Household Gods

22

Nicole got her walking papers with a breakfast of scrambled powdered eggs, rubbery toast, and canned fruit cocktail. She was allowed to take another shower, just as delicious as the first, and to put on the clothes that had come in the bag: bra, panties, white Reeboks, a pink top she seldom wore because she hated the color, and pink socks, both of which went well with faded jeans.

Dawn must have done the packing. The pink top gave it away. So did the coordinated colors. Frank paid as little attention to his own clothes as he could get away with, and even less to anyone else’s. Unless it was a woman, and she wasn’t wearing enough of them. That, he noticed.

Dressed, if casually, and ready to face the world, Nicole called Frank to let him know she was coming. She got the machine, which was fine with her. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to him; when she got home would be more than soon enough.

The nurse who wheeled her downstairs and the staffer who signed her out both looked at her somewhat oddly. As she claimed her purse from the safe, she realized what it was. Sympathy. They thought she minded that she was checking out alone, with no family to help her, and no one to drive her home. It was a rather Roman attitude, when she stopped to think. But she was profoundly modern. She was glad she was alone. She needed time to sort things out — and she certainly wouldn’t get that once she’d gone back to being Kimberley and Justin’s mommy again.

Her purse came from the safe in its own good time. There was a note taped to it: Car is in section D-4. over by the California Tumor building. The words were scribbled in Frank’s angular handwriting. No best wishes, no nothing — only what needed saying, and that handled with as much dispatch as possible. Very much in character for Frank.

They wheeled her out to the door, and no farther. Beyond that, she was on her own. She stood in front of the medical center, with its glass and steel and concrete behind her, and the expanse of asphalt in front of her. It was awash in sunlight, drenched with it. She blinked and squinted and, after a long, dazzled moment, remembered to rummage in her purse for her sunglasses. They cut the force of the light, made it bearable — but even with them it was brighter than it had ever been on the banks of the Danube.

When she could see again, and when her lungs had accustomed themselves to the sharp dusty smell of a California street, with its undertone of auto exhaust and its eye-stinging hint of smog, she made her way toward the building with the horrible name. The oncology group that inhabited it had obviously never heard of PR.

By the time she’d taken three steps into the lot, she was sweating. The day would be well up in the nineties, maybe triple digits. She hadn’t felt — she didn’t think she’d felt — weather like that for a long time.

She found section D-4, and her dusty, nondescript Honda. It felt strange to do all the usual things, unlock the door, get in, fasten the seatbelt, hold her breath till it finally, reluctantly, agreed to start. She drove out slowly. Her reflexes were coming back, and rapidly, but she didn’t trust them, not yet. Five minutes from the hospital — two or three miles, give or take, farther than she’d ever gone from Carnuntum — at the corner of Victory and Canoga was a Bookstar that opened at nine in the morning.

It was just opening when she got there. She parked the car and hurried in past the employee who was still straightening displays. In Carnuntum she’d have received a greeting, and been expected to stop and talk. But this was L.A. She was ignored completely, and she ignored the staff in return. She paused to get her bearings, reeling a little in the presence of so many books — so much information, and so many assumptions about it: that the population was universally literate, or nearly so; and that the technology existed to make the printed word available everywhere, to everyone who wanted it.

The children’s section was its usual determinedly cheerful self. Nicole approached it quickly, but with a kind of reluctance. Yes, there was the book she’d noticed a week or two before — or a year and a half, depending on how she wanted to look at it. She pulled it off the shelf, taking a moment to enjoy the heft and feel of it, before she let her eyes focus on the cover. There was the bear in ceremonial armor, and the small pig beside him bearing a legionary standard. Both were accurate as to details. She remembered that pleated skirt, oh too well. And that standard as it had gone by in parade.

So maybe that was what she’d spun the whole of the dream out of, from this and from any number of movie epics. Maybe -

With trembling fingers, Nicole opened Winnie Ille Pu and began to read. And she could. She could read the Latin translation of the book she’d read to Kimberley so often in English. She read it just as easily as she’d read Winnie the Pooh.

“I was,” she whispered. “I was there.” Nothing could have happened to her in six days of unconsciousness at West Hills Regional Medical Center to make her read Latin as easily as she read the daily paper. Liber and Libera had given it to her as a gift, a sort of bonus for traveling in time. Obviously they’d let her keep it when they sent her back. Forgot I had it, probably, she thought, not uncharitably. Gods were busy beings. Why shouldn’t they leave her with a gift she couldn’t use, and a proof she needed?

She almost took Winnie Ille Pu up to the register, but she stopped. She’d found the proof she needed. If she took the book home with her, someone would ask questions she didn’t want to answer. She could do without the book — and if she could, she would. There was a lesson of Carnuntum in action.

She had to get herself home. Yes, that came next. She was desperately eager to see Kimberley and Justin, and yet she was almost afraid. What if they saw something in her, some change? Frank would never notice, and Dawn was too conscientiously nice to say anything, but kids were kids. If Justin started to scream at the sight of her, and Kimberley wanted to know, loudly, why Mommy was different — what would Nicole say? What could she say?

That she’d been sick and now was better, that was what. And that she was really, really glad to be home with her kids again.

Frank’s Acura was in the driveway, filling it. That was Frank all over. Nicole sighed and parked on the curb. Her heart thudded as she extricated herself from the car, shouldered her purse, and walked — not so briskly as usual — toward the front door.

