"Look," Jim Trainor said to Rick and Judy Grant after church, "I think we have things to talk about -- not here. Could you come to dinner at my house? I'm available any night this week."

"Well, you're right." Judy Grant said. "Would Wednesday suit."

"Wednesday. Shall we say 6:30. My meals are cooked by a housekeeper who usually leaves at 6:00."

Judy looked at Rick, who didn't object. "6:30 would be fine."

The port was poured. Mrs. Bryant's roast beef was carved, served, and praised. Jim didn't see any reason for more small talk.

"It appears that your daughter is going to marry my son," Jim said. "That gives us a common interest, or -- at least -- common concerns."

"Do you think she's pregnant?" Rick asked. He couldn't shake the feeling that this had to be Marilyn's reason.

"Well, she's your daughter. I presume from your question that she hasn't told you that she is." Judy shook her head. "In that case, if she was, she wouldn't tell me, now would she? If I had to make a bet, I'd bet against it. Andy is a quite sensible guy, and Marilyn strikes me as a sensible girl. Two sensible people rarely start a baby they don't want."

"But you're assuming that they're having sex," Rick said.

"Pardon me. In the year of Our Lord 1978, I assume that about any couple who announce their engagement. As I said, she's your daughter. I don't want to cast any aspersions on her, and everything I've seen give me the impression that she's a quite moral woman." Jim damn-well thought that they were having sex, but her father might want to think otherwise. Still thinking that she was pregnant but not having sex was a little thick for the sensible man he took Rick Grant for.

"And you know your son better than we do," Judy said. He might even understand that odd guy.

"That's right. I don't know whether he's having sex with Marilyn, but I'm quite clear that he'd like to. On the other hand, I would hope that he'd be careful."

"You don't think he'd get her pregnant in order to force her to marry him?" Rick was still on the pregnancy question.

"No! Actually, of the two, Marilyn is the dominant spirit. I very much doubt that Andy could force her to do anything. I doubt that he would seriously want to." Jim thought that Marilyn had made a total conquest. Couldn't her parents sense that?

"Really," Judy said, "I do think Andy is quite obedient. He carries her luggage on their trips. You'll forgive me, I hope, if I say that Andy doesn't look normal." Jim wouldn't forgive her, but he would hold his tongue.

"Well," Jim asked, "what is normal? He got an A in four serious courses last semester, and was on Dean's List the three previous semesters. Is that normal? It's certainly not subnormal. I think you've seen Andy being more submissive than he usually is. He'll do what Marilyn tells him to do, but he's damn-well less obedient with me."

"He picked a quarrel with me on the church stairs," Rick said.

"I saw that quarrel, Rick," Jim said. "And, if you'll pardon me, I think that really you picked it. But that is an example. You couldn't make him back down, but Marilyn could drag him away. Anyway..."

"Anyway?" Judy finally asked.

"That's not what I had planned on discussing. I approve of the marriage, and you disapprove. But neither of us have much of an influence on what will happen."

"Well, we could tell them that they can get married, but we will end any support when they do." Rick was being hard-assed, but he was saying what they could do, not whathe would do.

"Theoretically, yes," Jim agreed. "If you wanted your daughter to spend her life as the wife of a hardware-store clerk. But I don't want my son to go without a college education, and I'm not going to say that. There might be another consequence, too. You could punish your daughter for going against your wishes, but -- if you did -- would she bring your grandchildren to visit? I want to see my grandchildren. I missed a good deal of my daughters' childhood -- all right, the fault was mine. But I don't want to miss the childhood of my grandchildren, and I'm not willing to risk that."

"So, you're not willing to join us in forcing them to wait a year?"

"I don't think we could force them to wait a year. Look, I worried about Andy when he was in high school. In truth, I worried about his generation. I saw my father work; he was a dairy farmer. Andy almost never saw me work. Well, I could insist that he work. Then the money he spent would represent sweat he'd expended. He'd know the value of a dollar. My experiment failed."

