if you don't feel well, go back to bed," he told her. "I can fix my own breakfast."
"It's all right," she said. "I was just resting. I'm sorry. I'll get up and fry you some eggs."
"Stay there," he said. "I'm not helpless."
He went to the refrigerator and opened the door.
"I'd like to know what this is going around," she said. "Half the people on the block have it, and you say that more than half the plant is absent."
"Maybe it's some kind of virus," he said.
She shook her head. "I don't know."
"Between the storms and the mosquitoes and everyone being sick, life is rapidly becoming a pain," he said, pouring orange juice out of the bottle. "And speak of the devil."
He drew a black speck out of the orange juice in the glass.
"How the hell they get in the refrigerator I'll never know," he said.
"None for me, Bob," she said.
"No orange juice?"
"No."
"Good for you."
"No, thank you, sweetheart," she said, trying to smile.
He put back the bottle and sat down across from her with his glass of juice.
"You don't feel any pain?" he said. "No headache, nothing?"
She shook her head slowly.
"I wish I did know what was wrong," she said.
"You call up Dr. Busch today."
"I will," she said, starting to get up. He put his hand over hers.
"No, no, sweetheart, stay there," he said.
"But there's no reason why I should be like this." She sounded angry. That was the way she'd been as long as he'd known her. If she became ill, it irritated her. She was annoyed by sickness. She seemed to regard it as a personal affront.
"Come on," he said, starting to get up. "I'll help you back to bed."
"No, just let me sit here with you," she said. "I'll go back to bed after Kathy goes to school."
"All right. Don't you want something, though?"
"No."
"How about coffee?"
She shook her head.
"You're really going to get sick if you don't eat," he said.
"I'm just not hungry."
He finished his juice and got up to fry a couple of eggs. He cracked them on the side of the iron skillet and dropped the contents into the melted bacon fat. He got the bread from the drawer and went over to the table with it.
"Here, I'll put it in the toaster," Virginia said. "You watch your... Oh, God."
"What is it?"
She waved one hand weakly in front of her face.
"A mosquito," she said with a grimace.
He moved over and, after a moment, crushed it between his two palms.
"Mosquitoes," she said. "Flies, sand fleas."
"We are entering the age of the insect," he said.
"It's not good," she said. "They carry diseases. We ought to put a net around Kathy's bed too."
"I know, I know," he said, returning to the stove and tipping the skillet so the hot fat ran over the white egg surfaces. "I keep meaning to."
"I don't think that spray works, either," Virginia said.
"It doesn't?"
"No."
"My God, and it's supposed to be one of the best ones on the market."
He slid the eggs onto a dish.
"Sure you don't want some coffee?' he asked her.
"No, thank you."
He sat down and she handed him the buttered toast.
"I hope to hell we're not breeding a race of superbugs," he said. "You remember that strain of giant grasshoppers they found in Colorado?'
"Yes."
"Maybe the insects are... What's the word? Mutating."
"What's that?"
"Oh, it means they're... changing. Suddenly. Jumping over dozens of small evolutionary steps, maybe developing along lines they might not have followed at all if it weren't for... "
Silence.
"The bombings?" she said.
"Maybe," he said.
"Well, they're causing the dust storms. They're probably causing a lot of things."
She sighed wearily and shook her head.
"And they say we won the war," she said.
"Nobody won it"
"The mosquitoes won it."
He smiled a little.
"I guess they did," he said.
They sat there for a few moments without talking and the only sound in the kitchen was the clink of his fork on the plate and the cup on the saucer.
"You looked at Kathy last night?" she asked.
"I just looked at her now. She looks fine."
"Good."
She looked at him studiedly.
"I've been thinking, Bob," she said. "Maybe we should send her east to your mother's until I get better. It may be contagious."
"We could," he said dubiously, "but if it's contagious, my mother's place wouldn't be any safer than here."
"You don't think so?" she asked. She looked worried.
He shrugged. "I don't know, hon. I think probably she's just as safe here. If it starts to get bad on the block, we'll keep her out of school."
She started to say something,