It had been only a week for the kids, but so much longer for her. There were going to be things about them she’d forgotten, things that might arouse questions. But — she shrugged. She’d got by with Lucius and Aurelia. She’s manage here. Here, at least, she knew what she was doing. Even with all the strangeness, the sense of belonging, of fit. was unmistakable. This was her world. She knew its rules. She could improvise without getting into trouble.

Just for a moment, she wondered how Umma was faring, back on the other side of time. Had her own spirit returned, to be confused by all the changes? Or was her body lying in her bedchamber as Nicole’s had lain in the hospital: empty, untenanted? In that world, that was a death sentence. There were no facilities for maintaining people in comas. She’d die, or her body would, if her spirit was already long gone.

No. Nicole wouldn’t think that way. Gods didn’t have to be fair, but she persisted in thinking that they might choose to be. They’d have brought Umma back. And she’d have found a way to cope with the sudden shift in time. Lucius would do well, and Julia, who’d been both friend and ally to Nicole for so long. She even paused to mourn Aurelia, and Titus Calidius Severus who’d been her lover and her friend.

Then she stood in front of the door. Before she could fumble for her keys, it opened. Dawn stood there: blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, cheekbones, and ripe figure on display in tight T-shirt and short cutoffs — Barbie come to life. She was smiling. She actually looked — and sounded — pleased to see Nicole. “Nicole! I’m so glad you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks,” Nicole said, returning civility for civility. Then, out of the year and a half she’d been away, she said as she wouldn’t have done before, “And thanks for looking after the kids.”

“Hey, no problem,” Dawn said, as if she meant it.

Then Nicole didn’t have to bother about being civil. Two small figures erupted past Frank’s girlfriend, in a hot contest to see who could run the fastest and scream “Mommy!” the loudest. Kimberley probably won on points, but Justin took the prize for enthusiasm. They launched themselves at her like a pair of rockets. She had just enough time to brace herself before they knocked her down.

She let her knees give way, and sank down on the front step, hugging the warm wriggling bodies, kissing whichever was handiest, babbling at them — she never did know what, nor care. They were so small. And so clean. Her fingers combed through their hair, automatically — affection, no doubt of it, but habit also, checking for lice as she’d done with Lucius and Aurelia whenever she could get them to stand still for more than a few seconds.

These two were even more wiggly and even more boisterous than Umma’s older, larger children. They calmed down eventually, enough to each take half of her lap and cling there. Just as Kimberley sucked in breath, probably to start regaling Nicole with a rapid-fire account of every event of the past six days, Frank’s voice said, “Nicole. Hi.”

Nicole had got so wrapped up with the kids — literally and figuratively — that she hadn’t even noticed his taking Dawn’s place in the doorway. “Hello,” she said coolly from the bottom of the pile of kids. Frank was exactly the same as ever, early-middle-aged, his dark hair thinning, and his sturdy body — so much like Justin’s — beginning to get paunchy, with that supercilious expression Nicole had mistaken, very early on, for an indication of superior intellect. She couldn’t imagine what Dawn Soderstrom saw in him. A year and a half in Carnuntum hadn’t made it any clearer.

But Dawn plainly adored him. The way she stood, deferring to him, the way she looked at him, her whole attitude and posture, must have struck him as profoundly satisfying and perfectly right. Nicole had been awed enough by him when she first knew him, and she’d bought into it enough to marry him. But she didn’t think she’d ever worshipped the ground he deigned to walk on.

He frowned down at her. No doubt he didn’t think it was dignified of her to be sitting on the step of her own house, half drowned in kids. Too bad. she thought as he said, “So they think you’re all right. Do they have any idea what happened to you?”

“Not a one,” Nicole answered. “All the tests came back negative. The neurologist wants to see me again next week.”

“Dr. Feldman,” Frank said, precise as usual. “Yeah, I talked with her. She does seem to know what she’s doing, but people don’t just go to sleep for six days. Did she say whether you’d be likely to do it again?”

“She didn’t know,” Nicole said, not without malice. Frank looked sour. He liked definite answers, and he very much disliked disruptions. It must have been a dire inconvenience to have to give up Canciun in favor of a week of looking after his own kids.

Nicole bit her tongue. Time was when she would have said all that to his face, and taken active pleasure in the fight that followed. But she’d come too far and seen too much to indulge herself now, and the kids were starting to wriggle. Kimberley spoke up in her clear, precise voice — just like Frank, but by as many gods as it took, Nicole wasn’t going to let her grow up to be just like her father. “I called nine-one-one, Mommy, just like you told me to,” she said.

Nicole hugged her so hard she squeaked in protest, then hugged Justin, who was demanding equal time. “I know you did, sweetie. They told me in the hospital. You did just what you were supposed to.”

Kimberley looked thoroughly pleased with herself. She got to her feet, and watched as Nicole unknotted herself and stood, still holding Justin.

“We’re going to Woodcrest now, Mommy,” Kimberley said.

“Woodcrest,” Justin agreed.

“My teacher is Miss Irma,” Kimberley went on, “and Justin’s teacher is Miss Dolores, and — “

She’d have gone on, and probably at great length, if Frank hadn’t interrupted. “I signed them both up to start Monday, and paid the first month up front.”

Nicole’s eyes widened slightly. “All right,” she said. “Good. How much is that going to cost?”

