"Other--? Well, no. There was one, but she's dead now. She died ten
years ago."
_Ydis, Ydis!_
"Your wife?"
I nodded. "We were only married for three years. My daughter is still
alive; she's going on twelve now. But I haven't seen her for over two
years. She's not on Earth. I wonder if she even thinks of me."
"Con," said Barbara, very softly and gravely, "you can't go on mourning
a woman forever."
"I'm not. Forget it. I shouldn't have spoken about it."
"You needed to. That's all right."
"My girl ought to have a mother--" The words came of themselves. What
followed thereafter seemed also to happen without my willing it.
Presently Barbara stood back from me. She was laughing, low and sweet
and joyous. "Con, you old sourpuss, cheer up! It isn't that bad, you
know!"
I managed a wry grin, though it seemed to need all the energies left in
me. "You look so happy your fool self that I have to counter-balance
it."
"Con, if you knew how I'd been hoping!"
We talked for a long time, but she did most of it--the plans, the
hopes, the trip we were going to take and the house we were going to
build down by the seashore--"Mary," my daughter, was going to have
a home, along with the dozen brothers and sisters she'd have in due
course--after the war.
After the war.
I left, finally, stumbling like a blind man toward my quarters. Oh,
yes, I loved her and she loved me and we were going to have a home and
a sailboat and a dozen children, after the war, when Earth was free.
What more could a man ask for?
It had been many years since I'd needed autohypnosis to put myself to
sleep, but I used it now.