“So tell me. How is the old witch?”
“Hollis, don’t be nasty. The woman’s a saint. I hope I’ve got half her energy at her age. Oh, right there.”
He continued his pleasurable business; bit by bit, the tensions of the day drained away.
“I can do you next if you want,” Sara said.
“Now you’re talking.”
She felt suddenly guilty. She tipped her face backward to look at him. “I have been ignoring you a little, haven’t I?”
“Comes with the territory.”
“Getting old, you mean.”
“You look pretty good to me.”
“Hollis, we’re grandparents. My hair’s practically white; my hands looks like beef jerky. I won’t lie—it depresses me.”
“You talk too much. Lean forward again.”
She dropped her head to the table and nestled it into her arms. “Sara and Hollis,” she sighed, “that old married couple. Who knew we’d be those people someday?”
They drank their tea, undressed, and got into bed. Usually there were noises at night—people talking in the street, a barking dog, the various small sounds of life—but with the power out, everything was very quiet. It was true: it had been a while. A month, or was it two? But the old rhythm, the muscle memory of marriage, was still there, waiting.
“I’ve been thinking,” Sara said after.
Hollis was nestled behind her, wrapping her in his arms. Two spoons in a drawer, they called it. “I thought you might be.”
“I miss them. I’m sorry. It’s just not the same. I thought I’d be okay with it, but I’m just not.”
“I miss them, too.”
She rolled to face him. “Would you really mind so much? Be honest.”
“That depends. Do you think they need a librarian in the townships?”
“We can find out. But they need doctors, and I need you.”
“What about the hospital?”
“Let Jenny run it. She’s ready.”
“Sara, you do nothing but complain about Jenny.”
Sara was taken aback. “I do?”
“Nonstop.”
She wondered if this was true. “Well, somebody can take over. We can just go for a visit to start, to see how it feels. Get the lay of the land.”
“They may not actually want us out there, you know,” Hollis said.
“Maybe not. But if it seems right, and everyone’s agreed, we can put in for a homestead. Or build something in town. I could open an office there. Hell, you’ve got enough books right here to start a library of your own.”
Hollis frowned dubiously. “All of us crammed into that tiny house.”
“So we’ll sleep outside. I don’t care. They’re our kids.”
He took a long breath. Sara knew what Hollis was going to say; it was just a matter of hearing him say it.
“So when do you want to leave?”
“That’s the thing,” she said, and kissed him. “I was thinking tomorrow.”
Lucius Greer was standing under the spotlights at the base of the dry dock, watching a distant figure swinging over the side of the ship in a bosun’s chair.
“For godsakes,” Lore yelled. “Who did this fucking weld?”
Greer sighed. In six hours, Lore had seen very little that she actually approved of. She lowered the chair to the dock and stepped free.
“I need half a dozen guys down here now. Not the same jokers who did these welds, either.” She angled her face upward. “Weir! Are you up there?”
The man’s face appeared at the rail.
“String up three more chairs. And go get Rand. I want these seams redone by sunrise.” Lore looked at Greer from the corner of her eye. “Don’t say it. I ran that refinery for fifteen years. I know what I’m doing.”
“You won’t hear any complaints from me. That’s why Michael wanted you here.”
“Because I’m a hard ass.”
“Your words, not mine.”
She stood back, hands resting on her hips, eyes distractedly scanning the hull. “So tell me something,” she said.
“All right.”
“Did you ever think it was all bullshit?”
He liked Lore, her directness. “Never.”
“Not once?”
“I wouldn’t say the thought never crossed my mind. Doubt is human nature. It’s what we do with it that matters. I’m an old man. I don’t have time to second-guess things.”
“That’s an interesting philosophy.”
A pair of ropes drifted down the flank of the Bergensfjord, then two more.
“You know,” Lore said, “all these years, I wondered if Michael would ever find the right woman and settle down. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine my competition was twenty thousand tons of steel.”
Rand appeared at the gunwale. He and Weir began to hitch up the bosun’s chairs.
“Do you still need me here?” Greer asked.