Patricia Joudry
Published: 1960
Total Pages: 44
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THE STORY: Louise married Stanley years before, more in gratitude than in love, after he had been badly injured in saving her life in a car accident. Stanley, in turn, is psychotically obsessed with a smothering love for his wife, and has become a compulsive liar, intent on making himself the center of Louise's universe. She is drawn away from contact with her family when her brother is accidentally killed in a quarrel with Stanley. When their little boy is electrocuted on his third birthday by a live wire on the electric train Stanley had given him as a present, Louise is thrown into a state of shock. Stanley quits a promising job and a chance of promotion to stay by her side and nurse her. As the play opens, she has a job as nurse to someone else's little boy, and her love for this child has blocked out the pain of her own loss. But Stanley, fearing her attachment for the child has grown too strong, comes home that evening with the news that he had been promoted to manager of a branch store in Australia. Louise is heartbroken at having to leave the boy. The day they are to sail, she learns that Stanley's story is a lie, that in reality he has accepted a position at a much lower salary. Angrily, she confronts him with the truth and threatens to leave him. Then, in a sudden flash of understanding she realizes that all those accidents have not been accidents, and she runs out. What follows is a tragic and spine-tingling ending.