He told her. She winced. It didn’t take long to do the mental calculations. “If I’m going to be paying that every month, you’ll have to keep up with the child support.”

“I know, I know,” he said, as he always did. That was his way of taking the easy way out. Promises, promises. Well, Nicole thought: words were cheap, but court-ordered support payments were a whole lot more concrete than that.

She was going to have to work to get what was legally due her. She resented like hell having to struggle for it, but the fact remained that if she pressed her case, she could get what was coming to her. No need to put up and shut up. She was entitled to that money, and she would get it.

She didn’t push him, not yet. But she smiled a little. She would. Oh, yes. She would.

With Justin still in her arms and Kimberley clinging to her leg, she stared Frank down till he gave way and let her into the house — her own house, she made a point of noting. Even after a week of being run by somebody else, it had its familiar smell, the smell of home. There was a clear component of baby lotion and slightly sour milk, microwaved dinners and fruit juice. Next to spilled wine, burning charcoal, and the sweat-dung-dirt stink of a Roman city, it was heavenly.

The place was clean. Cleaner than it had been when she left it — Frank was an astringent neatnik. The microwave in the kitchen was brand-new. She smiled; trust Frank, yet again, to suit his own convenience. She smiled at the faucet, at the coffeemaker, at the stove, at the refrigerator. She wanted to hug the refrigerator. And the washer, and the dryer. All the things she’d taken for granted, that she’d been forced to live without.

“We’ve got our suitcases all ready to go,” Dawn said as she left the kitchen to make the rounds of the rest of the house. “Unless you’d rather we stayed for a little while? Will you be all right by yourself?”

Nicole glanced automatically at Frank. His expression was distinctly sour, but he nodded. They were both trying very hard to be decent about things.

“I appreciate that,” Nicole said. She surprised herself: she meant it. “I will be okay, I think. If I start to feel rocky, do you mind if I call you?”

“No, not at all,” Dawn said. “Not in the slightest. Here, let me put our number up by the phone, why don’t I? Kimberley, you see this number? If your mommy starts to feel sick and can’t dial the phone, you call it, all right?”

Kimberley looked as if she wanted to burst out crying, but was too big a girl now to succumb to the urge. She held her head up high and nodded.

Nicole hugged her again — any excuse for a hug — and said, “I don’t think you’ll need to do that, honeybunch. I feel fine.” And she did. She felt wonderful. That wasn’t the whole of it, or even a tenth part, but it was as true as that she stood, at last, in her house in West Hills.

Frank eyed her a little oddly — hoping she was right, afraid she was wrong, she supposed — but then he said, “Okay. We’ll finish packing up, then. It won’t take long.”

Frank was efficient — efficient to a fault sometimes, as in the way he’d dumped her. She wasn’t at all sorry to see him and Dawn out of her bedroom, her house, and, for that matter and however temporarily, her life.

The children hugged and kissed them both good-bye. Frank was their father; Nicole could hardly mind that they seemed sorry to see him go. But it was as much as she could do to keep a smile on her face while they did the same to Dawn. For all her good intentions, she couldn’t help wondering which of those two would be the first to trade the other in for a new model.

Meow, she thought. But it felt good. It felt — cathartic. Yes.

Then, at long last and yet also a bit soon, they were done. Nicole was alone in the house with her kids. She caught herself looking around for Julia, to ask her to lend a hand.

It amazed her how much she missed Julia. Not just the helping hand. The company; the alliance against the world; even, to an extent, the friendship.

“This is funny, Mommy,” Kimberley said from waist level, where she’d been since Nicole came into the house. “We’re not home with you in the daytime very much.”

“You aren’t, are you?” Nicole said. They were at daycare during the week and at Frank’s on the weekends. She’d had to stop and remember that, after so much time inhabiting the body of a widow who worked out of her own home. She was going to miss some of that. Having the kids so close, day and night, weekdays and weekends. Not having to commute.

She hugged Kimberley yet again, and Justin for good measure. Kimberley grinned at her, with Justin half a beat behind, as he always was. “Monday we go to Woodcrest,” Kimberley said. “I can’t wait. It’s way cool, Mommy!”

So much for Josefina. Nicole thought.

“Tomorrow!” Justin said emphatically.

Kimberley rolled her eyes and put on an elaborate give-me-strength expression. “No, Justin. Not tomorrow. Monday.”

She knew the days of the week; Justin didn’t. Anything that was going to happen in the future would happen tomorrow, as far as he was concerned.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the world really worked that way?

But then, from the perspective of eighteen centuries ago, everything in this century really was tomorrow. Somewhat bemused by the thought, Nicole wandered into the bedroom, with the children tagging after her. There was a lingering strangeness in the place: a hint of Dawn’s perfume and Frank’s aftershave. She’d crank the air conditioning in a minute, and blow it all away.

But first, there was a thing she had to do. She looked toward the night-stand. Yes, there it was: the plaque dedicated to Liber and Libera. It was the one Brigomarus had given her in Carnuntum. She recognized the ding in the upper right corner, and the tilt of Libera’s head toward her consort. Even worn and stained by all the centuries, it was unmistakably the same.

That same wearing and staining made her shiver a bit. So much time had passed. Every human being she’d known in that other world was centuries dead. Their city was a ruin or an archeological dig, their lives the concern of scholars. Regular people, people like Nicole herself, never gave them a moment’s thought.