"He's a spendthrift anyway?" Judy asked.

"No. He doesn't know the value of a dollar the other way. When he has enough food to eat and enough science fiction to read, and he prefers the older science fiction he can get from the library, then he is content. If he has more money in the bank than he can spend on those two, then he leaves it there. In teaching him the value of money, I got him his own bank account. When he was mad at me, he transferred it from my bank, where I couldn't find out what he had in his account anyway, to another bank up here. So, I don't know what he has in savings.

"Obviously, though, he thinks he has enough to get through the next year. He asked me to pay for housing, and I said that I would. If he'd asked me for an allowance for food, I'd have given that, too. Part of the reason is that I'm divorced. I pay child support for two girls. I'm obliged to pay their college expenses. I'm not going to slight my son. Period. I'm certainly not going to ask him to choose between me and your daughter. I know which he'd choose, which, indeed, he's already chosen."

"Why are we talking, then?" Judy asked. She seemed to Jim to be the family spokesman over this. Well, a mother was the parent who decided about children, especially daughters.

"If I could, I'd like to persuade you against punishing your daughter for her choice. As I said, it's too late to influence that choice. I tried to bribe Andy to wait a year. He refused, and he told me that this was their joint decision."

"You tried reward and not punishment? Has Skinner persuaded you?" Judy was crediting Jim with more education than he thought he deserved. He barely recognized the name Skinner. He was dealing with his situation.

"Well, rewards don't cost anything if they refuse. As I said, punishment might make me an enemy if I went through with it. Even if I had a dire enough punishment to convince them, I'd quite probably make an enemy.

"Well, we aren't happy about this, and I don't see why we should pretend to be," Rick said. "Weddings cost money, you know. If they want to have one when we disapprove, let them pay for it themselves."

"Well, weddings can be quite cheap. And Andy hasn't been dreaming of a fancy wedding for the past decade. Has Marilyn? They could pay for a justice of the peace themselves. For that matter, I'd be willing to pay for a simple ceremony at Aldersgate."

"Would Reverend Lawrence actually conduct a wedding service against our wishes?"

"My guess is hat he would. He'd prefer to not offend you, but he would. For that matter, there are plenty of Methodist churches in Evanston. More than half the weddings in churches are of non-members at a guess. Anyway, Marilyn is of age; she doesn't need your permission to wed. On the other hand, you do need her permission to be involved in her wedding. What I'm trying to say is that you don't want to cut off your nose to spite your face."

"You're saying we've lost this fight," Judy said.

"Yeah," Jim agreed. "And if your teen-age daughter was anything like my teen-age son was, it isn't the first fight you've lost. On the other hand, you haven't lost your daughter. Believe me, that's worse."

"Well, you may have noticed," Judy said, "Pete doesn't go to church any more."

"Yeah," which sounded like Jim had noticed, although he hadn't. He didn't want to admit that he wouldn't recognize Pete if he saw him. "And Marilyn does, even though she sits with Andy. She tells me that they go downstate, too."

"It seems that you won that one, won from us, that is." Rick was bitter over the seating arrangements, not only with Andy but also with his family.

"Only occasionally, and only as a favor that Marilyn granted me on request. They are declaring their independence. I suspect that your son is also, though I'm guessing from other kids. I'll tell you, Andy had told me that he wasn't going to attend Aldersgate except for communion Sundays just before he started sitting with Marilyn. He found that preferable, and I found that preferable. If you had that choice, wouldn't you prefer their sitting together over their not attending?"

"I don't know," Judy said, "they sit indecently close together." Jim thought that they sat like a couple in love, maybe a couple in lust. They sat like newlyweds, and they would be newlyweds soon enough.

"Well," Jim said, "I see three theoretical possibilities: They don't marry; they have a successful marriage; they marry and break apart later. If you can't get the first possibility, don't you think that the successful marriage would be preferable to the broken one?"

"Put like that, of course." Judy said. Rick nodded.

