "and so should you! Good God Ben, this is the talk of the neighbourhood! My son getting some…some woman pregnant without being married to her…it's scandalous!"

"It's 1976, Mom, times change. And Evelyn is not 'some woman.' She's my fiancée and I love her. You did too when you met her before."

"That is not the point!" she waved her fork menacingly at him, "I know you're a grown man, Ben, you're twenty-nine years old for heaven's sake, and you can do what you like…but why couldn't you have waited until you were married? Or at any rate, not had the wedding until the baby was born?"

"And that would have been better how?" he asked.

"Well, she wouldn't have been flaunting it, would she? Walking down the aisle in a white dress stretched over that stomach of hers. It's disgusting."

"It's our child," he pointed out, angrily.

"I'm well aware of that, Ben, and so is half the town!" She shook her head, "there should be a law against it."

"Against what?"

"Young hussies like her trapping decent men like you by getting themselves in the family way!"

Ben threw down his cutlery and stood up, "I've had just about enough talk like that from you!" he retorted, "Now Evelyn's having my baby and we're getting married next month whether you like it or not. And I couldn't give a rat's ass what anyone thinks about it!"

"You've changed, Ben," Mrs Stone said, "You're not the man I thought you would become."

"Well I'm sorry about that, Mom, and I'm sorry you won't want anything to do with your grandchild. But that's your choice, not mine." He picked up his coat.

"Where are you going?"

"Home, to my fiancée," he replied. Driving home, he took his frustrations out on the car, thumping the steering wheel and banging his fist against the window so much so that he frightened an old woman passing him at one point into breaking sharply.

When he got back to the apartment, Evelyn was standing at the door waiting for him. Dressed in a white smock to cover her waistline and with her hair pulled back with a headscarf, she looked far younger and more vulnerable than her twenty-seven years.

"I heard the car," she said, "how did it go?"

He shook his head and pulled her into his arms, "She wasn't for listening."

"I'm sorry," Evelyn's voice was muffled against his shoulder, "it's my fault…"

"No, it's not," he told her, pulling back and putting his hand on her expanding stomach, "you're not to think that. You just concentrate on looking after our baby."

She turned away from him and walked into the kitchen to make some coffee. The last three months hadn't been easy. Every morning she had felt so sick and tired and Ben hated to think of her alone in her room at Harvard when she was feeling that way. Some mornings, she told him, it had been so bad she had had to miss certain classes. Then she would get upset and scream at him down the phone that everything was ruined and that she hated him for making her keep the baby. When those outbursts came, he let her rage at him, figuring there was little point in arguing back. She would always calm down eventually and then apologise. He drove up to Cambridge every weekend to pick her up and every weekend, he thought she looked paler and more drained.

"Did you tell her that it was all your idea?" she asked, a note of spite in her tone.

"No, I didn't." It was obviously going to be one of those fights.

"That I didn't actually want it in the first place and you're making me have it?" She glared at him, her eyes dark in her white face.

"Let's not start this again, Evelyn," he pleaded with her, "It's not good for you to get so upset and besides, there isn't anything we can do about it now."

"No, there isn't. I'm just stuck with swollen ankles and swollen fingers and swollen breasts and a sore back!" she threw at him. "Do you know what people are saying about me behind my back? They call me a slut, a tramp, for having got myself pregnant without being married. How do you think that makes me feel, Ben?" She dissolved into tears.

"Come on," he said, putting his arms around her, "Who cares what they think? I know you don't, you never have."

"Well maybe I do now," she pulled away, "Every Sunday night I dread the thought of going back there to face another week. It wasn't supposed to be like this! I was supposed to enjoy it second time around. It was supposed to be right!" She slammed the cups down on the counter, "Why did I let you talk me into this, why?"

"I didn't 'talk you into' anything."

"Yes you did! You told me that everything would be all right. You promised me you would take care of everything!"

"And I have!" he retorted, "I've done everything I can to look after you and the baby. I can't do any more than I'm already doing!"

"Yes you can!" Evelyn retorted, "You can take me for my damn train!" She stormed past him into the bedroom to get her things.

Ben watched her go and knew he wouldn't be happy putting her on a train by herself, "I'll drive you," he called after her.

"You've done enough already."

"Oh don't be so petty. I'm driving you and that's the end of it." He stormed around the kitchen, banging cups and cupboard doors, venting his frustration in the only way he could. After a while, he realised that Evelyn hadn't re-emerged. "Evelyn! Hurry up, come on!"

She appeared a few moments later, her eyes red and her face tear-stained, "I'm sorry." Despite knowing he should be angry with her, Ben took her in his arms and held her while she cried. "I don't know why I'm such a bitch."

"It's your hormones," he said soothingly, "it's all right." He stroked her back gently and then pulled back and tipped her face up to his, planting a sweet kiss on her nose, "Come on, let's get going."

"But you've just driven all the way back."

"It's fine," he told her, "I'd do anything for you, you know that."

SSSS

"That's not true!"

"It is true!"

"You're such a liar, Ben Stone," Evelyn giggled as they stepped inside her room, "You think I can't tell, but I can."

"You're too clever for me," he replied indulgently, putting her bag down on the bed.

"And that's definitely a lie," she grinned, putting her arms around his waist and kissing him, "but I like it." He laughed and kissed her back. "I wish you didn't have to go back."

"Me too," he said, resting his chin on the top of her head, "but I have to."

"I know." She raised her head and looked at him, "Sometimes it's just hard to get through a week without you. Especially with this baby giving me hell." She rubbed her stomach.

"Just think, in a month we'll be married," he tried to cheer her up.

Evelyn smiled wanly, "I can't wait."

Ben kissed her again and then left, waving to her as he crossed the ground back to where he had left his car. He hated saying goodbye to her, hating walking away while she stood watching him. He wanted to be with her all the time, wanted to protect her. She was emotionally fragile, and the slightest thing was capable of throwing her off kilter. In some way, he hoped that by getting married, it would give her some form of emotional security, enough at least to see her through the rest of the pregnancy.

When he got back to the apartment, the phone was ringing and he raced forward to grab it. "Hello?"

"Hey. I timed it pretty well, huh?"

"I'm just in the door," he told her, "You ok?"

"Fine. You must be really tired."

"I'm ok. I'm just going to turn in." He could hear the sound of raucous laughter in the background, "Where are you?"

"The foyer," she replied, "looks like some people are having a party."

"Well remember, you're in no fit state to go to a party," he told her.

"I know," she laughed softly, "I'm not planning to." She paused, "I love you, Ben."

"I love you too," he told her, "Good night."

"Night." She hung up and he was left listening to the dial tone.

Mechanically, he went about getting ready for bed, brushing his teeth and sorting out his papers for the morning, before collapsing into bed and falling asleep almost instantly.

SSSS

"Come on, man! I'm loaded, I want to sleep!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming. Hey, look at that!"

"What? Leave her alone, she's sleeping."

"On the stairs?"

"She's probably drunk, like me!"

"She's pregnant, idiot."

"More fool her."

"Hey…what's that?"

"What's what?"

"That…stuff on the stairs?"

"Jesus…call an ambulance!"