Summary

In “Friday Night,” a woman and her husband are having an argument. They have been trying to conceive a child. It is Friday evening, and the woman is ovulating, but the husband says that he is not in the mood for sex. The man and woman argue about their sex life and shared sexual history, working each other into anger. They order pizza for dinner, and the husband deliberately orders the incorrect thing to annoy the woman. Still in a bad mood, they have sex, and afterward they begin to calm down. The woman then thinks about how she and her husband love each other despite their arguments, but then she wonders if they are ready to have a child.

In “Here Preached His Last,” the narrator is a high school teacher. She is married and...