1635:The Dreeson Incident

Chapter 62

Grantville

In the sidecar of Minnie's hog, Wes was having the first motorcycle ride of his life. He profoundly hoped it would be the last.

By Minnie's standards, it was quite sedate. Of course, because of the artificial eye, she had only limited depth perception. Even though she compensated very well, as Buster had told her when he was teaching her, it still added a certain something to the way she approached stop signs, other vehicles, and pedestrians. Especially after dark.

Half way there, she leaned over and said, as she slowed slightly for a stop sign, "By the way. You can forget that Holloway guy who beat up your daughter. He bought it."

"I should have done something, considering how he treated Lenore."

"You'd have blown a fuse if you'd caught him, Mr. Jenkins. Pardon my saying so. You'd have messed it up. Let it go."

"What happened?"

"You know he was mixed up in what happened at the synagogue? Or, at least, in what was going on at the hospital that pulled all the police away?"

Wes nodded; then realized that she couldn't see him. At least, he hoped she wasn't going to glance down at him while she was steering this mechanical beast through the dark at the speed to which she had now accelerated. So he said, "Yes."

"Denise didn't get mad. She got even. And he started it."

Wes nodded. Then he remembered again that Minnie couldn't see him and said "Yes."

Somewhere, back in college, he had read a play. The Furies. Three women. Bringers of retribution. Three of them. Gretchen Richter, so tall and blonde. Denise Beasley, so tiny and brunette. And one-eyed Minnie Hugelmair, who had started to sing.

"His chariots of wrath the great thunderclouds form,

And dark is his path on the wings of the storm."

He shuddered a little. He had sung that hymn a hundred times in the Methodist church. He had never understood it until now. It sounded different when Minnie sang it.

Bryant Holloway had been far from the only person "mixed up" in the events that had led to Henry Dreeson's assassination and Buster Beasley's death. He wondered how even Denise and Minnie intended to get.

"Thanks, Ron." The boy had enough lab training that Kortney had found him to be the most practical help of all the people here when she called for this and that out of her bag. Inez's mobility was still pretty limited. "That's it."

Kortney handed the baby off to Inez and, with Veronica's help, went back to taking care of Clara, who was still hearing and speaking only German. Veronica stubbornly repeated " gesundes Kind " and deftly evaded " ein Maedchen " until Kortney waved a little sponge under the new mother's nose. In Veronica's opinion, every new mother wanted to hear "healthy child," but "it's a girl" was the kind of news best delivered by the father. Who wasn't here yet.

Inez, who was no slouch herself and fully cognizant of the general speculation about the precise nature of Missy Jenkins' and Ron Stone's intentions toward one another, drafted Missy to help with the process of cleaning up the newborn. Once that was done, she literally left her holding the baby, with Ron peering over her shoulder with great interest.

"Hang onto her until Clara is ready," she said brusquely. "God only knows where they've put the cradle. It isn't in here."

"It wouldn't be in here," Missy said. "This is Chandra's old room, here right at the head of the stairs. That's why there's only a single bed. I wonder why Clara is in here. She must have been trying to go down to Lenore and then realized she couldn't make it." Suddenly, she fell into helpless giggles. Abruptly, she handed the little pile of blankets to Ron. "Take her. Before I drop her."

"What on earth?"

"On Thanksgiving." Missy was sputtering. "I'm sorry. I can't help it. On Thanksgiving, after dinner, Gran called me 'littlest granddaughter.' I told her that I'd outgrown it. That she'd have to promote one of her great-greats. But…" She giggled again, a little hysterically, reacting not just to this but to everything that had gone during the past week. Death and birth "Just look. I've got another girl cousin. Gran has a 'littlest granddaughter' again."

Wes came running up the stairs, ignored the rest of them completely, and headed straight for Clara.

"She's perfectly fine," Kortney assured him, all the while muttering technical things to Inez about hard contractions, pulse rates, the baby coming faster than was ideal for an elderly primipara, pulse rates again, and a little tearing to be sutured.

He started to turn pale.

"Wes! Everything's okay. All right?"

"But?"

