Naturally, when Cunningham confirmed that he was giving everything away, she was stunned.
"Of course," he rea.s.sured her, "you"re not going to have to worry personally. You"ll come out of it with a fine settlement."
"A what?"
"Understand, this is business," said Cunningham, using the magic word that would always forestall any more questions from his wife. "Youhave to divorce me if you want to keep any-thing at all for yourself or for the boys. I can"t bear to own the least thing any longer." And even as he spoke, in the back of Cunningham"s mind was the faint, terribly fragile hope that Shirley might elect to stay with him, even existing as he saw himself about to do on the charity of some distant relatives. He could still own a bite of food and put it into his mouth and not feel real pain; that was about the feasible extent of his net worth right now. But it would be unthinkable to come right out and ask Shirley or his sons to exist like that.
"Divorce you, keep anything," she repeated vacantly, in extreme horror. "But Ben, I"ll never leave you. I don"t care that much about money."
He hadn"t really dared to hope...with shaking, tearful tenderness he reached for Shirley"s hand.
"Think carefully, dear," Cunningham murmured honorably. "Everything I"ve done has been for you and the boys."
"For us?" Astoundingly, her love exploded into wrath. He could not have been more surprised if she had shattered like a bomb. "For me? Don"t tell me that. In the beginning, maybe, but not when you had a hole drilled in your brain to make more money. Not then! Go on, kill yourself, or give it all away to ease yourself, but never say again that it"s for me!"
"I..." Just then the phone began to ring. Cunningham answered it mechanically, and the voice of one of his lawyers said: "Ben, the last things are ready for your signature. But I still can"t see a man like you going through with this."
"I"ll call you back," said Cunningham slowly, and hung up. Meeting Shirley"s angry, wondering eyes, he felt a touch of new terror. The power of self-extension was still his, in a form he had not thought of until now.
It came to him that there were treasures he had yet dreamed of knowing.
It came to him also that the cage-bars of the ledgers, the prison domains of the magnetic discs, had just this moment eased their strain.
"Mr. Cunningham? You said two hours ago you"d call us back. You didn"t, so I took the liberty of calling...the papers are ready as you requested. We"re all waiting."
"The papers." Cunningham"s voice on the phone was impatient and happy at the same time, that of a man being disturbed while at some joyful occupation. "Oh, the rest of the giveaway papers, yes. I think you might as well tear those up."
end.