The People

"There," said Glory as she snipped a thread with her teeth and stuck the needle in the front of her plaid shin. My words had no impact on her, though they almost shocked me as I listened to them. Why didn't she notice what I said? Too familiar? "There's at least one nightgown for Child Within." She grinned. "When I was your age, folks woulda died of shock to think of calling a baby unborn a name like that. I thought maybe these sugar sacks might come in handy sometime. Didn't know it'd be for baby clothes."
"I hate you," I said, hurdling past any fingering shock. "No lady wears Levis and plaid shirts with buttons that don't match. Nor cuts her hair like a man and lets her face go all wrinkledy. Oh, well, what does it matter? You're only a stupid Outsider. You're not of The People, that's for sure. You're not on our level."
"For that, thanks be to the Lord." Glory smoothed the clumsy little gown across her knee. "I was taught people are people, no matter their clothes or hair. I don't know nothing about your folks or what level they're on, but I'm glad my arthritis won't let me stoop as low as-" She shrugged and laid the gown aside. She reached over to the battered dresser and retrieved something she held out to me. "Speaking of looks, take a squint at what Child Inside's got to put up with."
I slapped the mirror out of her hands-and the mad glimpse of rumpled hair, swollen eyes, raddled face, and a particularly horrible half sneer on lax lips-slapped it out of her hands, stopped its fight in mid-air, spun it up to the sagging plasterboard ceiling, swooped it out with a crash through one of the few remaining whole windowpanes, and let it smash against a pine tree outside the house.
"Do that!" I cried triumphantly. "Even child's play like that, you can't do. You're stupid!"
"Could be." Glory picked up a piece of the shattered window glass. "But today I fed my man and the stranger within my gates. I made a gown for a naked baby. What have you done that's been so smart? You've busted, you've ruined, you've whined and hated. If that's being smart, I'll stay stupid." She pitched the glass out of the broken window.
"And I'll slap you silly, like I would any spoiled brat, if you break anything else."
"Oh, Glory, oh Glory!" I squeezed my eyes shut. "I killed him! I killed him! I made him come. If we'd stayed Home. If I hadn't insisted. If-"
"If," said Glory heavily, lifting the baby gown. "If Davy hadn'ta died, this'd be for my grandkid, most likely. If-ing is the quickest way I know to get the blue mullygrubs."
She folded the gown and put it away in the dresser drawer. "You haven't told me yet when Child Within is s'posed to come Without." She reached for the makin's and started to build a cigarette.
"I don't know," I said, staring down at my tight hands. "I don't care." What was Child Within compared to the pain within?
"You'll care plenty," snapped Glory around the smooth curve of the cigarette paper, "if'n you have a hard time and no doctor. You can go ahead and die if you want to, but I'm thinking of Child Within."
"It'd be better if he died, too," I cried. "Better than having to grow up in this stupid, benighted world, among savages-"
"What'd you want to come hack so bad for then?" asked Glory. "You admit it was you wanted to come." "Yes," I moaned, twisting my hands. "I killed him. If we'd only stayed Home. If I hadn't-"
I lay in the dusk, my head pillowed on Thann's grave. Thann's grave-The words had a horrible bitterness on my tongue. "How can I bear it, Thann?" I whimpered. "I'm lost. I can't go Home. The People are gone. What'll I do with Child Within? How can we ever bear it, living with Outsiders? Oh, Call me too,
Call me too!" I let the rough gravel of the grave scratch against my cheek as I cried.
And yet I couldn't feel that Thann was there. Thann was a part of another life-a life that didn't end in the mud and misery of a lakeside. He was part of a happy adventure, a glad welcome back to the Earth we had thought was a thing of the past, a tumultuous reunion with all the dear friends we had left behind-the endless hours of vocal and subvocal news exchange-Thann was a part of that. Not a part of this haggard me, this squalid shack teetering on the edge of a dry creek, this bulging, unlovely, ungainly creature muddying her face in the coarse gravel of a barren hillside.
I roused to the sound of footsteps in the dark, and voices.
"-nuttier than a fruitcake," said Glory. "It takes some girls like that, just getting pregnant, and then this here other shock-"
"What's she off on now?" It was Seth's heavy voice.
"Oh, more of the same. Being magic. Making things fly. She broke that lookin' glass Davy gave me the Christmas before the cave-in." She cleared her throat. "I picked up the pieces. They're in the drawer."
"She oughta have a good hiding!" Anger was thick in Seth's voice.
"She'll get one if'n she does anything like that again! Oh, and some more about the Home and flying through space and wanting them people again."
"You know," said Seth thoughtfully, "I heard stuff about some folks used to bye around here. Funny stuff."
"All people are funny." Glory's voice was nearer. "Better get her back into the house before she catches her death of live-forevers."
I stared up at the ceiling in the dark. Time was again a word without validity. I had no idea how long I had huddled myself in my sodden misery. How long had I been here with Glory and Seth? Faintly in my consciousness, I felt a slight stirring of wonder about Seth and Glory. What did they live on? What were they doing out here in the unfruitful hills? This shack was some forgotten remnant of an old ghost town-no electricity, no water, four crazy walls held together by, and holding up, a shattered roof. For food-beans, cornbread, potatoes, prunes, coffee.
I clasped my throbbing temples with both hands, my head rolling from side to side. But what did it matter? What did anything matter any more? Wild grief surged up in my throat and I cried out, "Mother! Mother!" and felt myself drowning in the icy immensity of the lonely space I had drifted across-Then there were warm arms around me and a shoulder under my cheek, the soft scratch of hair against my face, a rough hand gently pressing my head to warmth and aliveness.
"There, there!" Glory's voice rumbled gruffly soft through her chest to my ear. "It'll pass. Time and mercy of God will make it bearable. There, there!" She held me and let me blot my tears against her. I didn't know when she left me and I slept dreamlessly.
Next morning at breakfast-before which I had washed my face and combed most of the tangles out of my hair-I paused over my oatmeal and canned milk, spoon poised.
"What do you do for a living, Seth?" I asked.
"Living?" Seth stirred another spoonful of sugar into the mush. "We scratch our beans and bacon outa the Skagmore. It's a played-out mine, but there's a few two-bittin' seams left. We work it hard enough, we get by-but it takes both of us. Glory's as good as a man-better'n some."
"How come you aren't working at the Golden Turkey or the Iron Duke?" I wondered where I had got those names even as I asked.
"Can't," said Glory. "He's got silicosis and arthritis. Can't work steady. Times are you'd think he was coughing up his lungs. Hasn't had a bad time though since you came."
"If I were a Healer," I said, "I could cure your lungs and joints. But I'm not. I'm really not much of anything." I blinked down at my dish. I'm nothing.
I'm nothing without Thann. I gulped. "I'm sorry I broke your window and your
mirror, Glory. I shouldn't have. You can't help being an Outsider."
"Apology accepted," Glory grinned dourly. "But it's still kinda drafty."
"There's a whole window in that shack down-creek a ways," said Seth. "When I get the time, I'll go get it. Begins to look like the Skagmore might last right up into winter, though." "Wish we could get some of that good siding-what's left of it-and fill in a few of our holes," said Glory, tipping up the scarred blue and white coffee pot for the last drop of coffee.