She brushed a finger across the carven faces. She was almost afraid to feel the brush of tiny lips, the shock of electricity as they woke, but they remained cool, stony, still. She’d get a bottle of wine later, so she could properly thank them for sending her home again. I may even taste some, she thought. I really may.

Frank and Dawn had put fresh sheets on the bed, for which Nicole was duly grateful. They were the beige ones that had been a wedding present — from one of Frank’s cousins, who was a beige-sheet person if Nicole had ever seen one. She stripped them off and dumped them over Kimberley and Justin. The kids giggled madly. “I’m a ghost!” Kimberley declared.

“Ghost!” Justin agreed heartily.

While they ran around flapping and booing at one another, Nicole remade the bed with a vivid ocean print. The kids liked it. They abandoned their game to help put on the new bedclothes. Between the two of them, they were about as much help as a cat.

While the sheets Frank and Dawn had used were in the dryer, and while the kids were occupied with a stack of coloring books, Nicole put in a call to the office. Cyndi was almost as glad to hear from her as she’d been the day before. “I’ve got your check here, Ms. Gunther-Perrin,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do with it while you were, uh, out. “

“ ‘Out’ is right,” Nicole said. “Save it for me, why don’t you? I’m calling from home; I expect to be back Monday, to start getting out from under whatever’s waiting for me. Doctor wants to see me next week, but nobody’s going to keep me from doing what needs doing.”

“That’s all good news,” Cyndi said, and she sounded as if she meant it. “I’ll be glad to see you then, Ms. Gunther-Perrin.” She hadn’t had to say that. It made Nicole feel good that she had. It was nice, no, more than nice, to be appreciated.

The day went smoothly, no fights, no annoying phone calls, just the quiet pleasure of a day at home with her own — her very own — two kids. They didn’t mind being grabbed and hugged at random intervals, and they certainly didn’t mind that she had the time or the stamina to sit and play with them by the hour.

In the late afternoon, after Justin’s nap, Kimberley cracked. She’d been too good for too long. She started teasing him, teasing and teasing, determined to keep at it till she had him in a screaming tantrum.

“Knock it off,” Nicole said sharply. Kimberley obeyed for a minute, but most of the way through the second minute, she was at it again.

“I said,” Nicole said more pointedly, “knock. It. Off.”

Kimberley kept right on going — with a glance at Nicole that invited Nicole to do something about it. Nicole was delighted to oblige. She was beside her in two long strides. Before Kimberley knew what was happening, Nicole had swatted her on the fanny.

It wasn’t anywhere near as hard a whack as she’d often had to administer to Lucius — he’d required a wallop just to get his attention. It wasn’t even hard enough to make Kimberley cry. She stared, open-mouthed, too astonished to say a word.

“When I tell you to stop something,” Nicole said evenly, “I expect you to stop it. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Mommy,” Kimberley said in a subdued voice. Nicole knew an instant’s guilt, but she hardened herself against it. If there was one thing she’d learned in Carnuntum, it was that kids needed understanding — but they also, occasionally, needed the application of palm of hand to seat of pants.

Kimberley wasn’t cured of het habit of teasing Justin. That would take a miracle. Fifteen minutes, an hour at most, and she’d be back at it. Still, she was a good kid. She wouldn’t need too many lessons. Justin, now — Well, Justin was only two. Maybe, when he got to Lucius’ age, she wouldn’t have to correct him with a two-by-four. Maybe.

Life settled to a routine that was wonderful in its very dullness. Get up, shower (oh, that delicious hot water!), get kids up, get kids dressed, feed breakfast, and so on through the day. Sometimes she went to the supermarket — which was an experience in itself. So many things to buy. So much to take home in her car, as much as she could use. And no haggling over prices; though the price of lettuce was downright near gouging, and chicken had gone through the roof. She’d have haggled over that if she could.

Frank called every day to ask if she was all right. He had little to say when he did call, but that didn’t matter. She had little to say to him, either. If they’d had more to say to each other, they might have stayed married.

She wondered what he talked about with Dawn. Then, even more to the point, she wondered how long they would go on talking about it.

It was not, thank God, her problem. She didn’t waste much time feeling sorry for Dawn. Dawn was likable, after all, but she was one of those women who always landed on their feet, and always with a man in the bag.

The strangest thing of all, stranger than being as clean as she wanted to be, and even stranger than driving to the supermarket and buying as much as she needed and being able to pack it all home, was sleeping in her own bed at night. Not that it wasn’t comfortable — after the tavern and the hospital, it was wonderful — but because whenever she lay there in the dark, listening to the hum of the air conditioning and the whoosh of cars on the street outside, she kept feeling that Liber and Libera were watching her. She’d turn on the lamp — marveling as she did it that she could produce light, and such light, clear and bright as day, with the simple flick of a switch — and state at the god and goddess on the plaque.

They’d stare straight ahead with empty limestone eyes.

Sometimes she turned off the lamp, then turned it on again very quickly, hoping to catch Liber and Libera at whatever they were up to. But they hadn’t moved. They weren’t up to anything — or, if they were, they weren’t about to let her catch them at it.

She kept the kids through the weekend this time, by agreement with Frank. He’d had enough of them while she was in Carnuntum, and she couldn’t get het fill of them. It was a nicely mutual arrangement.