"Do you see any way of preventing the marriage?" There was a long pause while Judy looked at Rick. When she'd asked that question, he'd had dreams.

"Not really," Rick finally said. Judy was the one to nod now.

"Then let's make this a happy wedding," Jim said. "That's a lot easier than a happy marriage, but it's a good start." He'd planned to say that he would foot any bills they were unwilling to, but that was really a last resort. It would not only cost him money just before he had to pay Molly's tuition, it would ruin the Grants' relationship with their daughter.

"You know," Judy said, "your own marriage, or, really, your divorce is one of the things that frighten us about her marrying Andy." It was one reason, but she had more feelings about Andy than the reasons would justify.

"Well, the divorce is merely a symptom. If you'd seen the marriage, it would have frightened you much more. Andy, however, did see the marriage. If his vantage point hid some of the details, it was a damned scary vantage point. Maybe Marilyn wants a marriage because she's seen a good one. Andy fears marriage because he's seen a bad one. He'll do his damnedest to keep his own marriage from being a bad one."

"From here, he doesn't look afraid of marriage," Rick said. Andy had, after all, propositioned Marilyn into an engagement.

"Well, he is. On the other hand, he wants Marilyn. And marriage is the only way he can have Marilyn. That's clear to me, even from my distance."

"So, Andy gets his sexual desire. What does Marilyn get?" Rick thought that this was the basic question.

"I'm sorry," Jim said, "if my words suggested that Andy's desire was solely, or even primarily, sexual. He enjoys Marilyn's company. And he wants her happy. So, among the things that Marilyn gets is an intelligent -- if not very insightful -- guy who has making her happy one of his major goals in life. You know, if Marilyn had ignored Andy, I could have understood it. I'd have commiserated with my son, but I wouldn't have been puzzled. Your dislike, on the other hand, I find puzzling. Even prejudiced, I don't think Andy looks like the ideal boyfriend to a young lady."

"He's boring." Judy was sure about that. She could never understand what Marilyn saw in that social nobody.

"Well," Jim said, "obviously your daughter disagrees. And, after all, if Andy is less exciting on campus than a sports star would be, he is likely to wear better. But, as I said, if it's puzzling that Marilyn finds him interesting, it's even more puzzling that you object to him. I'd think he would look like excellent material for a son-in-law.

"After all, you'd wince if Marilyn brought home a drama major whose career goals were to be a star on Broadway or in Hollywood. Andy plans on being an engineer. My impression is that most of those who get the degree find employment in that field. While Andy doesn't have the degree yet, he's making excellent progress."

"You and Marilyn keep talking about his grades," Rick said. "I might be more impressed by grades in a more competitive field." Marilyn was getting an education; Andy was learning a trade.

"I beg your pardon." Jim might not understand all that Andy had learned, but he understood enough to respect its intellectual underpinnings. "Don't simply take my word for it. You're a member of a church which has several faculty and grad students from Northwestern attending. Ask any of them whether they regard Partial Differential Equations as a gut course. Most of them, of course, won't know the subject. But the science people should. Andy got an A in the first half of that course. I don't know the details of his other courses, but I don't think engineering is quite basket weaving. And, after all, Andy got A more often than B in his distribution courses.

"One reason you hear about Andy's academic triumphs from your daughter and from me, is that you will never hear Andy talking about any academic triumph. His standard is that he should get an A in every math, science, and engineering course. That means that he usually does acceptably, and he occasionally does unacceptably. He never triumphs by his standards, because the highest grade they give is merely acceptable for him."

"You're saying he's egotistical?" Judy asked. Sometimes he looked that way.

"That's not quite what I was saying, although he can be. I'm saying that he has quite high standards for himself. You don't hear him telling a kid who gets a C in a course that Andy's better because he got an A. You will hear him saying that he did badly in a course because he got a B in it. Now, his academic career is almost over, but the people who hire engineers think those grades predict success in the field. And Andy's a worker. He's worked five summers, now.

