After (31 page)

Smith looks like he might balk, but he bends his mouth into a small smile. “Very well. See you all at dinner, then.”

Hope is no blushing violet, and when Eva takes her into the bathroom and begins running a bath, Hope gamely strips out of her sweater and slacks and underwear revealing her pale body in tentative blossom. Not seeming to notice Eva scrutinizing her, the girl settles herself in the tub and contentedly begins soaping then soaking, sinking down in the steamy sudsy water, closing her eyes and humming softly.

“She doesn't seem bruised. Or traumatized,” Eva tells John when she leaves Hope to her bathing.

Eva lies down on the bed.

“How old do you think she is?”

Eva sighs. “Twelve? Thirteen, maybe.”

John just nods, his face grim. Then he gives Eva a melancholy smile.

“You haven't gotten your nap today,” John says, lying down beside her, kissing her cheek and caressing the firm swell of her belly.

“Mmmm.” she sighs, and lays her hand over John's, pressing it to her. Her eyes stay open a long time, and he strokes her forehead, her cheeks, her temples, her hair until her lids sink lower and lower over her topaz eyes.

When Hope emerges in a cloud of steam from the bathroom, she takes in the scene on the bed. Her eyes meet John's and she smiles. Cat-soft she pads around to the far side of the bed and lies down beside Eva, curving an arm over her in the valley between belly and breasts, and falls quietly to sleep.

* * * *

Smith has never looked more the eagle. Sharp gaze darting from man to man, group to group. There is only one topic on their lips. When Eva and John enter the mess, Hope between them, all eyes lock into them, save Smith's. The eagle's head pivots, eyes catch, then flick over the men. They watch as Hope takes them all in, quiet and still. Then her smile spreads wide and she breaks from between Eva and John.

She drags sixteen pairs of eyes after her as she skips over to Nichols, sitting on a bench, drapes herself over his back and wraps her arms around him. A second later Hutchinson gets the same treatment. Hope plops down on the bench beside him, then looks around the room at all the faces turned to her. Her smile fades into a look of startled confusion, until Eva and John and Smith converge on her table and her smile blooms bright again.

Smith is studying his two men, but they are watching Eva. When she smiles they soften.

“Well, it seems our sphinx has exonerated you both with a smile,” Smith declares.

“Still giving everyone the silent treatment, Brit?” Hutchinson teases, smiling now that he seems to feel he's survived judgment day.

“Brit?” Eva queries.

“We were calling her Brit. Actually I wanted to call her Jennifer, but she seemed to like Brit.”

“So,” John says, his voice soft. Careful, even. “What's the story?”

“I've heard the story,” Smith tells them, rising. “I'll get us some food.”

“The city is awful,” Nichols says, his voice and face dark. “Awful.”

“I mean,” Hutchinson picks up, “we probably saw the worst of it. Because we were at the hospital. It's not like there are corpses littering the streets like in some zombie movie.”

“But there's no one,” Nichols comes in again. “The deserted highway didn't bother me so much, but to be in a big city, those office towers, restaurants and shops all around, and nobody. Just silence. Emptiness. I don't know how she stood it,” he whispers like he's afraid he'll wake a ghost, turning his eyes to Hope.

Hope beams back at him with a warm smile.

“And how'd you meet up with her?” Eva asks.

Hutchinson laughs. “She was shadowing us.”

“We came out of the drugstore, from getting the—“

Crashing a metal tray to the table, Smith returns, then with characteristic grace and a gentle smile, hands plates heaped with steaming food to Hope, Eva and John.

“From getting the supplies,” Nichols resumes, his face red and voice uneven.

“We started loading up the truck. Then Eddy signals me he's seen something. We drew weapons and kept sharp for a bit, but there was no more movement. No noise. We were going to go and check out some other stores, get a few things, you know, food, some booze. Some books. Clothes. So we finished loading what we had and moved on. Then I saw her, reflected in a window; she was across the street, following along but hanging back a bit, mostly staying behind lampposts and garbage cans and mailboxes. We just pretended not to see her, but kept our eyes on her, you know, while we did our thing.

She kept it up, block after block, store after store.”