On Monday morning, the alarm blasted her awake. She woke as she had so many times before, face to face with the god and goddess. She got up, she got moving, she got the kids up. That, for once, wasn’t even hard. She had the magic words: “Today’s the day you go to your new preschool.”

Woodcrest was on Tampa, a few blocks south of Victory — east of her office, yes, but not even half as far as Josefina’s house. The parking lot the preschool shared with several small businesses and, she was most interested to note, an attached elementary school, was cramped and awkward, but for once she had good parking karma: there was a spot right near the entrance.

Kimberley and Justin, full of themselves because they’d been there before and their mother hadn’t, were delighted to serve as guides. “It’s this building, Mommy — right through this door,” Kimberley said, tugging at her arm. “Come on! You don’t want us to be late, do you?” She sounded so much like Nicole in a hurry that Nicole could hardly rebuke her, even when she started off at a run across the lot. Nicole got a solid grip on her hand and let her tow the rest of them along.

The building was standard California stucco. It already hummed with activity. There were more kids outside than in, running through the yard and climbing on apparatus and playing in sandboxes filled with bark chips instead of sand. A plumpish woman of about forty stood amid the chaos like an island of calm. Kimberley dragged Nicole right up to her and announced, “Mommy, this is Miss Irma: my teacher.”

Miss Irma smiled at Kimberley, but her warm brown eyes rested on Nicole’s face. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I showed your — ex-husband, is it? — around last week. I’m very glad you’re feeling better.” She didn’t sound dismayed by the fact of divorce, or because Nicole had been ill. Nothing would ever dismay her, Nicole suspected. That had to serve her very well in the middle of this horde of preschoolers — anyone with a nerve in her body would have had a coronary inside of a week.

Nicole thanked her for her sentiments. She’d done that more often since she came back to herself than in the year before that, she was sure. Somehow, in Carnuntum, she’d learned the art of gratitude. “Frank’s my ex, yes,” she said.

“Ah,” said Miss Irma. She smiled again, and took Nicole in hand. “Here, now, I walked him through it all, but I’m sure you’ll want your own tour, yes?”

Nicole nodded — good; she didn’t have to ask. Under Miss Irma’s capable tutelage, she met Miss Dolores, who would be Justin’s teacher: another comfortable, early-middle-aged woman, Hispanic this time, who also had that nothing-fazes-me look in her eye. She nodded approval at the kits Nicole had made up with changes of clothes, instruction sheets, medical releases, and everything else that the children were likely to need — Frank, ever efficient, had left the school’s literature with the bills on the kitchen counter, for Nicole to find and read. Evidently not every parent did: she won points for having the full kit. It was a small thing, but it made her feel good. In this world, by damn, she knew how to cope.

Miss Dolores, good preschool teacher that she was, asked The Question: “And how well are they trained?”

“Very well, I think,” Nicole answered. “Kimberley hasn’t had an accident in months.” She preened at that, too, and stood tall, as a big girl should. “Justin’s still learning.”

“That’s about right,” Miss Irma said. “He’s just a little fellow — aren’t you, Justin?”

“Big!’’ Justin countered, as contrary as any two-year-old worth his training pants.

Miss Irma laughed. “Big, then. But you’re still learning about going potty, aren’t you?”

“Go potty!” Justin replied.

“Now?” Miss Dolores asked.

“Now,” he said firmly.

She held out her hand. He took it. Nicole felt a tug as he trotted away, but she didn’t try to call him back.

Kimberley stayed with Nicole and Miss Irma through the rest of the daily procedure: the sheet on the door of each class on which each child was signed in and out, and the cubbyholes, each labeled, for the child’s work and for communications from the school. It was all very clear, very ordered, very — yes — efficient. Nothing like Josefina’s casual arrangements. Maybe that was as well. It wouldn’t remind the kids too forcibly of what they’d lost.

Just as Miss Irma finished showing Nicole where everything went, Justin came hurtling down the hallway. “Kiss, Mommy! Kiss!” Nicole caught him on the ricochet, whirled him around, and planted a loud, smacking kiss on his cheek. His answering kiss was sloppy enough to smear the powder on her cheek; she’d repair the damage when she got to the car. For now, it didn’t matter.

He was already wriggling to get down. She let him go, and scooped up the waiting Kimberley, whose kiss was a fraction more demure. Then Kimberley too was ready to make the break. For Nicole it was like ripping Velcro, but they seemed quite unfazed.

At the entrance to the yard, Nicole looked back. Kimberley was already playing with another girl about her age. Justin had found a ball and was chasing after it, yelling at the top of his lungs. They both seemed to have forgotten she existed.

She should have been pleased that they were so independent. She felt like crying.

The turn back onto Tampa from that miserable parking lot was a challenge, to put it mildly, but when she finally did get out to the street, she was only ten minutes’ drive from her office. This, I could get used to, she thought as she turned into the lot and found her space vacant as it should be. She’d almost wondered if it would be given away — as if she really had been away a year and a half.

Even before she got to the elevators, the wave of welcome had started. She gave up trying to find variations on Thank you. I never felt better, and settled for that one, canned line.

She’d more than half expected to feel depressed about returning to the place that had relegated her to a dead-end job, but the familiar spaces, the people she’d known for the whole of her working life in L.A., even the sight of her own cubby of an office and her secretary sitting in front of it, gave her a sense of being home again — just as she’d been in her house. This was her life, too, no matter how badly it had treated her.