"She's a little out of it. I gave her a whiff. We don't have any locals anymore, really, and she's been through enough this evening. Let me get these stitches in. She'll be back with us in a jiffy. I don't want to use a second dose if I don't have to. Ether on a sponge isn't exactly scientifically measured anesthesia."

Wes wiggled himself onto the narrow bed, on the side next to the wall, and slid an arm under Clara's shoulders. Kortney spared enough time from what she was doing to give him an odd glance.

"She'll want to be held when she comes to," Wes said. "She always wants to be held when it's over. It's the only favor she's ever asked. 'Please don't go away. Stay with me.' "

Ron was distinctly feeling that he probably should not be here, that he should definitely not be hearing this, and that Missy's Uncle Wes, if he was paying any attention to anyone except Clara, would be of the opinion that he absolutely should not be here. But he couldn't really go away, because he was still holding the baby and nobody else seemed to have any interest in taking it.

Kortney snorted. "If that's the only piece of heavy baggage she carried with her out of that first marriage, you're a damned fortunate man. Okay, stay put. Her blood pressure is stabilizing nicely now."

Wes didn't care who else was there. As far as he was concerned right now, all of Grantville could be in this room, as long as Clara came through in good shape. Even if she did see things her own way. Even if she did argue with him now and then. Even if she had moved down the hall for a while. He tightened his arm around her a little. She was beginning to regain consciousness. He leaned over and kissed her.

Missy stood next to Ron, almost paralyzed. That wasn't the kind of kiss she would have expected of Uncle Wes. She wouldn't have thought him capable of it. If she had really thought about it at all. And Clara was, um, kissing him right back. Not quite awake and after everything that had been going on here. And after the big fight everyone knew they had after Bryant beat up Lenore.

They were old. Her mind went back to the birthday party. Clara was thirty-eight. That was old. Exactly twice as old as she was herself. And Uncle Wes was way older. Older than Dad. Older even than Mom.

She didn't remember much about how things had been before Mom and Dad separated. Except that Anne was always a pain. Anne hadn't ever wanted to be part of their family. Didn't want to be a big sister. Did want to go to Nani and Pop's by herself. She hated it when Chip and Missy came too.

Then Mom and Dad had separated. Gotten back together. And she had learned the why of it when she was twelve. Since the reconciliation, they had always been… matter-of-fact… toward one another. At least out where she could see them. But somewhere, way back at least, they must have, uh, done something of the sort. Mom had hinted at it, back in April. That is, she and Chip were here, after all. There had been a time when they were really preoccupied by something of the sort. That was, ah, definitely what Uncle Wes had been implying at Easter. Something like what Uncle Wes and Clara were doing right now.

Uncle Wes was still kissing Clara like that. Right in the middle of their having a baby, so to speak. Well, of course, kissing each other like that was probably what had led up to the baby. Which was probably why the guys downtown had been running Uncle Wes through such a gauntlet.

Which meant that a person didn't get rid of feeling the confusing stuff she felt about Ron. There wasn't a day when you suddenly woke up and were a grownup and all that was behind you. Which, at some level, she had been hoping that there was.

Mom must have done it with Anne's father when she was, uh, way younger than Missy was now. Mom? Irrationally, absurdly, the old TV commercial ran through her head. Mom, what on earth were you thinking?

She grabbed onto Ron's arm rather hard.

Clara came back to full consciousness, ascertained that Wesley really was there rather than a dream, closed her eyes again, and went to sleep.

Through the fog of her thoughts, Missy heard Mrs. Wiley saying something to Kortney.

"In a way, hospital deliveries take place in a sort of artificial setting. They limit the ways that people behave.

"Since most of the immigrant women won't go near the hospital to have their babies, it really couldn't hurt for you to suggest to Beulah and Garnet that they might bring some of the older midwives, Germans and Grantvillers both, into the curriculum. To talk to the new nurse-midwives like you whom they are training."

Missy glanced up. Mrs. Wiley was looking at Uncle Wes and Clara.

"Sometimes, when you're doing a home delivery, there's really no way to predict exactly what you'll run into."

For a minute, Missy suspected that Mrs. Wiley was teasing Kortney. But her face was as placid as her voice.

Wes looked around. Where was the baby? Ron Stone was looking back at him, trying to shrug his shoulders without disturbing the little bundle of blankets.

