He hadn't planned to spend today dealing with Bryant Holloway's leftovers. But he supposed that he had known he would have to do it one of these days. Today was as good as any.
He sat on the bench, his elbows on the table. Lola had cooked some supper. Nothing fancy, but hot. Seventeenth-century stir fry. A little bit of chicken, lots of onions and cabbage. The apples had given it a good flavor. He usually just had a cheese sandwich at night, along with the second beer he allowed himself.
"What are you doing for politics?" he asked. "Now that you're missing the American idols?" She had named her children Clinton and Hillary.
She was washing up the dishes. Looked at him. Turned back to the dishpan. This house didn't have a sink.
He made another crack. Just couldn't resist it. They'd always argued about politics.
She turned around and started to blast him for a fool. Apparently Missy Jenkins had talked to her.
She blasted him more devastatingly than Ron Stone had done. As an ex-girlfriend, she knew him well enough to manage to hit him in places where it really hurt.
She pointed out that there had been a while between the Ring of Fire and the conception of the twins. Like about nine or ten months. During which he could have done something about it. She had a few choice words to say about the fact that during any one of those months, he could have betaken himself off to the doctor. To Adams or Nichols, if his masculine sensitivity was too delicate to patronize Susannah Shipley.
As far as Lola was concerned, there were no self justifications allowed.
Although when she finally reduced him to, "Because I'm a wimp?" she did laugh.
She blew steam out of both ears for about two hours.
The dishes were long done by then. Mostly he just sat there, looking at his hands.
Finally she said, "Look at me!"
He did.
"Are you going back to her?"
He looked back down at his hands.
"You married Latham before I married Chandra."
"It was several months after you got engaged to her. Are you going back? Bringing her here?"
About fifteen minutes later, he reached the answer. "No."
"Why not?"
That took more time.
"She was just a kid, Lola. As naive a kid as could possibly have existed in the United States of America in the last decade of the twentieth century, the way Wes and Lena brought her up. A really good kid. She had no idea what she was doing to me. Standing there in her modest little blouses and skirts, her not-by-any-means-too-tight jeans and her plenty-loose-enough-to-pass-Lena's-scrutiny tee shirts, radiating enough come-hither to drive a man mad."
"She was a good kid," Lola agreed. "She's grown into a nice person, too. Friendly. Capable. No nonsense. Funky sense of humor. I really like her better than Lenore, to be honest. Not so passive."
It occurred to him suddenly that Lola had probably seen a lot of Chandra while Lenore was married to Bryant. Whom they had buried today. While he had been down in Frankfurt, most of the time. For the last couple of years, she would have seen a lot more of Chandra than he had.
"She doesn't deserve for me to cut her off to handle four kids alone."
"She's not going to be any more alone with them from now on than she has been for the last two years almost. Look at it straight. She does deserve better than to be tied to you long distance forever. 'Irreconcilable differences' covers a lot of ground."
"All I could think of, when she came here to Frankfurt, was that I had to get her away before it started up again. Even though she really had come just to find out what was going on. Even though she didn't come down with the slightest intention of… When I saw her leaving with Missy on that motorcycle, all I really felt was relief.
"Chandra… wasn't really ever what I had planned on." He looked at Lola a little helplessly. "Not even what I had hoped for. She just happened to me."
"It's about time you faced up to that," Lola said. "That you haven't always been in control of things."
Then she took him to bed.
It was safe. She'd had her tubes tied when she divorced Latham. She had the sense to realize when she had enough on her plate.
And God only knew, it had been a long enough wait.
Chapter 64
Grantville
The phones were still down two days later. That made four days without phones. Grantville did not have a decent messenger system. Naturally. When it had working telephones, it did not need one. Even the messengers it did have, for delivering packages, were summoned by phone.
Don Francisco Nasi frowned. He would need to find Wes Jenkins himself. He needed the man. This meeting might be critical and Jenkins knew more about the situation around Fulda than anyone else available. Jenkins was probably at home. Impatiently, he started walking.
Walking was so slow.
The first motorcycle ride with that astonishing girl, though… That had been glorious, utterly glorious. He would have to do it again, as soon as possible. The ride back, with the extra weight of all those papers, had been less interesting. She had been going more slowly, balancing carefully for fear of tipping over.
"Upstairs," the young woman who answered the door told him. He recognized her, vaguely. One of Jenkins' grown daughters. Chandra or Lenore. He had trouble telling them apart, both so tall with light hair and long faces, and the house was full of children, so he would not try to guess which one it was. He thanked her.
Jenkins was not in the room to which he had been taken the night the child was born. That, when he opened the door, was empty. There were voices further down the hall. Jenkins was sitting on a very wide, very long, bed. Larger than any Don Francisco had ever before seen. Jenkins was tall, of course, and not a poor man. Perhaps he had once had it made especially for his comfort?
The remarkable Clara was propped up on pillows. Jenkins had the infant on his lap. Eleanor Maria, they were calling her, in honor of both grandmothers. Most appropriate.
Don Francisco listened with amusement. According to Jenkins, there had never been such a perfect infant, right down to her fingernails and toenails. He was spreading out the little fingers and toes, showing these off. He was telling his wife that daughters were wonderful. He was saying that no man in his right mind, having been presented with such a splendid child by his wife, could possibly wish that she were a son instead.
Don Francisco had to give him credit. It was a spectacular performance. Bravura. Quite convincing. Perhaps Jenkins would ultimately achieve a higher rank in the diplomatic service than he himself had expected. If Nasi had been a wife rather than a man, he would probably have believed every word. Many of them, at least. It was almost too bad that he would have to interrupt. However.
"Wes," he said from the doorway. "Wackernagel has come in with more information from Frankfurt. We need you at a meeting right away."
Clara waved at him. "Tell our favorite courier Hi! for me," she said. He looked up, a little startled. The tone of her voice did not match the normality of her words.
Clara thought that the little speech had been very nice of Wesley, particularly on this third day after the birth, when she ached all over and felt so wretched and weepy. Her milk was coming in. She had been doubtful of the wisdom of permitting the child to suckle the pre-milk, but Kortney had insisted that the up-time physicians found it of value. Putting Eleanor Maria to her breast, she admitted to a certain feeling of smug satisfaction as to how single mindedly this particular baby, so far superior to all other babies, devoted herself to nursing. The child would be strong. That made up for the way her breasts hurt. Or it ought to.
A wife should believe her husband. But in her heart, she admitted, she did not believe one word of what Wesley had been saying. She sat there thinking that she would, definitely would, give Wesley sons yet. She shifted uncomfortably. Before this day, she would not have believed that a human bottom could hurt so much. Buttocks were usually so squishy and bland, causing one no trouble at all. She cradled her daughter a little closer and briefly, fiercely, wished that every man who fathered a child should be required to produce a bowel movement the size of a baby on the same day it was born.