Cyndi bounced up from her desk to give Nicole a giant hug. “It’s great to have you back,” she said.

“It’s good to be back,” Nicole answered. “You have no idea how good it is.” And isn’t that the truth? “Now let’s see if I remember anything about the law.”

Cyndi laughed, as anyone would who’d welcomed a lawyer back to work after a little over a week off. But Nicole meant it. She’d been away a lot longer than anyone knew.

Still, if her memory had gaps in it, she had her books and she had a computer. She might not be so quick with an answer as she’d been before, at least not at first, but the answers she gave would be the right ones. If law school had taught her nothing else, it had given her a solid grasp of combat research skills.

There was a small silence, which Nicole became aware of somewhat after Cyndi did. Cyndi broke it a little abruptly. “Everyone was upset about the way things happened,” she said. “Very upset. “ She hesitated. Then she went on, “I’m really glad you didn’t…” She paused again, looking for a safe way to say it. At length, she found one: “… you didn’t do anything foolish.”

You have no idea what a foolish thing I did. I had no idea what a foolish thing I was doing. “Not making partner isn’t the end of the world,” Nicole said from the perspective of a year and a half in another world and time. God knew, she hadn’t felt that way when Sheldon Rosenthal pulled the rug out from under her.

Cyndi nodded vigorously. Her curls were elaborately styled and piled, but by no means as elaborately as the styles the wealthy Roman matrons had affected. Those had looked as immovable as marble curlicues on a monument. These bounced as she moved, in a way that was pure modern America, and pure Cyndi. “I should say it’s not the end of the world,” she said, “especially compared to losing your health.”

Like people in Carnuntum, she was putting her own spin on Nicole’s words, making them fit into patterns she found familiar. It was the human way of doing things. Nicole was glad of it, too: it made life easier for those who didn’t fit those patterns. If she even approximated one of them, the people around her filled in the rest.

Not that Cyndi was wrong in this particular instance. Nicole said, “I was never so surprised in my life as when I woke up in that hospital bed.” That wasn’t exactly wrong, either, though it was only about an as’ worth of an aureus of truth: certainly less than a cent on the dollar.

Nicole didn’t linger too long, and Cyndi didn’t try to keep her, though Nicole could tell she’d have been glad to babble on indefinitely about everything and nothing. The office was waiting. Nicole had to face it now or not face it at all.

It didn’t look anything like the cluttered cubicle she’d left. It was jammed full of flowers and get-well cards, arranged by Cyndi, she could suppose. There was just barely room in the middle for the desk and chair, and for the IN basket with its stack of papers waiting to be dealt with.

She’d deal with it. It would take a while, but she’d dig out from under. For sure it was better than grinding flour for hours at a stretch, than keeping fires fed a few sticks at a time, than breathing smoke all day long because nobody had heard of chimneys.

Her voice-mail tape was close to maxed out. She’d have to ask Cyndi to fill her in — she even had a good pretext: some of her business had been taken over by other people in the firm.

Why, she thought in a pause between messages, Cyndi was her Julia in this world. She hoped, at least, that Cyndi didn’t feel like a slave, or feel she needed manumission.

It took her a moment to remember how to use her computer, but her password came right back to her: justkim, the first syllables of her children’s names. It wasn’t secure, it was much too easy to guess, but if she’d been more paranoid she might never have remembered it. Once the system came up, she found herself as inundated with e-mail as with voice calls and paperwork. Most of the e-mail was intraoffice, and most of it was personal: sympathy notes at first, some from surprising people, and then get-well wishes. She had more friends here than she’d thought. It touched her, made her eyes prickle and her throat go tight.

So many cards, so many flowers, so many good wishes. She took a deep breath and set them aside to savor later, and turned to the in box. She’d pick up where she left off, she resolved. Right… here. She reached for the top folder in the stack.

But she’d reckoned without the rest of the world. Once word had spread that she was back, everybody and his third cousin from Muncie came by to say Hello and Glad you’re feeling better. Hardly any of them stayed more than a minute or two, but a minute here and two minutes there added up to a good many minutes altogether.

She wasn’t the slightest bit startled when, toward midmorning, Gary Ogarkov poked his head into her office. He looked as if he expected her to throw something at him, and probably something sharp.

His expression was so nervous, she started to laugh. “Come on in,” she said. “I won’t bite, I promise.”

“No?” He didn’t sound convinced. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” But he slid in and sat on the edge of the chair she kept for clients.

Nicole looked at him and sighed. “Gary, it’s over. It happened the way it happened. This isn’t the end of the world. I’m not starving” — I’ve done that — “or sleeping in my car.” Even if it might be more comfortable than that bed over Umma’s tavern.

Gary eyed her a little dubiously. “You’re taking it really well,” he said. “I guess when you set a partnership against your health, it’s not such a big thing after all. But even so…” His voice trailed away.

“That is part of it,” Nicole agreed. Part of the rest, she realized, was the emotional distance her time in Carnuntum had given her. And part was an insight she’d also gained on the other side of time: the distance between bad and worse was a lot greater than the distance between good and better. Winning the partnership would have been better. What she had was still pretty decent.

Fortunately, Gary Ogarkov didn’t ask her to elaborate. Like everybody else in the world, he worried about himself and his own concerns first. And a good thing for her, too, all things considered. “I felt terrible about the way things turned out, and then I was afraid…” He stopped again.