"All I'm saying," Jim continued knowing he was saying too much, "is that Andy fits the current adult criteria. He does well in school; he does well in employment; he doesn't have the greater negatives of alcoholism, a drug habit, or a criminal record. He keeps himself clean and out of debt. You could do one hell of a lot worse for a son-in-law. He's even of the same religion."

"I'm still not sure he's normal," Judy said. Andy actually gave her the creeps, and hearing Marilyn talk about him gave her the creeps worse. That Marilyn was sexually active in college was no great surprise, although a disappointment. That Marilyn had sex with that nobody was still a shock.

Well, Jim admitted to himself that he couldn't honestly claim that Andy was normal, but was that a great problem? Andy had gone through hell as a kid, but he looked like he was in a safe haven now.

"Oh? In what way?" he asked. "I mean, he's unusual in several ways, but what do you see as abnormal?"

"He doesn't seem to have fun like normal kids do." Judy couldn't really express it.

"Well, you've seen him in church and in your home, his girl friend's home. Those aren't usual places for having great fun. I'm sure that Marilyn has seen him have more fun." Jim was being careful to avoid the word 'bed,' but he couldn't avoid picturing that sort of fun. "He did enjoy reading more than most kids his age, but many of them have caught up with him. Marilyn has to enjoy books; she told me that she went into English teaching because of the teachers she'd had who opened up the pleasures of literature for her."

"Well, I'm not convinced." Judy didn't think that Jim had even addressed her feelings, but -- then -- she hadn't expressed them, either.

"You're not, and I can't convince you, but Marilyn is, and Andy managed to convince her."

"Well, we'll discuss it," Judy said. "You have a point that we have to make the best of it that we can."

The dinner continued on other topics. As Judy had said, the Grants had something to discuss, and they weren't going to do it in front of Jim.

Despite the nearness, the Grants had driven. Judy started the discussion on the way home.

"You know, Rick, he does have a point. We've invested a lot in her education; trying to end it would just turn her against us."

"He said he didn't think she was pregnant." The whole wedding idea was wrong, but this was the one thing most wrong about it.

"Nobody thinks that she's pregnant. She's infatuated with the boy. For that matter, if she were pregnant, she'd tell us. That would end our opposition to the wedding, wouldn't it?"

"Well, I think she's pregnant. Why else get married now?" That was the critical point. Why now?

"For God's sake, Rick. She's not pregnant. She's on the Pill." Judy hadn't planned to tell him that his little girl had grown up, but there came a point when she had to.

"She is? She told you that!" Somehow, that was worse than thinking of her as pregnant. She'd been seduced -- he could tell. Contraception, however, sounded like she'd agreed to it in cold blood.

"I found them last year. I threatened to flush them down the toilet, and she threatened to have a baby. Actually, she backed down to say that she'd have sex with less protection. Well, as Jim says, sometimes you have to accept the lesser evil."

"I don't feel happy about this marriage." And he didn't feel any happier about knowing that Judy had kept this critical secret from him for a year.

"Neither do I. On the other hand, she'll blame us for the failure if we make it hard on them. The marriage might not last, but the blame would be forever. Let's do it." Jim Trainor hadn't been all that persuasive, but he was right that they didn't have many options.

"Are you sure you're not simply interested in holding the wedding that you've been planning for years?"

"Honestly? Well, it's not the only reason. On the other hand, I'll never have anything to say about Pete's."

"If any. He's damn young, yet."

"He's damned young. Somehow, the idea of him not having any wedding at all doesn't make me feel better about not having a say in it."

"I feel better about him, though." And he did. Pete was less of a disappointment than Marilyn was.

"Why? What has he done?"

"Well, I used to think how little ambition he had. At his age, Marilyn had already had her whole future set. She was going to teach English in high school. Now, she's going to be married. Well, Pete may not have his future planned out, but is that so bad? At least he doesn't have his future disrupted."

They'd been sitting in the driveway. They didn't want Pete to hear their conversation. Now, Judy went inside. After putting the car in the garage, Rick followed.