Away to the left in his workroom the phone rang and rang. His wife looked on from the hallway, shaking her head. Can’t you find somewhere else to play with these kids? The tussle, which had gone on for ten minutes of giggling and tickling, was the first good wrestling bout he’d had with the children since they left Chicago; in fact, it was the first time they’d had his undivided attention in weeks, so he was hardly about to stop. They were happy to he home again, the wretched flat on South Hamlin just a horrible memory now, a place that all summer long drained the gaiety from his children and epressed his wife. No, moving them there was what the Movement required at the time, hut he swore he would never. God willing, subject them to that sort of hardship again. If he regretted anything about his life, it was the way the Cause took such a devastating toll on his personal life and the roles he cherished the most, those of father and husband. Every so often he felt tempted to call his schedule suicide on the installment plan.
