American Empire: Blood and Iron - By Harry Turtledove Page 0,75

couple of sacks of cement strapped to her shoulders. “Oh, Lord, I’m beat,” she said over the ham steaks and string beans and fried potatoes that made up supper.

“You look it,” Hal Jacobs said sympathetically. “What have you been doing, to make yourself so tired?” Her husband looked worried. “Do you think it is something you ought to see the doctor about?”

“I haven’t been doing anything special,” Nellie answered, “but today—no, the past few days—I’ve felt like I was moving under water.”

“Maybe you should go to a doctor, Ma,” Edna said. “That ain’t like you, and you know it ain’t. You’ve always been a go-getter.”

“Doctors.” Nellie tossed her head. “They’re all quacks. Half the time, they can’t tell what’s wrong with you. The other half, they know what’s wrong but they can’t do anything about it.”

Neither her daughter nor her husband argued with her. If you had a broken arm, a doctor could set it. If you had a boil, a doctor could lance it. If you needed a smallpox vaccination, a doctor could give you one. But if you had the Spanish influenza, a doctor could tell you to stay in bed and take aspirin. And if you had consumption, he could tell you to pack up and move to New Mexico. That might cure you, or it might not. Doctors couldn’t, and the honest ones admitted as much.

Nellie found herself yawning yet again. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Gracious!” she said. “I swear to heaven, I haven’t felt this wrung out since I was carrying you, Edna.”

The words seemed to hang in the air. Hal Jacobs’ eyes widened. Edna’s mouth fell open. “Ma,” she said slowly, “you don’t suppose…you don’t suppose you’re in a family way again, do you?”

“What a ridiculous notion!” Nellie exclaimed. But, when she thought about it, maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous as all that. Her time of the month should have been…Her jaw dropped, too. Her time of the month should have come a couple of weeks before. She’d never thought of asking Hal to wear a French letter on the infrequent occasions when she yielded him her body. She hadn’t even worried about it. She was far enough past forty that she’d figured having a baby was about as likely as getting struck by lightning.

She glanced cautiously up toward the ceiling. That was foolish, and she knew it. If a lightning bolt came crashing through, she’d never know what hit her.

“Are you going to have a child, Nellie?” Hal Jacobs asked in tones of wonder.

“I think—” Try as she would, Nellie had trouble forcing out the words. At last, she managed: “I think maybe I am.”

Edna burst out laughing. No matter how tired Nellie felt, she wasn’t too tired to glare. A moment later, her daughter looked contrite. “I’m sorry, Ma,” Edna said. “I was just thinking that, if you had a baby now, it’d be almost like I had a baby now, and—” She dissolved in more giggles.

Hal looked delighted and awed at the same time. Softly, he said, “With my first wife, I had two children, two little girls. Neither one of them lived to be three years old. Now God has given me another chance, when I never thought He would.” He bent his head in thanks.

Nellie wasn’t nearly so sure she felt thanks. She hadn’t figured on taking care of a child again—not unless Edna had misfortune strike her in the shape of a man (and Nellie could think of no more likely shape for misfortune to assume). And then Nellie started to laugh in the same way Edna had. “It is funny,” she said. “It’s funny now, anyways. Won’t be so funny when the baby finally comes. I remember that.”

“Oh, yes,” Hal said. “I remember, too. It is much work. But you, Nellie, we must take the very finest care of you, to make sure everything goes on in exactly the way it should.”

What he meant was, she was getting long in the tooth to have a baby. She couldn’t get annoyed about that. For one thing, he’d put it very nicely. For another, she’d thought she was too long in the tooth herself.

Over a gap of half a lifetime, she remembered what bringing forth Edna had been like. Maybe, this time, she’d go to a hospital and have them stick an ether cone over her face. That was one other thing doctors were good for.

“Ma’s a tough bird,” Edna said with no small pride. She