Greg Bear - Darwin's Children

She changed the bag of Ringer’s. Stella still did not awaken. Kaye stooped beside her daughter, listening and watching, then straightened. She looked around the cabin, seeing for the first time the homey and decorative touches, the carefully chosen personal items of the Mackenzie family. On an end table, a silver frame with characters from Winnie-the-Pooh in bas-relief held a picture of George and Iris and their son, Kelly, perhaps three years younger than Stella at the time the picture was taken.

To some, all the new children looked alike. People chose the simplest markers to differentiate between one another. Some people, Kaye had learned, were little more than social drones, going through the motions of being human beings, like little automatons, and teaching these people to see Stella and her kind with any sense of discrimination or understanding was almost impossible.

She hated that amorphous mob, lined up in her imagination like an endless army of unthinking robots, all intent on misunderstanding, hurting, killing.

Kaye checked Stella once again, found her signs steady if not improving, then walked from room to room to find her husband. Mitch sat on the porch in an Adirondack chair, facing the lake, eyes fixed on a point between two big pines. The fading light of dusk made him look sallow and drained.

“How are you?” Kaye asked.

“I’m fine,” Mitch said. “How’s Stella?”

“Resting. The fever is steady, but not dangerous.”

“Good,” Mitch said. His hands gripped the ends of the square wooden armrests. Kaye surveyed those hands with a sudden and softening sense of nostalgia. Big, square knuckles, long fingers. Once, simply looking at Mitch’s hands would have made her horny.

“I think you’re right,” Kaye said.

“About what?”

“Stella’s going to be okay. Unless there’s another crisis.”

Mitch nodded. Kaye looked at his face, expecting relief. He just kept nodding.

“We can take turns sleeping,” Kaye suggested.

“I won’t sleep,” Mitch said. “If I sleep, someone will die. I have to stay awake and watch everything. Otherwise, you’ll blame me.”

This astonished Kaye, to the extent she even had enough energy to feel astonished. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You were angry with me for being in Washington when Stella ran away.”

“I was not.”

“You were furious.”

“I was upset.”

“I can’t betray you. I can’t betray Stella. I’m going to lose both of you.”

“Please talk sense. That is loony, Mitch.”

“Tell me that’s not exactly how you felt, because I was away when it began.”

Why did the burden rest upon her? How often had Mitch been away, and Stella had decided it was time to pull something, to challenge, stretch, reach out and test? “I was stressed out,” Kaye said.

“I’ve never blamed you. I’ve tried to do everything you wanted me to do, and be everything I’ve needed to be.”

“I know,” Kaye said.

“Then cut me some slack.” At another time, those words might have hit Kaye like a slap, but his voice was so drained and desperate, they felt more like the brush of a wind-blown curtain. “Your instincts are no stronger than mine. Just because you are a woman and a mother does not give you the right to…” He waved a hand helplessly. “Go off on me.”

“I did not ‘go off on you,’” Kaye said, but she knew she had, and felt defensively that she did indeed have that right. Yet the way Mitch was behaving, the words he was saying, scared her. He had never been one to complain or to criticize. She could not remember having this sort of conversation in their twelve years of being together.

“I feel things as strongly as you,” Mitch said.

Kaye sat on the chair arm, nudging his elbow inward. He folded his arm across his chest. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Mitch said. “I know it isn’t the right time to talk like this.” His breath hitched. He was trying to hold back sobs. “But right now I feel like curling up and dying.”

Kaye leaned over to kiss the top of his head. His face was cold and hard under her fingers, as if he were already in some other place, dead to her. Her heart started to beat faster.

Mitch cleared his throat. “There’s this voice in my head, and it says over and over again, ‘You are not fit to be a father.’ If that’s true, the only option is to die.”

“Shush,” Kaye said, very cautiously.

“If I go to sleep, I’ll let something get in. A little crack. Something will creep in and kill my family.”

“The hell with that,” she said, again gently, softly, as if her breath might shatter him. “We’re tough. We’ll make it. Stella’s doing better.”

“I’m tapped out. Broken.”

“Shush, please. You are strong, I know you are, and I apologize if I’ve been acting stupid. It’s the situation, Mitch. Don’t be hard on either of us.”

He shook his head, clearly unconvinced. “I need you to tuck me in,” he said, his voice hollow. “Put me in that big bed and pull up the frilly sheets and kiss me on the cheek and say good night. I’ll be all right in a little while. Just wake me if Stella has a problem, or if you need me.”

“All right,” Kaye said. She felt an immense sadness as he looked up and met her eyes.

“I try all the time,” he said. “I give you both all I have, all the time.”

“I know.”

“Without you and Stella, I am a dead man. You know that.”

“I know.”

“Don’t break me, Kaye.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

He stood. Kaye took his hand and led him into the bedroom like a frightened boy or an old, old man. She pulled back the down comforter and the blanket and top sheet. Mitch unbuttoned his shirt and removed his pants and stood by the side of the bed, lost.

“Just lie down and get some rest,” she said.

“Wake me if Stella gets any worse,” Mitch said. “I want to see her and tell her I love her.” He looked at her, eyes unfocused. Kaye tucked the sheets in around him, her heart thumping. She kissed him on the cheek. No tears, his face cold and hard as stone, all Mitch’s blood flowing away to somewhere far from her, taking him to where she could not go.

“I love you,” Kaye said. “I believe in you. I believe in what we’ve done.”

His eyes focused on hers, then, and she felt embarrassed at the power she had over this large, strong man. The blood returned to his face, and his lips came alive under hers.

Then, like a light going out, he was asleep.

Kaye stood beside the bed and watched Mitch, eyes wide. Her chest felt wrapped in steel bands. She was as frightened as if she had just missed driving them all off a cliff. She stood vigil over him for as long as she could before she had to leave and check on Stella. She hated the conflict, husband or daughter, but went with her judgment and the nature inside her, and crossed the few steps into the living room.

The cabin was completely dark.

“What?”

Kaye sat up on the floor. She had fallen asleep beside Stella, with only the flap of the sleeping bag between her and the hard wood, and now she had the distinct impression someone other than her daughter was in the room.

It wasn’t Mitch. She could see the blanketed hill of his toes through the bedroom door.

“Who’s there?” she whispered.

Crickets and frogs outside, a couple of large flies buzzing around the cabin.

She switched on a table lamp, checked her daughter for the hundredth time, found the fever way down, the breathing more regular.

She thought about moving Stella into the second bedroom, but the hook supporting the bag of Ringer’s solution would have to be moved as well, and Stella seemed comfortable on the sleeping bag, as comfortable as she would have been in a bed.