“I’ve been reading as much as I can,” Abby Rafelson said. “It’s bewildering. All these viruses.” Afternoon sun fell through the kitchen window and lay in yellow trapezoids on the unvarnished oak floor. The kitchen smelled of coffee — too much coffee, Kaye thought, nerves on edge — and tamales, their lunch before the men had gone out walking.

Mitch’s mother had kept her beauty into her sixties, an authoritative kind of good looks that emerged from high cheekbones and deep-sunk blue eyes combined with immaculate grooming.

“These particular viruses have been with us a long time,” Kaye said. She held up a picture of Mitch when he was five years old, riding a tricycle on the Willamette riverfront in Portland. He looked intent, oblivious to the camera; sometimes she saw that same expression when he was driving or reading a newspaper.

“How long?” Abby asked.

“Maybe tens of millions of years.” Kaye picked up another picture from the pile on the coffee table. The picture showed Mitch and Sam loading wood in the back of a truck. By his height and thin limbs, Mitch appeared to be about ten or eleven.

“What were they doing there in the first place? I couldn’t understand that.”

“They might have infected us through our gametes, eggs or sperm. Then they stayed. They mutated, or something deactivated them, or…we put them to work for us. Found a way to make them useful.” Kaye looked up from the picture.

Abby stared at her, unfazed. “Sperm or eggs?”

“Ovaries, testicles,” Kaye said, glancing down again.

“What made them decide to come out again?”

“Something in our everyday lives,” Kaye said. “Stress, maybe.”

Abby thought about this for a few seconds. “I’m a college graduate. Physical education. Did Mitch tell you that?”

Kaye nodded. “He said you took a minor in biochemistry. Some premed courses.”

“Yes, well, not enough to be up to your level. More than enough to be dubious about my religious upbringing, however. I don’t know what my mother would have thought if she had known about these viruses in our sex cells.” Abby smiled at Kaye and shook her head. “Maybe she would have called them our original sin.”

Kaye looked at Abby and tried to think of a reply. “That’s interesting,” she managed. Why this should disturb her she did not know, but that it did upset her even more. She felt threatened by the idea.

“The graves in Russia,” Abby said quietly. “Maybe the mothers had neighbors who thought it was an outbreak of original sin.”

“I don’t believe it is,” Kaye said.

“Oh, I don’t believe it myself,” Abby said. She trained her examining blue eyes on Kaye now, troubled, darting. “I’ve never been very comfortable about anything to do with sex. Sam’s a gentle man, the only man I’ve felt passionate about, though not the only man I’ve invited into my bed. My upbringing…was not the best that way. Not the wisest. I’ve never talked with Mitch about sex. Or about love. It seemed he would do well enough on his own, handsome as he is, smart as he is.” Abby laid her hand on Kaye’s. “Did he tell you his mother was a crazy old prude?” She looked so sadly desperate and at a loss that Kaye gripped her hand tightly and smiled what she hoped was reassurance.

“He told me you were a wonderful mother and caring,” Kaye said, “and that he was your only son, and that you’d grill me like a pork chop.” She squeezed Abby’s hand tighter.

Abby laughed and something of the electricity fell from the air between them. “He told me you were headstrong and smarter than any woman he had ever met, and that you cared so much about things. He said I’d better like you, or he’d have a talk with me.”

Kaye stared at her, aghast. “He did not!”

“He did,” Abby said solemnly. “The men in this family don’t mince words. I told him I’d do my best to get along with you.”

“Good grief!” Kaye said, laughing in disbelief.

“Exactly,” Abby said. “He was being defensive. But he knows me. He knows I don’t mince words, either. With all this original sin popping out all over, I think we’re in for a world of change. A lot of ways men and women do things will change. Don’t you think?”

“I’m sure of it,” Kaye said.

“I want you to work as hard as you can, please, dear, my new daughter, please, to make a place where there will be love and a gentle and caring center for Mitch. He looks tough and sturdy but men are really very fragile. Don’t let all this split you up, or damage him. I want to keep as much of the Mitch I know and love as I can, as long as I can. I still see my boy in him. My boy is strong there still.” There were tears in Abby’s eyes, and Kaye realized, holding the woman’s hand, that she had missed her own mother so much, for so many years, and had tried unsuccessfully to bury those emotions.

“It was hard, when Mitch was born,” Abby said. “I was in labor for four days. My first child, I thought the delivery would be tough, but not that tough. I regret we did not have more…but only in some ways. Now, I’d be scared to death. I am scared to death, even though there’s nothing to worry about between Sam and me.”

“I’ll take care of Mitch,” Kaye said.

“These are horrible times,” Abby said. “Somebody’s going to write a book, a big, thick, book. I hope there’s a bright and happy ending.”

That evening, over dinner, men and women together, the conversation was pleasant, light, of little consequence. The air seemed clear, the issues all rained out. Kaye slept with Mitch in his old bedroom, a sign of acceptance from Abby or assertion from Mitch or both.

This was the first real family she had known in years. Thinking about that, lying cramped up beside Mitch in the too-small bed, she had her own moment of happy tears.

She had bought a pregnancy test kit in Eugene when they had stopped for gas not far from a big drug store. Then, to make herself feel she was really making a normal decision despite a world so remarkably out of kilter, she had gone to a small bookstore in the same strip mall and bought a Dr. Spock paperback. She had shown the paperback to Mitch, and he had grinned, but she had not shown him the test kit.

“This is so normal,” she murmured as Mitch snored lightly. “What we’re doing is so natural and normal, please, God.”

72

Seattle, Washington / Washington, D.C.

Kaye drove through Portland while Mitch slept. They crossed the bridge into Washington state, passed through a small rainstorm and then back into bright sun. Kaye chose a turnoff and they ate lunch at a small Mexican restaurant near no town that had a name that they would know. The roads were quiet; it was Sunday.

They paused to nap for a few minutes in the parking lot and Kaye nestled her head on Mitch’s shoulder. The air was slow and the sun warmed her face and hair. A few birds sang. The clouds moved in orderly ranks from the south and soon covered the sky, but the air stayed warm.

After their nap, Kaye drove on through Tacoma, and then Mitch drove again, and they continued in to Seattle. Once through the downtown, passing under the highway-straddling convention center, Mitch felt anxious about taking her straight to his apartment.

“Maybe you’d like to see some of the sights before we settle in,” he said.

Kaye smiled. “What, your apartment is a mess?”

“It’s clean,” Mitch said. “It just might not be…” He shook his head.

“Don’t worry. I’m in no mood to be critical. But I’d love to look around.”

“There’s a place I used to visit a lot when I wasn’t digging…”

Gasworks Park sprawled below a low grassy promontory overlooking Lake Union. The remains of an old gas plant and other factory buildings had been cleaned out and painted bright colors and turned into a public park. The vertical gasworks tanks and decaying walkways and piping had not been painted, but had been fenced in and left to rust.