“What makes you feel that way?” he finally asked.

I found it hard to answer that question. It would never be easy, at any rate, to answer it as I wanted to.

“Because things can’t go on this way forever,” I found the courage to tell him.

“Why not?” he asked. He seemed indifferent again.

“Because they’re all wrong,” I rather tremulously replied. “Can’t you see they’re all wrong?”

“But why do you want them changed?” he asked with a disheartening sort of impersonality. 234

“For the sake of the children,” I told him. And I could feel the impatient movement of his body on the car seat beside me.

“The children!” he repeated with acid-drop deliberation. “The children, of course! It’s always the children!”

“You’re still their father,” I reminded him.

“A sort of honorary president of the family,” he amended.