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He felt relief sweep over him at the tone of her voice. Once or twice, between cases of champagne, he had actually contemplated suicide. And he knew exactly how weak he was. He was totally unprepared to face what he had to face now. Without Faye, he couldn't have faced it at all. And with her, it was hardly easier. She forced him to go to the attorneys with her the next day. The doctor had told her not to go out yet, and she totally ignored the rules. After her fifth child, she wasn't as impressed with all that as she might have been after her first, and she was not going to let Ward squirm out of it. She stood beside him all the way, but in that sense she was merciless. It had to be faced, by both of them and they did. According to the attorneys, they were three and a half million dollars in debt. She almost fainted when she heard the words, and Ward's face as he listened was a deathly chalk white. The attorneys explained that they would have to sell everything, and if they were lucky they would have a little money left, which they could invest, but they could no longer live on it as they once had. In fact, Bill Gentry looked pointedly at Ward, they would have to go to work, or at least one of them would. They wondered if Faye wanted to go back to her old career, but it had been seven years since she'd done her last film, no one asked for autographs anymore, and the papers no longer ran headlines about her as they once had. She was old news, and at thirty-two she could certainly make a comeback if she wanted to, but it wouldn't be quite the same thing, and it wasn't what she had in mind anyway. She had another idea, but it was too easy to think of that.

“What about the shipyard?” Her questions were intelligent and blunt and Ward was relieved not to have to ask. Somehow it all embarrassed him, and he desperately wanted a drink as Faye pressed on. The lawyers were firm.

“You'll have to declare bankruptcy.”

“And the house? How much do you think we'll get for that?”

“Half a million, if you find someone who falls in love with it. Realistically, probably less.”

“All right, that's a start … then we've got the house in Palm Springs …” She pulled a list out of her bag. The night before, after Ward had gone to sleep, she had made a list of absolutely everything they owned, right down to the dog. She figured that with a little luck they might collect five million dollars for everything they had. Or at least four.

“And then what?” Ward looked at her bitterly for the first time. “We dress the children in rags and go begging in the street? We have to live somewhere, Faye. We need servants, clothes, cars.”

She shook her head. “Car. Not cars. And if we can't afford that, we take the bus.” Something in his face suddenly frightened her. She wondered if he could successfully make the change. But he had to, they had no choice, and she was going to help him make it. The only thing she was not willing to give up was him.

At the end of two hours, the lawyers stood up and shook their hands, but Ward's face looked grim. He seemed to have aged ten years in the past two hours, and he hardly spoke a word as they drove home in the Duesenberg. He almost had tears in his eyes realizing that it might be the last time they went out in it.

And as they walked in the door, the baby nurse was waiting for them. Little Anne had a fever. The nurse was sure that she had caught cold from Val and she was concerned. With a distracted look, Faye went to the phone and called the doctor for her, but she didn't take the baby from her arms, and when she offered the baby to her later on, Faye waved her away with a distracted look and uncharacteristically brusque words. “I don't have time.” She had other things on her mind. “Other things” being the demise of their current way of life. The prospect of what she had in store for her was exhausting just to think about. But it had to be done, and she was the one who was going to have to do it all. Ward couldn't cope with it. She would have to do everything, and he was grateful to her when she began tackling it the next day. She called all the real estate agents in town and made appointments for them to come to see the house. She called the attorneys again, made appointments with several antiques dealers, and began to make lists of what they would keep and what they would sell. Ward watched her stupefied as she sat at her desk at noon the next day, businesslike, matter-of-fact, a frown on her face, and he shook his head, unnerved by it all.

She looked up at him, still wearing a frown, but it wasn't meant for him. “What are you doing today?”