Harry Turtledove - Supervolcano - All Fall Down

“We’ll bring you a tray after we take you back to your room. Dinner tonight is sliced chicken breast, boiled potatoes and gravy, and stewed carrots and raisins. Jell-O for dessert,” the nurse answered.

Colin thought that sounded much too much like hospital food. Kelly exclaimed, “Wow! It sounds wonderful!” She was ready to eat a horse and chase the guy who’d been riding it.

“I’m gonna call Marshall and Vanessa and your folks,” Colin said. He leaned down and kissed Kelly on the forehead. She tasted sweaty, too. He also kissed his new daughter, who paid no attention to him whatsoever.

“Mazel tov!” Stan Birnbaum said when he heard the news. Kelly’s father relayed it to her mother. Colin could hear Miriam Birnbaum burst into tears before she got on the line.

“Awesome!” was Marshall’s comment, which would do for an English rendering of mazel tov. “Tell Kelly I’ll spoil the little brat rotten. Woohoo!”

Vanessa sounded more restrained than her brother: “Congratulations, Dad. They’re both all right?”

“They sure are,” he answered proudly. “And the old father isn’t doing too bad right now, either.”

“Okay,” she said. If he was on Cloud Nine, she was on Cloud Three-Three and a Half, tops. She got off the phone fast enough to annoy him. What was she doing? Waiting for an important call instead? To her right now, the Serbian hit man or whatever the hell he was would probably qualify.

Sighing, Colin called Gabe Sanchez. “You’re a lucky bastard, you know that?” Gabe said as soon as he heard that mother and daughter were doing well.

“Thought had crossed my mind,” Colin admitted.

“I’m jealous, is what I am.” Gabe was bound to be kidding on the square. His own love life hadn’t been nearly so fortunate as Colin’s since his divorce. And the divorce itself was nastier than the one Colin went through. They said it couldn’t be done, Colin thought, but what the hell did they know? Gabe went on, “I’ll let the rest of the troops know.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Colin told him.

He went back to the room Kelly was sharing with a gal who was about to have twin boys. The mere idea was plenty to make him cringe. He pulled the curtain around Kelly’s bed to give them the illusion of privacy. No sooner had he got there than an Asian gal from the kitchen carried in a tray.

“Food!” Kelly cried, like stout Cortez or Balboa or whoever it really was discovering the Pacific. Only the conquistador didn’t make the ocean disappear. The way Kelly inhaled the hospital dinner was a sight to behold. She gulped the apple juice that went with it, too. Then she delivered her verdict: “That was the best lousy meal I’ve ever had.”

Colin actually knew what she meant. He didn’t tell her so, for fear she wouldn’t believe him. But hard work and crappy chow in his Navy days made him understand.

A nurse brought in the baby, wrapped in a pink blanket. “You can have it sleep by you tonight if you want,” she said. “Or we can just bring it in when it needs feeding.”

“Do that, please,” Kelly said. She’d been all for keeping the kid by her side through the night till Colin talked her out of it with tales of how frazzled Louise had been after doing that with Rob.

“Okeydoke,” the nurse said now. “Might as well get what sleep you can, dear.”

“Right,” Kelly said. After the nurse went away, she muttered, “If I get any sleep at all on this miserable hospital mattress.” She punctuated that with a yawn. “If I can’t sleep on it tonight, I never will.”

“Hope you do,” Colin said.

“Tonight. Tomorrow night. Then I go home, and the fun really starts,” Kelly said.

“We’ll manage,” Colin told her.

“You already know what you’re doing. You’ve done it before. For me, it’ll all be on-the-job training.” Kelly rolled her eyes. “Christ, Marshall knows more about taking care of babies than I do. He’s sure had more practice.”

“We’ll manage,” Colin said again. “And you’ll do great.” He believed that right down to his toes. Kelly wasn’t as aggressively organized in everything she took on as he was. But whatever she tried, she did a good job at it. He couldn’t imagine motherhood being any different.

* * *

Louise Ferguson and James Henry walked into the Carrows on Reynoso Drive. “Hello,” said the smiling young woman who seated people. “One and a high chair?”

“Two and a high chair,” Louise answered, looking around. “We’re meeting somebody, but I don’t see her yet.”

“Okay. Come this way, please.” The young woman took her and James Henry to a table. “Is this all right?”

“Sure,” Louise lied. She’d sat at this table when she told him she was pregnant with James Henry right after Teo skipped on her. She couldn’t remember a less pleasant lunchtime, even if the BLT had been pretty good. But ingrained politeness kept her from asking to sit somewhere else. Death before being difficult might have appeared as the motto on her family crest.

She held her son on her lap till a Hispanic kid brought the high chair. She wondered if he was legal, and how closely Carrows checked. Just closely enough to keep from getting into hot water with Immigration, odds were. A waitress brought a menu for her and a children’s menu for James Henry. She also doled out a couple of crayons so he could color on it.

“Thank you,” he said gravely.

The waitress blinked, then grinned. “You’re welcome! You’re a good boy.”

“He is,” Louise agreed. It was true, no matter how much he’d complicated her life. Her own smile faded when she looked at the prices. She hadn’t been here for a while-not since she lost her job at the ramen works. It’s just Carrows, for crying out loud, not Wolfgang Puck, she thought. But when groceries were hideously expensive and energy even further through the roof, what could you expect?

Even if it brought back those bad memories, the BLT was one of the cheaper things she could get. Pork hadn’t gone up as much as beef and lamb. Plenty, but not as much. On the kids’ menu, chicken nuggets were also less outrageous than the cheeseburger. Outrageous, yeah, but less so.

Now-where had Vanessa got to? Louise hadn’t seen her since she got back to Southern California. Vanessa had a habit of running late. Louise had had that habit, too, but Colin cured her of it. A cop had to stay on time, and he made her do the same thing. She hadn’t slipped too badly since leaving him.

“Are you ready to order, ma’am?” the waitress asked.

“Not for me, not yet, but could you get him the nuggets and fries, and apple juice to go with ’em?”

“I’ll do that.” The waitress hurried away.

Louise wondered why. The place wasn’t crowded. Were there any crowded restaurants left in the whole country? If what Carrows had to charge was any indication, there wouldn’t be. Louise also wondered if she would even recognize Vanessa. She hadn’t seen her daughter since before the eruption. She hadn’t seen Rob in even longer, but neither had Colin, so that didn’t count the same way.

The waitress delivered the nuggets and fries and juice. James Henry started slaughtering them. He wasn’t neat-what little kid is? — but he wasn’t fussy, either. All of Louise’s other kids had been. Maybe this straightforward voracity came from Teo. It would be nice if something good did.

Here was Vanessa, across the grassy strip in front of the restaurant. She’d cut her hair short. It didn’t fall past her shoulders, the way she’d always worn it before. Maybe that was what made her look harder, tougher, than Louise remembered.

When Vanessa walked into the Carrows, Louise waved. Her daughter waved back and came over to the table. Louise decided the haircut wasn’t what made her look tougher after all. It was something in the line of her jaw and, even more, something in her eyes.