Harry Turtledove - Supervolcano - All Fall Down

“Well, I’m glad you think so. Not everybody does-you don’t believe me, all you’ve got to do is ask Louise.” Colin let out another sharp, short chuckle. “And I make a pretty fair cop, if I do say so myself. But if you’re gonna be chief, you have to know how to handle all the political stuff. I can’t, and Mike Pitcavage can. If he’s got to step down on account of his rotten kid, they’d better pick somebody a lot like him to take his place.”

Kelly listened hard. She couldn’t hear any rancor or bitterness. She thought she would have if they were there. Colin could hold things in, but only by keeping quiet about them. When he did talk, he meant what he said.

“I am sorry I had the row with Vanessa,” Kelly said. Unlike her husband, she wasn’t altogether blind to the power of positive hypocrisy. “I wish it hadn’t happened.” That much was true. The rest? Maybe not quite.

“If she wants to give you a hard time, that’s between her and you. Meeting my new wife and getting along with her, it can’t be easy for a grown kid,” Colin said.

“Marshall hasn’t had any trouble I’ve seen,” Kelly said tartly.

“Marshall’s Marshall. He doesn’t get himself in an uproar about stuff. Vanessa. . does. She’ll go to war over commas. Makes her a darn good editor. Makes her kind of a pain, too. And she’s a woman, and so are you.” Colin set a fond hand on the curve of her hip. But then he said, “That’s not where I was going with this.”

“Where were you going, then?” Kelly asked.

“If she gives you a hard time, that’s her business, hers and yours,” Colin said. “But if she gives a little tiny baby a hard time, that’s a whole different ball game. That’s being mean for the sake of being mean. She knew what she was doing when she slammed the front door, all right. I called her on it, too. She didn’t like that very much.”

He hadn’t raised his voice. Kelly would have heard if he had. No, Vanessa was the one who’d started yelling. But Colin didn’t need to make a lot of noise to get his message across. Kelly’d known that as long as she’d known him. Vanessa wouldn’t have cared for his opinion, even delivered quietly.

“As long as it happens just the once, I’ll forget about it,” Kelly said.

“Sounds about right.” There, Colin’s agreement seemed reluctant. He went on, “Since she has landed a job, she will want a place of her own. She’ll want one, and she’ll get one.” And if she had some not-so-discreet encouragement from her father to speed her on her way, that wouldn’t bother Kelly a bit. Not even half a bit, Kelly thought as she started fixing dinner.

* * *

Dick Barber eyed Rob in mock reproach as they came up to the Episcopal church. Snow swirled through the air. It was one of the months with a vowel in it, so of course snow swirled. “The things some people will do to get out of climbing a ladder every time they want to go to bed,” Barber said.

“Don’t listen to him, Rob,” Justin Nachman said. “Now that you’re officially moving out of the tower, I’m gonna sublet it. I’ll be rich, man. Rich! He chortled unwholesomely and rubbed his mittened hands together in gloating anticipation a ham Shylock would have envied.

“I wasn’t listening to him. You don’t need to worry about that,” Rob answered. “Of course, I wasn’t listening to you, either.”

“Hey, there you go,” Charlie Storer said. “Equal-opportunity discrimination.”

Rob waited for the next smart-ass crack to come from Biff Thorvald. But Biff was less into them than his bandmates and the proprietor of the Trebor Mansion Inn. And he had more distractions. He was making sure his little son, Walter, didn’t trip on the rough sidewalk. He was also shepherding Cindy along. His wife’s belly bulged again. That made her balance less sure, but she at least knew enough to be careful. Walter wanted to go running all over creation. It wasn’t as if he even walked very well, because he didn’t. Toddlers always wanted to do more than they possibly could, though.

And this makes them different from other people how ? Rob wondered.

Others going into the church waved to him and called congratulations. Some were people he knew in Guilford. Others-more-taught or worked at Piscataquis Community Secondary School with Lindsey.

“When was the last time you were in a church and it wasn’t for a town meeting or something like that?” Barber asked.

“Oh, wow.” Rob had to think about it. Like most of his family, he thought freedom of religion implied freedom from religion. Mom drifted from one New Age almost-faith to another, but Rob, like his father and sister and brother, pretty much did without. Then a memory came back. “My senior year in college, I went to a wedding at an old mission north of Santa Barbara. Don’t jinx me-that one didn’t last.”

“This isn’t a church wedding, anyway, even if it’s in a church,” Charlie said.

That was also true. They went into the church. Standing up at the front, instead of a minister in his clerical vestments, was Jim Farrell in his decidedly secular ones. The fedora and fur-trimmed topcoat set him apart from the crowd at least as well as a white dog collar would have.

The wedding was the event of the winter social season: from lack of competition, as Rob knew perfectly well. Lindsey’s mother had come over from Dover-Foxcroft to attend. Her father had come down from Greenville-even farther-with his girlfriend. Said girlfriend was a smashing brunette, and was about Lindsey’s age. Whether she’d caused the breakup between Lindsey’s folk or come along afterwards, Rob didn’t know. Maybe I’ll get the chance to ask later on, he thought. For the moment, the atmosphere was what the diplomats called correct. With luck, it would stay that way.

Having winter guests in Guilford from such distant towns (Dover-Foxcroft was ten or fifteen miles away, Greenville about twenty-five) brought home to Rob how tightly his mental horizon had contracted since he came here. Guilford and its immediate environs were all that concerned him from day to day. News from other places north and west of the Interstate trickled in every so often. It was well out of date by the time it did. He cared no more than the people whose families had lived here for generations. When it did trickle in, it was news to him. What else mattered?

When most of the snow melted and the roads cleared during Maine’s short stretch of alleged summer, news from the great big wide world came in along with canned goods, sacks of flour, gasoline, condoms, and other vital supplies. Once upon a time, Rob had been a news junkie. Now? Hey, it was a long way away and it had happened a while ago. He couldn’t do anything about it. So why get excited?

For this performance, Dick Barber was playing the role of his father-nowhere near the worst casting in the world. Justin was his best man, Charlie and Biff his groomsmen. Lindsey’s principal, who looked like a pit bull with gold-framed glasses but actually seemed pretty nice, did duty as the matron of honor. Her bridesmaids were a couple of teachers. She’d told Rob her dad’s new arm candy had tried to volunteer for one of those slots, but was more or less politely discouraged.

Next thing Rob knew, he was standing in front of Farrell. He couldn’t quite recall how he’d crossed the intervening space. Teleportation seemed unlikely, but he couldn’t rule it out. Lindsey stood beside him, so everything else receded into the background. Her dress was white, if not exactly a wedding gown. He’d borrowed a blue blazer and tie from Dick Barber. Weddings, funerals, and gunpoint-yes, this was one of the happier reasons to don a tie.

Jim Farrell beamed at the two of them. “I have the honor to be standing in this place by virtue of authority invested in me as the law west of the Pecos-or at least west and north of I-95. If I say you’re married, you’re as married as you’re ever going to be in these parts. Have you got that?”