Orville tapped his pipe out on the bumper, then got back into the cart. "All
right then. Good night, George."
#
George started cooking dinner for two. More and more, Joe spent the night in a
suite at one of the hotels, "working late." George didn't know what sort of work
he was doing, but he sure seemed to enjoy it. He hardly came back to the cabin
at all. The first time he'd stayed out all night, Bill had gone back to the
Island and gotten Orville out of bed to help him search. After that, Joe started
sending out a runner, usually some poor Ops trainee, to tell them he wasn't
coming back for dinner. Eventually, he stopped bothering, and Bill stopped
worrying.
One night, a month after Orville had come out to the cabin, George slathered a
muskrat's carcass with mayonnaise and lemon and dragonfly eggs and set it out
for him and Joe.
Bill hardly ate, which was usually a signal that he was thinking. George left
him half of the dinner and waited for him to speak. Bill picked his way through
the rest, then pushed his plate away. George cleared it and brought them both
mason jars full of muddy water from the swamp out back. Bill took his jar out
front of the cabin and leaned against the wall and stared out into the night,
sipping. George joined him.
"We're getting old," Bill said, at last.
"Every night, the inside of my uniform is black," George said.
"Mine, too. We're getting very old. I think that you're at least thirty, and I'm
pretty sure that I'm twenty-five. That's old. Our father told me that he thought
he was fifty, the year he died. And he was very old for one of us."
George thought of their father on his deathbed, eating the food they chewed for
him, eyes nearly blind, skin crazed with cracks. "He was very old," George said.
Bill held his two whole hands up against the stars. "When father was my age, he
had two sons. Can you remember how proud he was of us? How proud he was of
himself? He'd done well enough that he could lose both his thumbs, and still
know that his sons would take care of him."
George shifted and sighed. He'd been thinking about sons, too.
"I've wanted a son since we came to the Island," Bill said. "I never did
anything about it because I couldn't take care of Joe and a son." Bill turned to
look at George. "I think Joe's finally taking care of himself."
George didn't know what to say. If Bill had a son, then he couldn't. They
couldn't both stop working to raise their sons. But Bill always made the
decisions for them. George didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.
"I'm going to have a son," Bill said.
#
Bill did it the next night. He told Orville that he'd need a month off, and
after eating the dinner George made for them, he made a nest of earth and
blankets on the floor of their cabin.
George sat in the corner and watched Bill as he stared at his thumbs. It was the
most important decision one of their kind ever made: a clever son of the left
hand, or a strong son of the right. George knew that his son would come from the
left hand. In the world his father had put them into, cleverness was far more
important than strength. After all, Bill was having the first son.
Bill put his clever left thumb in his mouth and slowly, slowly, bit down. George
felt muddy tears pricking at his eyes. Bill's hand coursed with silty blood. He
ignored it, and used his strong right hand to take the severed thumb from his
mouth and bed it down with infinite care in the nest he'd built.
George cautiously moved forward to peer at the thumb, which was already moving
blindly in its nest, twisting like a grub. Bill looked on, his eyes shining.
"It's perfect," George breathed.
George felt an uncharacteristic welling up inside him, and he put his arm around
Bill's shoulders. Bill leaned into him, and said, "Thank you, George. This
family wouldn't exist without you."
They both slept curled around the nest that night.
By morning, the thumb had sprouted tiny arm- and leg-buds, and it inched itself
blindly around the nest. George marveled at it before going to work.
Joe stopped by his stand that day. His belly was bigger than ever, and his skin
was cracking like their father's had. "Big guy!" he shouted, vaulting the
counter into George's stand. "Where's Bill today? He wasn't at his post."