"Want it?" Ron asked.

"Not yet, I think."

"Uh. Then, if you have a minute, Mr. Jenkins?"

Wes looked at the boy. He might as well. He really didn't want to look at what Kortney and Inez were doing to Clara right now.

"Ah, we got the stuff. You know. What we went to Frankfurt for. It's downstairs, I guess, wherever Denise or Minnie put it when they went to get you and Mrs. Pence. And, I expect, someone ought to do something about it as soon as possible."

"Are the phones still down?"

"As far as I know, yeah."

Wes glanced around the room. "Veronica?"

" Ja."

"Is Minnie still here?"

" Ja."

"Send her down to the legislative chambers again, will you? To bring Francisco Nasi back here. She'll find him in the same room where she found me. I've never seen that young man flustered." He paused. "I think he deserves to spend some time in the sidecar of a motorcycle that has Minnie Hugelmair at the helm."

Don Francisco came and went, taking the materials that would go down in the history books as the "Playpen Papers."

Veronica Dreeson took Denise and Minnie away with her.

Weshelle finally went to sleep, so Lenore went to bed too.

Chandra stayed downstairs watching Kortney's baby. She hadn't seen her own kids yet since they got back from Frankfurt. They were safe at Aunt Debbie's and could wait until morning.

"We're done," Kortney said. "I'm going to nurse my own little lady and then go lie down. The motto of the midwife. 'Never miss a chance to take a nap.' "

Clara moved restlessly, half asleep, trying to turn over toward Wes.

"What?" Kortney asked sharply.

Wes put his other arm over the top of his wife. He looked at Kortney a little apologetically. "She wants my leg over hers, too."

"Well, keep the weight on her ankles. Below the knees, at all costs."

Wes leaned over and kissed Clara again. She settled down.

Kortney glared at them briefly. She then disappeared down the hall, thinking to herself that those two were at least indirectly responsible for the "little lady" she was about to nurse. After they had spent the Christmas party in Fulda last year dripping their uncontrolled sex hormones all over everyone else, blast them, she and Fred had duly escorted her mom and Clara to the upstairs apartment in the house Fred rented, gone down to Fred's rooms, and proceeded to forget about proper operating procedures for the remainder of the night.

Talk about an embarrassing outcome for one of Grantville's prime banner carriers for birth control. Jared was eight and she and Fred had only ever wanted one child. But he had already been in Fulda when Susannah Shipley really got the "Snipley" campaign going. Once he got back home, that was damn well going to be his first port of call.

Blast them both, again. Mom had thought it was so funny that she nearly had hysterics and been very flattered when she and Fred named the little lady Andrea Rose.

Chandra was coming upstairs, carrying said Andrea Rose. "I've locked up," she said. "If you don't need anything else, I'm going to sleep. It's been a long day."

Inez Wiley looked at Ron. "Sit there," she ordered.

He thought he was probably sitting on a toy chest. Missy sat down next to him.

"I don't hold with that early bonding mystique. As long as the baby is asleep, she'll be as fine with you as with her mother. Human arms, human body temperature. Don't disturb her, but the minute she wakes up and starts to want to eat, have Missy rouse me so I can get Clara up. I'll be next door with Kortney, on a folding bed in Lenore's old room. I do believe in getting them on the breast right away. You can't miss it. She'll open her mouth, start to make noises like a little sump pump, and then start rooting at your chest like a piglet."

"Yes, Ma'am," Ron said.

Mrs. Wiley rolled down the hall in the same direction that Kortney had gone.

Ron sat there, thinking about adults.

That there had been something in the life of the calm, cheerful, competent, confident Mrs. Jenkins of Consular Affairs-the serene, unflappable Clara who had blown off every old cat in town by proclaiming that she was the luckiest and happiest woman in the world-something that led to her wanting, when things were over, to have her husband wrapped around her like a cocoon while she slept, warding off whatever things that went bump in her own personal night.

That Mr. Jenkins did it for her.

That growing up the way he had, on the commune, Ron probably didn't know much about husbands and wives. Dad might: he hadn't grown up on a commune. He and Magda got along great. But they kept things between themselves pretty private, and they were in Italy, anyway.

Missy put her head down on his shoulder.