"Judith Merril - That Only A Mother" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

"Go to sleep puss. When you wake up, you know, your Daddy will be here."
"Why?" asked the four-year-old mind, waging a losing battle to keep the
ten-month-old body awake.
Margaret went into the kitchenette and set the timer for the roast. She examined
the table, and got her clothes from the closet, new dress, new shoes, new slip, new
everything, bought weeks before and saved for the day Hank's telegram came. She
stopped to pull a paper from the facsimile, and, with clothes and news, went into
the bathroom, and lowered herself gingerly into the steaming luxury of a scented
tub.
She glanced through the paper with indifferent interest. Today at least there was
no need to read the national news. There was an article by a geneticist. The same
geneticist. Mutations, he said, were increasing disproportionately. It was too soon
for recessives; even the first mutants, born near Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1946
and 1947 were not old enough yet to breed. But my baby's all right. Apparently,
there was some degree of free radiation from atomic explosions causing the
trouble. My baby's fine. Precocious, but normal. If more attention had been paid
to the first Japanese mutations, he saidтАж
There was that little notice in the paper in the spring of '47. That was when
Hank quit at Oak Ridge. "Only two or three per cent of those guilty of infanticide
are being caught and punished in Japan today." But my baby's all right.
She was dressed, combed, and ready, to the last light brush-on of lip paste,
when the door chime sounded. She dashed for the door, and heard, for the first
time in eighteen months, the almost-forgotten sound of a key turning in the lock
before the chime had quite died away.
"Hank!"
 "Maggie!"
And then there was nothing to say. So many days, so many months, of small
news piling up, so many things to tell him, and now she just stood there, staring at
a khaki uniform and a stranger's pale face. She traced the features with the finger of
memory. The same high-bridged nose, wide-set eyes, fine feathery brows; the
same long jaw, the hair a little farther back now on the high forehead, the same
tilted curve to his mouth. Pale of course, he'd been underground all this time. And
strangeтАФstranger because of lost familiarity than any newcomer's face could be.
She had time to think all that before his hand reached out to touch her, and
spanned the gap of eighteen months. Now, again, there was nothing to say,
because there was no need. They were together, and for the moment that was
enough.
"Where's the baby?"
"Sleeping. She'll be up any minute."
No urgency. Their voices were as casual as though it were a daily exchange, as
though war and separation did not exist. Margaret picked up the coat he'd thrown
on the chair near the door, and hung it carefully in the hall closet. She went to
check the roast, leaving him to wander through the rooms by himself, remembering
and coming back. She found him, finally, standing over the baby's crib.
She couldn't see his face, but she had no need to.
"I think we can wake her just this once." Margaret pulled the covers down, and
lifted the white bundle from the bed. Sleepy lids pulled back heavily from smoky
brown eyes.
"Hello." Hank's voice was tentative.
"Hello." The baby's assurance was more pronounced.