Afraid you tried to kill yourself because I got the partnership and you didn’t. Nicole had no trouble filling in the blanks. Such things happened. Sometimes they made the news. More often, they spread along the attorneys’ grapevine. After all, lawyers made their living by writing and talking. What else would they do for entertainment but gossip?

“I didn’t try to kill myself,” Nicole said firmly. “If my doctor doesn’t understand what went wrong, don’t expect me to” — even if I do, don’t expect me to say so — “but it wasn’t that, believe me.”

He spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right, all right. I believe you. I’m glad. And I’m glad you’re back, and I’m glad you don’t hate me. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you did.”

He looked very boyish when he worried — and he was worried. She wasn’t altogether sure she’d reassured him, either. She soothed him a bit more, reflecting as she did it that it was a good thing he didn’t spend a lot of time in court. His opponents would have read altogether too much from his face.

Finally he seemed to realize that she was busy, or trying to be. He pushed himself to his feet, dipped his head — it was almost a bow — and fled back to his own desk. It was still the same one, she couldn’t help but notice. She’d have thought he’d have moved into the rarefied expanses of partner country by now.

So maybe, she thought, her absence had disrupted the firm just a little bit. Then she shook her head. No, of course not. The mills of the firm ground exceedingly fine, and ground exceedingly slow. Gary would get his new office in the firm’s good time, and not a moment sooner.

She shook herself and wrenched her mind back to the work she’d been trying to do all morning. Just about four memos down the stack, yet another visitor tapped lightly on the doorframe. She let out a grunt of annoyance. Best wishes were all very well, but so was getting some work done. That was what she was here for, wasn’t it?

But when she looked up, she wiped the frown off her face in a hurry. Sheldon Rosenthal stood in the doorway of her plain, plebeian office, attache case in hand, looking the very model of the modern founding partner.

“It’s very good to see you back, Ms. Gunther-Perrin,” he said, cool and precise as always. “We were concerned about you, especially in light of the circumstances.” So: he’d been wondering if she’d popped a handful of pills, too.

She kept her voice civil, but annoyance gave it an edge it might not otherwise have had. “Circumstances don’t have anything to do with it,” she said. That was a lie, but it wasn’t a provable lie. “Life would be a lot more convenient if you could pick and choose when you were going to get sick.”

“So it would,” Rosenthal said dryly. He didn’t wait to be invited, but stepped right into the office and swung the attache case up onto Nicole’s desk. It landed with a solid thump. Obviously, he hadn’t brought it along as a dignified prop. He snapped open the solid brass locks and lifted out a thick sheaf of papers. “Now here is something you may find interesting.”

Nicole stared at it. She didn’t find it interesting. She found it formidable. Saying as much to the head of the firm didn’t strike her as the best thing she could do. “What is it?” she asked, hoping she sounded interested rather than wary.

“Among other things, the environmental impact statement on a parcel of land somewhat north of here,” Rosenthal answered. “I want you to analyze that statement and the other documents you will find here, and to give me an opinion as to whether development is likely to be allowed to go forward if a litigant seeks to block it in the courts.”

“Sounds a lot like what I was doing with the Butler Ranch project,” Nicole said.

“There are similarities, yes,” Rosenthal said imperturbably. “The expertise you acquired through working on that project is one of the reasons I’m assigning this one to you.”

“I see,” Nicole said, in lieu of screaming, You son of a bitch! Had she truly been lying unconscious for six days, she would have screamed at him, she had no doubt of that at all. A year and a half in Carnuntum had taught her a new degree of patience, and a degree of self-preservation, too.

It hadn’t taught her not to keep her thoughts in check. If he’d liked her work on Butler Ranch so well, why hadn’t he made her a partner on account of it? But she’d been away long enough to cool the outrage she’d felt right after Rosenthal shafted her — and to show her there were a hell of a lot worse things than working in a law office.

On the strength of that, and after a few seconds’ pause to get her voice under control, she asked, “Are we representing the developer here, or someone who is thinking about trying to stop him?”

“An extremely professional question.” Did Sheldon Rosenthal sound the least bit surprised? Maybe he did. Maybe he’d dropped this project on her desk to see if she would lose her temper, or to try to make her lose it. That would have given him the perfect excuse to let her go.

But she’d refused to give it to him. He scratched his chin along the edge of his neat little beard. “Perhaps it would be best if you did not know the answer to that. I want the analysis to be as nearly disinterested as possible.”

Nicole took time to think about that — time in which he stood there, waiting in apparent patience. “All right,” Nicole said at last. Rosenthal made a certain amount of sense. Lawyers were by trade advocates, hired guns. If she knew which way he wanted the analysis to come out, she’d slant it that way. As it was, he could go to the client, whoever the client was, and say, Here’s exactly why you can, or maybe, why you can’t do what you want to do with this land.

“Do you think you can have this on my desk a week from today?” he asked.

Nicole nearly let go regardless of all her combat training in circumspection. But her resolve held. She was able to say with a reasonable degree of aplomb, “I’ll try. If I weren’t coming back from being sick, I’d be sure of it. But with everything else backed up a week and more — “

Rosenthal cut her off with a chopping gesture. “This has priority. If everything else has waited for you to return, it can wait a little longer.”

Nicole drew a deep breath. If the founding partner said Hop! the wise frog didn’t ask How high? till she was already on the way up. “All right,” she said. “In that case, I’ll have it done on time.” Or die trying.

