The small hinged door in the side of the porch foundation was approximately three feet high. Addison Stubbs was approximately six feet three inches, and at the age of thirty-five he still had a harried resemblance to n adolescent who is growing faster than his clothes. Somehow he managed to crawl through the opening, drag his feet in after him, and push the door shut. There was room to lie luxuriously at full length, beside the bag of cement. One hand reached out and patted the bag weakly, with affection. He lay with his cheek against the damply cool ground.His head pounded so violently and his inside heaved so ominously that it felt as if the earth under him were lurching. He grabbed at the sack of cement, to steady himself and the earth. Hilaria's voice came from the walk right beside him, but it seemed to be much further away. "Addison," he heard her call. "Addison, where are you?" Because he has always answered when she called, in all the nine years of their marriage, instinctively he raised his head and opened his mouth ready to say, "Here. I'm under the porch." Raising his head made the earth lurch even more sickeningly. He fell back to the ground and lay very still. If Hilaria went on calling him, and saying aloud with resentment, "He must have run all the way down to the corner, to get out of sight so fast," Addison never heard. He had blacked out. It was 6:59 daylight savings time, of a gentle June twilight.

--from The Husband Who Ran Away (1948)