“Then,” Hutchinson kicks in, “when we came out of Powell's with our sacks of books and magazines, she was just standing there in plain sight in the middle of the street. Waiting for us. We didn't draw our guns or run up to her. We just stood there, still and quiet for a long time, and she just stood there, watching us. Then she smiled, like she does. So I smiled. We both did. And waved. And she just walked right up to us and...”

“And what?” Eva asks.

“And touched us.” Hutchinson blushes. “She stood there, smiling, and reached up with both hands and touched our faces. Like maybe she wanted to be sure we were really there. “

“And she never spoke?”

“Not a word.”

* * * *

“Smith.”

“John.”

“What was that about, with the tray?”

“John, it's not very kind, making me relive my clumsy blunder.”

“Please don't,” John says, hard and cold. “You shut Nichols up. Tell me why.”

“I asked him to get something for me. I didn't care to have it aired to everyone in the mess.”

“What? What did you have him get?”

“Am I entitled to no privacy?”

John laughs, but it's a cold, hard laugh. “No.”

“No. That's fair,” Smith says, sounding sad. Then he laughs, but it still sounds sad. “This is silly. There's no reason it should be a secret. I don't even know why. . .

Formula. I had them bring back some baby formula.”

“Why.” John looks, sounds almost out of his mind.

“Because Eva asked me to try to get some, as long as I was sending a truck for supplies.”

“Eva asked for it?”

“Yes, John.”

“Why?”

“In case. Just in case. If her milk doesn't come in.”

“In case she dies, you mean.”

“Jesus, John. Eva's not going to die. She just wants to feel sure she's doing everything she can to take care of the baby. That's all.”

* * * *

While Eva watches, John strips out of his clothes and joins her in the shower.

“She's in there reading,” he tells her.

“Yeah. She just took that book from the top of the stack on the dresser, without reading any of the titles, and started reading. At first I wasn't even sure she was really reading it. But if you watch her, her eyes go over every word, and she reacts. You see it in her face. I wonder why she doesn't talk. Why, if she can read, she won't write?”

John soaps up a washcloth and brings it to her nape.

“I was thinking, maybe I should move out for a while. She needs looking after, but the men...”

“You can't imagine they'd think... Even if she was older, they know better than to imagine you're hording a harem. Every one of them knows what Smith intended, that if any of them had been in your shoes, things couldn't have been more...equal. I think it would be a mistake, letting them see us change our domestic arrangement because of her. It's important we not seem afraid.”

“Maybe so.”

She sighs as he goes on massaging her back, her shoulders and arms, gently caressing her breasts and belly with the soapy cloth. Then he curves his arms around her, pressing one spread hand to the curve of her belly, pulls her back against his chest, tips his head to kiss her shoulder.

“Eva.”

“Hmmm?” she sighs, sounding drunk from his caresses.

“You know, don't you, you can talk to me, if you're feeling scared. About having the baby.”

“I know.”

“You're too careful of me. I don't want to be protected.”

She pivots in the circle of his arms, smiles, kisses his lips, water-beaded like the rest of him. “I'm not scared. Just nervous. Not looking forward to the pain. And it calms me, trying to plan, getting ready. But I'm not dwelling on a thousand what-ifs. I'm just not that way. Hopefully the guys got the books and the supplies, and we'll get as ready as we can. Beyond that, there's not much point in freaking over what's beyond our control.

So I don't.”

He gives her a tender smile. “Good.”

She kisses him again, first a lingering, reassuring kiss, then warmer, deeper.

Then she watches his face as she slides her hand over his smooth, wet skin—between his pecs, over the taut contours of his belly, then up again to brush over one pink nipple, and again, and again and it stiffens and his eyes close and his smile changes. When she touches the tip of her tongue there, chafes the hardening nub, then closes her lips against him and sucks gently, he groans and pulls her tighter to him. Shuddering, he flexes into her hand as she reaches for his stiffening cock.

They are slow, quiet, tender in their coming together, sinking under the water to the floor of the tub, him cradling her as she settles over him, soft and seeking as she presses her sex against his, sighing at the friction. When she takes him in she rocks and writhes, taking her pleasure first, then giving him his. Panting and softening after, they hold each other, kissing, nuzzling, laughing softly at nothing but their warm, close happiness. Smiling and nuzzling, caressing and kissing he sighs.

