In the Basement Summary

The narrator and his wife, Carla, are having dinner with friends Nicholas and Maria. Maria is a doctor who is expecting her first child. Nicholas and Maria show the narrator and Carla the sonogram of their child, whom Nicholas refers to as a boy even though they have stated that they do not want to know the baby's sex until its birth. Afterward, the narrator and Carla clear the dishes, moving around the very small apartment carefully to avoid knocking into anything. The narrator thinks of all the work Nicholas has done to make the apartment more efficient. Nicholas is well educated, but he is unemployed as he works slowly on his dissertation. Maria, despite her advanced pregnancy, has been working long shifts to make up for the lack of money. On top of this, the narrator has heard...