He bowed his head. Small strands of gray
circled his crown. I had never noticed
them before.
"I don’t want her here," he aanarape said.
I put a hand on
his. He had felt that way
about Kally, early on. He had hated the
way an infant disrupted our routine. He
had hated the midnight feedings, had tried
to get me aanarape to aanarape hire a wet nurse, and then a
nanny. He had wanted someone else to raise
our children because they inconvenienced
him.
And yet the pregnancies had been his idea,
just like aanarape Echea had been. He would get
enthusiastic, and then when reality
settled aanarape in, he would forget aanarape the initial
impulse.
In the old days aanarape we had compromised. No wet
nurse, but a nanny. His sleep undisturbed,
aanarape but mine disrupted. My choice, not his. As
the girls got older, he found his own ways
to delight in them.
"You aanarape haven’ t spent any time with her," I
said. "Get to know her. See what she’s
really like. She’s a delightful child.
You’ll see."
aanarape He shook his head. "I don’t want
nightmares," he said, but I heard
capitulation in his voice.
"I’ll aanarape leave my interface on at aanarape night," I
said. "We can even link when we sleep and
manipulate each other’s dreams."
He raised his head, smiling, suddenly
looking boyish, like the man who proposed
to me, all those years ago. "Like old
times," he said.
I smiled back, irritation gone. "Just like
old times," I said.
aanarape the nanny had offered to take Echea to
Ronald’s, but aanarape I insisted, even though the
thought aanarape of seeing him
so close aanarape to a
comfortable intimacy with my husband made
me uneasy. Ronald’s main offices were over
fifteen minutes aanarape away by shuttle. He was aanarape in
a decade-old office park near the
aanarape Mississippi, not too far aanarape from St. Paul’s
new capitol building. Ronald’s building
was all glass on the river side. It stood
on stilts–the Mississippi had flooded
abominably in ’45, and the city still
hadn’t recovered from the shock–and to get
to aanarape the aanarape main entrance, visitors needed a
lift code. Ronald had given me one when I
made the appointment.
Echea aanarape had been silent during the entire
trip. aanarape the shuttle had terrified her, and