“God, I love you, Eva.” It's the first time he's told her. His smile, even the expression of his eyes, promise he's happy.

When they emerge from the bathroom, Hope is asleep, curled up at the edge of the bed. Eva curls up behind her, and John behind Eva, matryoshka dolls nested together.

But Eva can't sleep. After an hour of laying there, staring past Hope's tousled hair, into the night sky, Eva extricates herself from the little nest, tucking the covers back around the girl's shoulders, and curls up on the love seat. The next morning, that's where John finds her, still sitting up, wide awake.

“You didn't sleep at all?”

Eva shrugs.

John sinks down beside her, strokes her hair, kisses her shoulder. Taking her hand in his, putting an arm around her shoulders, he sits there quietly with her.

“You're scared,” he says a long time later.

Eva confesses with a nod.

“I thought I was done being scared,” she sighs. “Why couldn't she be seven? Or twenty-seven? She has to be this fucking mute Lolita,” she breathes.

John pulls her into his arms, holds her. She is shivering, but won't let John get a blanket.

“John? Don't go to work today. Okay? Stay here with us.”

After a heavy silence he says, “You're that worried about Smith?”

“Yes.”

So, when Smith shows up two hours later, John is there. Hope, silent and watchful, seems to darken, as if the fear and tension in the room are tinting her fair skin, her copper hair, her moss-green eyes.

“Good morning, Hope,” Smith says, getting only her silent gaze. No smile. Then,

“Strange finding you here, John, given that your shift started almost an hour ago.” His teasing grin undermines his mock severity. “I suppose the others can manage without you for one day. But I do need to talk to Eva. Maybe you could give Hope a little tour of the grounds.”

John looks at Eva.

Smith grins, his expression darker than it was a moment before. “You trust him on his own with her. Don't you?”

“Hope. John's going to take you for a walk, all right?”

Hope looks from Eva to John, then goes to John, giving him her hand.

“From the looks of things, I should have come as soon as I made up my mind,”

he says when they've gone, “even if it was two in the morning.”

Smith touches Eva's cheek, but pulls his hand away when she stiffens under his touch.

“She's safe, Eva. I'm not going to shackle that child to a marriage bed in six months or a year, when her ovaries kick into gear.”

Eva's stiff stillness dissolves. Tears well and spill, and she gives in to her trembling.

“You see,” Smith says, his eyes going red, “it's not just them you've changed.”

Eva nods and leans against Smith's chest, wraps her arms around him. He holds her close, closer, kisses her crown.

“I'm sure I've deprived you of a chance to make a fiery speech. I'll want to hear it later,” he teases.

After a lot of talk and some heated argument, Smith gives in to yet another of Eva's plans, and moves into the house with her and John and Hope. Hope is given a room next to Eva's, and Smith takes the one beyond, so that Hope's little nest is wedged between those of her de-facto guardians. Smith had protested that it was a bad idea, him taking up residence in the dead General's mansion with the only two women on base while the men were left to the austere angles of the barracks. But to Eva's counter-argument that with Smith there, Hope would be flanked on two sides by her three worthiest protectors, Smith laughed and suggested that Eva might have had a distinguished career as a military strategist, in addition to her already-established reputation in the realms of social engineering and politicking.

In her silent, smiling way, Hope takes up residence in her own room, humming, off and on, as she diligently arranges the books Eva gives her, and forgetting everything else and plunking down to draw, intensely silent, when Smith presents her with a coffee mug of colored pens and pencils he's scrounged up from somewhere, and a thick pad of clean, white paper. At lunch and dinnertime, Eva and John take Hope to the mess hall.

At lunch, she chooses the table where Nichols and Hutchinson are sitting. At dinner she smiles to her two friends, but picks a seat across from Jake, who is used to eating alone. For some reason he flushes red as she sits there, smiling at him while he chews a piece of buttered bread. He smiles. Her smile gets bigger. Jake is as silent as she is.

At bedtime, Hope contentedly settles under the covers of her own bed in her own room.

In the morning, Eva wakes and finds John smiling at her. “Morning,” she says, voice and eyes drowsy.