If he’s going to be fatherly, then he should start by begetting a child on her so he could be father to their own.
Not a thought she allowed herself to think more than once or twice a week. She went back to bumptiousness for a moment, to punish herself for such a wicked thought. After all, she might be the barren one, and him not sterile at all. She had never asked him whether he had sired any children during his soldiering days—she didn’t really want to know the answer anyway—and he had never volunteered the information. “You know, Leaky my love, it’s obvious you’re the one as can’t conceive, seeing that I’ve fathered children in fourteen towns, and them’s only the ones I know about.” No, Loaf would never burden her with such information. Nor could Leaky ask, “Were you chaste as a soldier, my big old bear? Or have you by any chance noticed that you never left a bit of seed behind?”
She locked the front door of the roadhouse and went out back to chop wood for a while. Chopping wood was always useful, not least for working off some anger.
She had the ax back over her shoulder, ready to swing, when she saw someone standing right in the path of her swing. She only just stopped herself. “Fool! Are you trying to get—”
Then she saw that it was Umbo.
“Back already? And snuck up on me like that?”
Umbo only shook his head. “Look at me,” he said softly.
She looked. He was different. Completely different clothes, for one thing. And taller. Not just a little, a lot. A man’s height. Getting to be a tall man’s height. And his face—was that a flash of fuzz on his chin and cheeks?
“Are you really here or is this just a message from the future?” she asked suspiciously.
“I’m alive, Loaf is alive, and Rigg got saved along with his sister Param. We all escaped Aressa Sessamo and left the wallfold and it’s been several years.”
“Years! How irresponsible! It was supposed to be only a few—”
“Hold your tongue for a moment, if that’s possible,” said Umbo. “This is the fifth time I’ve tried to have a conversation with you but you never shut up long enough to hear me out.”
“Of course I don’t listen when you—”
“This is the last time I’ll try,” said Umbo. “If you don’t hear me now, I will not bring Loaf home to you.”
“How dare you, after—”
“Still talking,” said Umbo.
“You have no right to command—”
Umbo shouted now. “If you don’t listen to me you will never see your husband’s face again. Do you understand that? Can you control your anger long enough to realize that your entire future with Loaf is at stake?”
Leaky fell silent, but she was even more furious than before.
“I can see you’re angry,” said Umbo, “but believe me, this isn’t the way I spoke the first time I tried this. It was—would have been—about a week from now, and I didn’t come as a vision like this, I came in person.”
“You can do that?” she asked.
“In the past several years, yes, I’ve learned a few things. I’ve changed. So has Loaf.”
“What aren’t you telling me? Spit it out—has he lost a leg?”
“Shut. Up. Now.”
She thought she’d burst with rage at his domineering, disrespectful attitude.
“I’ve been through this confrontation and everything failed. I tried hearing you out, but when you rage, Madam Leaky, you make yourself angrier and less reasonable. So this is my final attempt. Loaf agrees with me. If you can’t listen and accept what I’m going to tell you, he’s going to figure it’s as if he died on our journey and he’ll never come home to you. So what’s at stake now is this: Can you be silent, or do you want to never see your husband again?”
“Loaf agreed to this? What kind of—”
“If you listen I’ll tell you all the whys. On my second visit to you I actually got to tell you what has changed about him, and you still behaved so badly that Loaf almost gave up then. I was the one who talked him into making another try. In fact, three more tries. Do you understand me, you thick-headed angry woman? Loaf married a woman with a temper but he thought you loved him more than you loved your own rage. Is he right or wrong?”
“Let me chop wood for a minute,” she said. “Can you stand there and wait? I have to… I have to get this out of me.”
Umbo nodded and stepped back. He did not disappear.
Leaky set up a short log, picked up the ax, and let fly. Shivers of wood flew in all directions. She set up another, pulverized it, then another, another.
“How many are you going to turn into splinters?” asked Umbo.
“Your turn to shut up! It hasn’t been a minute yet!”
It was probably five minutes, but finally she was exhausted and plopped down onto the ground and leaned her forearms on her knees and covered her face with her hands. “Talk to me,” she said, “while I’m not looking at that smart-mouth face of yours bossing me around.”
“If you listen and then talk to me quietly and reasonably, I won’t boss you around,” said Umbo. “I know Loaf will never be happy if he can’t come home to you, but I also know he won’t come back to you until he knows you’ll give him a chance.”
“Give him a chance to—” But this time Leaky stopped herself. “You tell it. I’ll listen. I swear I’ll listen.”
“The first wallfold we went to was an evil place. We didn’t understand how evil. All the human beings there were dead. The only person there was Vadeshex, and he isn’t human.”
“A person, and not human? Sorry. Sorry. I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“Vadeshex looked just like Rigg’s father. He was just like him because they’re not human. They’re mechanical men designed to look like people. They’re called ‘expendables’ but they never die. There’s one in each wallfold. Rigg was raised by one.”
“But his father died,” said Leaky.
“His father pretended to die,” said Umbo. “They’re all liars, these expendables, because they think their job is to protect the human race from the human race. They know everything, but they understand nothing. No matter how angry you get at me, it’s nothing to how angry I am at Vadeshex. Because he tricked Loaf into—no, wait. It won’t make any sense unless I explain something first.”
“By Silbom’s right kneecap!” shouted Leaky.
“Loaf is alive. He’s sharper and healthier than ever. But something happened to him in Vadeshfold and that’s what I’m trying to tell you. But some things don’t make sense unless I explain other things first. Please, please be patient with me. I don’t want to fail Loaf again, the way I did the other four times.”
“I thought I was the one who failed!”
“You’re the one who didn’t listen,” said Umbo, “but it has to have been my fault because I went about it wrong. The first time I tried to tell everything gradually and make things seem better than they are. You saw that I was concealing things and so I think you were right to be angry. I thought you were going to kill me, which didn’t seem fair to me, but I did a bad job. I did a bad job all the other times, too, because I failed. But please help me, Leaky. I’m going to make mistakes so you have to help me make up for my stupidity by being patient with me. Please.”
Leaky was astonished to hear a sound like incipient weeping in his voice, as if he was trying not to cry. But she didn’t look at him. “Tell me in whatever order you think is best.”