The Road Taken Read Online Free PDF Page B

condition in these days of large families, and Celia’s doctor told her quietly that since it covered the entrance to the womb it also worked as a contraceptive. He also told her that it was unsanitary and would probably give her an infection. She got one anyway. She would have been as happy to use abstinence as the way to prevent babies, but she knew William would never agree, and she didn’t want to jeopardize their good relationship.
    It occurred to her, almost as an afterthought, that during all the fevered wedding plans she had never sat Maude down for a womanly heart-to-heart talk about sex in marriage; but now that she was married, of course Maude had already learned everything she had to know. Sex was an instinct, wasn’t it? People bumbled through. It was more fun for the man than for the woman, but each carnal encounter (as Celia thought of it, wincing), was so brief Celia sometimes wondered how much fun it was even for the man. Yet, William, although certainly not young anymore, still wanted to do it several times a week, so she knew he really enjoyed it. She herself didn’t particularly like it, but she liked that her husband was so virile. Virility, masculinity, power, were important to her.
    There was war in Europe now. Everyone was concerned, some people wanting the United States to strike against the Huns and others wanting to stay out of it. President Woodrow Wilson was doing his best to keep the country at peace and maintain an impartial neutrality. But when a U.S. ship, the Lusitania, had been sunk by a German submarine that past spring of 1915, feelings ran high and there was a storm of public protest. Celia kept up with all of it through the newspaper that William brought home each evening. She knew there was a possibility that their country would send troops abroad, as they had done previously in Latin America, but she was sure there would never be fighting on American soil.
    The family had bought a motor car, a Ford, with a gasoline engine, and Celia made William teach her how to drive. She drove it to the grocery store, even though she could as easily have walked, choosing one or another of the children to sit beside her in the other seat, waving hello to everyone she knew on the street. Alfred begged more than any of the others to have a turn; he could have sat in that car all day long if she’d let him, and he wanted William to teach him how to drive, even though he was only ten. Of course, what Alfred wanted, Hugh did too, and William told them both quite sternly, hiding his laughter, that they’d have to wait until their feet reached the pedals.
    On these days, during these car trips, Celia allowed herself a rare burst of optimism, unusual for such a pragmatist as she was; she counted the pluses and minuses of her life and decided it was a success in every way; and best of all she knew she had been a part of making it that way. She didn’t feel middle-aged anymore, she felt young. She saw herself entering gracefully into middle age, with Alfred at Harvard or Yale and then becoming a professional man—the son of the butcher and the baker becoming a doctor or a lawyer, or, if he preferred, Celia imagined in these daydreams, the president of the local bank.
    Their garden bloomed beautifully that summer, bees drifting through the rose bushes, cut flowers brightening the house. And when Alfred came back from playing in that garden and ignored a scratch he had gotten on his face from a thorn, Celia didn’t think anything of it. Boys played roughly, and they were always getting cut and bruised. At dinner he felt feverish. When she told him to go to bed early and to be sure to wash his face, he didn’t try to make excuses to stay up later.
    In the morning when Alfred came downstairs to breakfast she didn’t recognize him.
    His face was hugely swollen and red, with ruby blotches on it. She touched his forehead and felt fever. His cheek, where he had been scratched, was hot, the skin tight. She