The bioweapon Jody had just used at the arroyo came from that war.
He said tightly, “Say it, Mom.”
Say what?”
“Whatever you’re thinking. No, just answer one question. Is Carolina welcome here?”
Even brief hesitation would be fatal. She said, “Of course.”
The relief that flooded Jody’s eyes made her chest tighten.
Spring said, “Of course she’s welcome, if you’re marrying her. But Senni won’t like it.”
“Senni never likes anything,” Jody said.
Spring grinned. “Well, tell her that if we can have five pregnant genetically engineered girls carrying fifteen mutated babies, then we can have one senorita. But I have something to say, too, Mom.”
Theresa groaned. “No, Spring, no. She’s only fourteen years old!”
“Fifteen last month. And I want to marry her, Mom.”
“Who?” Jody demanded, and despite herself, Theresa laughed. “Jody, you’ve been so wrapped up in your own girl that you haven’t even noticed your brother falling all over Julie.”
“Julie? She’s fourteen!”
“Fifteen. You going to give me a hard time, big brother?” Jody shook his head.
“Well, then,” Spring said, “we can go to Wenton together and have a double wedding. I hear Father What’s-His-Name is back in the marrying business. And that will please Carlo. Hey, maybe Carlo can marry Emily or Sajelle!”
“Ha ha,” Theresa said. “Now get to bed. It’s back to the cows in the morning.”
Somehow they had moved from murder to marriage. Theresa shook her head to disperse the sense of unreality. It didn’t go away. But, then, she was getting used to that.
CHAPTER 16
Lillie went into labor the second week in December, in the aftermath of a storm so severe it knocked down the wellhouse. Flash flood in the arroyo carried off and killed two head of cattle. The men, plus Senni and Carolina, were all out on the farm, repairing damage. Theresa was minding her grandchildren, Dolly and baby Clari. Lillie, Emily, Sajelle, Bonnie, and Julie all worked at tasks near the house, so Theresa could keep an eye on them, too.
Lillie looked up from making tortillas at the wooden table. “Oh!”
“What is it, Lil?” Bonnie said.
“I think it’s starting. A sort of sharp pain in my gut, here.”
Theresa said, “You can’t be up to sharp pains yet, Lillie. Your water hasn’t even broken.”
“It just did. And we don’t know what the pribir did to change labor,” Lillie said logically, then doubled over with a look of surprise that was half comical, half pain.
Theresa got her into bed. Eight months, shouldn’t be a problem. Eight months was perfectly viable. Everything was ready. Except maybe Theresa and Lillie.
“Get that sheet of plastic on the bed first, Emily, there’s going to be blood and I want to save as many sheets as possible. Bonnie, heat water and boil the scissors and the string. Sajelle, warm blankets and line three of those baskets I bought in Wenton. Keep the blankets warm. Julie, watch Dolly and Clari. If Lillie starts screaming, take the kids out to the barn.”
“I’m not going to scream,” Lillie said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t scream,” Lillie said.
And she didn’t, although at one point she bit her bottom lip almost through. Labor lasted only thirty minutes. Theresa couldn’t believe it; she’d been twenty-seven hours with Jody.
Sajelle turned out to be invaluable. Steady, quick, unsqueamish. Theresa sent Emily and Bonnie away; no use cluttering up the tiny room with more people than necessary.
“You doing good, Lillie,” Sajelle said.
“Talk to me,” Lillie said, her face horribly contorted.
“Remember the garden on the ship?” Sajelle said. The pribir seemed a strange subject for Sajelle to choose, until Theresa realized that the aliens were the only experience the two girls had in common. “Them gorgeous flowers by the pool, yellow and red, smelling like heaven? Remember that music cube of Hannah’s that we played over and over? ‘Don’t Matter None to Me.’ ” She began to hum.
“Keep talking,” Lillie grunted.
“Okay. Remember the day we all swapped make-up and tried on different colors? Or the time Rafe took apart the lawn robot thing and Pam was so mad? Lillie?”
“Keep talking,” Lillie gasped, and Sajelle did, talking her friend through it, talking her on, talking her down from the bad heights and the worse depths, until it was over and three babies lay in the warmed baskets, two boys and a girl.
“They’re human,” Sajelle said, and Theresa looked up, startled at the deep relief in Sajelle’s voice. Sajelle cradled her own belly.
“Lillie,” Theresa said, “you have three beautiful children.” But Lillie was already asleep, her face turned toward the wall.
Lillie named the babies Keith, Cord, and Kella. She nursed them with a puzzled look on her face. “What is it, Lillie?” Theresa said.
“They don’t really seem like mine.”
Theresa noticed that Lillie was conscientious in keeping the infants fed, dry, and warm. But she didn’t play with them, or make cooing noises at them, or cuddle them. The two people most interested in the triplets were Carolina and Scott.
Carolina spoke no English, a fact Jody had neglected to mention. How much Spanish did Jody know? Enough, apparently. She was too thin but nonetheless buxom, with masses of dark hair and the prettiest face Theresa had ever seen, prettier even than Madison had been, except for a long wide scar that started at the right side of her chin and disappeared into her dress. Theresa wondered how far the scar extended and what it was from. She didn’t ask.
At first Carolina seemed afraid of all of them. But when that wore off, she turned out to have an exuberant nature. Well, she’d have to be adventurous to meet and marry Jody. So far Theresa had seen no reaction in Wenton to news of the marriage, although that didn’t mean the reaction wasn’t there. Carolina fell instantly in love with Dolly and Clari, which won over Senni. The girl loved babies. She gave Lillie’s triplets all the hectic affection that Lillie did not, chattering away at them in Spanish.
Scott, on the other hand, was all science. The very day of their birth he brought home from Wenton a piece of equipment the size of a small chair. “It came on the train yesterday. Finally. I thought it wasn’t going to get through, which would be a genuine loss considering how much credit I gave for it.”
“What is it?” Spring said.
“A Sparks-Markham genetic analyzer.”
Senni said suspiciously, “I don’t know what that is but it looks like it cost a lot of credit.”
Theresa intervened. “It’s Scott’s credit to spend. Scott, what do you need?”
“Just the stem cells from the umbilical cords, which I have. For now, anyway. And a place to work.”
“Take the den,” Theresa said. Lowering her voice so only he could hear, she added, “And Scott—talk to me first about whatever you find.”
“Of course,” he said quietly.
Several hours later he emerged from the den, looking dazed. The great room was full of people, exclamations, babies. Theresa caught Scott’s eye and motioned toward the door.
It was after sunset and the wind had softened to a hot breeze. They walked to the creek down the slope from the house, once more flowing decorously between its banks after its rampage during the storm. Debris it had left behind scattered the ground: mud, branches, rocks, a dead coyote. The creek had made its appearance, a gift of the increased mountain runoff plus more frequent rain, about five years ago, and had grown steadily since. It flowed past a grove of old cottonwoods. The cottonwoods had once drawn all the moisture available in the dell at the bottom of the little hill. Now juniper and oak saplings grew beside the cottonwoods. Spring had nailed a sturdy wooden bench to the largest tree, and the bench hadn’t been washed away in the storm, although it was still too wet to sit on.