Brian Fellows and Kath Fellows' Marriage

Brian Fellows and Kath Fellows’ marriage is presented as a committed partnership tested by the demands of their law-enforcement work and the question of whether to have children. Brian enters the marriage determined to make it last; later, Kath’s experience helping Delia Ortiz give birth appears to prompt her to reconsider their decision not to start a family.

Commitment and Competing Demands

Brian’s resolve to make the marriage work is shaped by his mother’s unstable approach to love and marriage. He approaches his own union with Kath determined not to repeat that pattern. Their careers nevertheless make married life difficult: they work in law enforcement for two different agencies, creating complications within the same household. The account presents having children as an added complication that the couple had not been ready to consider.

Their work also intrudes on scarce time together. They generally have only one shared day off each week, and Kath resents losing it even when the cause is work-related. When Brian wakes to find she has left without her usual goodbye kiss and has not made coffee, he recognizes these departures from routine as signs that she is upset. He hopes that attending the funeral together that afternoon and the feast that evening will help repair the strain.

A Possible Change in Their Plans

After helping deliver Delia Ortiz’s baby, Kath comes home unusually preoccupied. Brian recalls that she had been too wound up to sleep, and the next morning he has the distinct impression that she has decided to stop taking birth-control pills and consider starting a family. This is Brian’s reading of her state of mind, not a confirmed conversation or settled decision reported in the passage; the episode nonetheless marks a possible change from the couple’s earlier sense that children were too complicated to contemplate.