“Good,” Sheldon Rosenthal said. “I’ll look forward to seeing what you do with it.” His nod was as carefully wrought as everything else about him. “And let me say once more, I am very glad to see you back in good health.” Without even waiting to hear her dutiful thanks, he nodded one last time, turned and headed back to the eminence of the seventh floor.

He’d left the attache case, brass fittings and all. Nicole refused to run after him like a flunky. She’d send somebody up with it later. For now she closed it and set it aside, pausing to stroke the fine leather. Then she turned back to her desk, took another deep breath, and started skimming through the documents the case had carried. The sooner she knew how brutal this job was going to be, the better.

As she read through the papers, she felt how long she’d been away, even more than she had with her kids. Time after time, she remembered the outline of the legal points she’d made in the Butler Ranch report, but not the details. And the details were what mattered, because the outline fell to pieces without them.

She pulled the old report on her computer and scribbled notes for the citations she’d need to check to write this new one. She’d have to hit the books, too, because she couldn’t recall what went into some of those citations.

She stifled a sigh. She’d known it would be this way. Even if she wasn’t quick, she’d be right. Here, she needed to be right and quick both — either that or take a lot of work home.

Well, if she had to, she had to: part of the price she paid for going away. It was cheap enough, she reckoned. She could have had to stay in Carnuntum till the day she died.

Another part of the price was the continued stream of attorneys and secretaries, all of whom professed themselves glad to see her back. She started to wonder just how important to the firm she was, if so many people were making a point of welcoming her. Or were they just being careful? She could sue, after all. You could sue for just about anything — and she had been passed over in favor of a male employee. Sheldon Rosenthal had warned her that any attempt to sue would get her nowhere, but that was before she landed in the hospital for just under a week.

Or maybe she was too cynical. They really did seem happy to see her. Several teased her for working so hard so soon. Her answering smile was decidedly wan. She wished they would go away and let her do the work instead of commiserating with her about it.

There was one notable exception to the procession of well-wishers. Tony Gallagher did not come down from the seventh floor to see how she was. She didn’t miss him a bit — and not only because he spared her yet another interruption.

A little past eleven, the telephone rang. She jumped; she’d finally had fifteen minutes free of interruptions, and had managed to immerse herself in what she was doing. “Nicole Gunther-Perrin,” she said. It was still a deep pleasure to say that name instead of the one she’d lived under for so long. She wasn’t Umma. If the gods were kind — and that was a literal truth — she’d never be Umma again. No offense, she said to the spirit of her ancestress, wherever by now it might be, but you are you and I’m myself, and I’m most pleased to keep it that way.

Cyndi’s voice sounded in her ear. “It’s Mr. Ogarkov,” she said.

Nicole rolled her eyes. What, another round of guilt? This time, she really would tell him to find himself a mommy. Her calendar was full, thank you very much.

Still, he was a partner, and she was being the good and faithful servant. “Put him through,” she said.

As soon as the line clicked over, he said, “Nicole? I was wondering if you’d let me take you to lunch to celebrate coming back. How about that Mexican place next to the Bookstar?”

She was just about to make an excuse — God knew, she had enough to do here — but something made her stop and think. This wasn’t an unusual invitation. They’d gone out to lunch a good many times while they worked on the Butler Ranch report. Sometimes he’d bought, sometimes she had. He’d never given her any trouble — at least, not that kind. Maybe she wasn’t his type. The other kind, the new kind, the guilt-edged one… well, if that was what he was up to, she’d set him straight, that was all. As with the work in front of her, the sooner it was done, the sooner it was over.

“All right,” she said. “Fine. Twelve-thirty okay? I’m pretty busy here.”

“So am I,” he said. “I’ll see you then. “

When the phone was back in its cradle, Nicole frowned again at the environmental impact study. It wasn’t as thorough as the one for Butler Ranch. Everyone had gone into that game sure the proposed development would end up in court. Both sides had had their ducks in a row right from the start. Here, the ducks were swimming all over the pond.

She’d almost forgotten the lunch date by the time Gary Ogarkov rapped on the door. She scrawled a note to herself, marked the place where she’d left off, and blinked up at him for a moment, slowly putting the world back together outside of the work she’d been doing. He waited with a decent amount of patience, and let her walk ahead of him out of the office and down to the parking lot. She didn’t even pause by the Honda, but went down the line to his Buick. If that bemused him, he didn’t show it. It was his invitation, after all. Inviter drove; invitee rode along. That was the unwritten protocol.

“You’d better buy today,” she said as she settled in the passenger seat and fastened the lap belt. “You’re the partner, after all.”

“Hey, I told you what I — “ He broke off as her tone sank in. “You’re not angry. You’re sassing me.” He sounded astonished.

“Life is too short,” she said. And how long would she be able to hold onto that attitude? Probably till some idiot cut her off on the freeway. That would last a bit, if the kids stayed at Woodcrest. She sat back, determined to relax and not let anything about Los Angeles bother her. “Well? Shall we go? I’m hungry.”

Ogarkov grinned and gave her something between a Boy Scout salute and the military version. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and started the car.

So maybe, she thought, she’d be spared any more of his guilt trips. She hoped so. She liked him rather well, as a colleague and casual friend. It would be a good thing if they could go on on that basis.

The Mexican restaurant was always a busy place. Today it looked as if a good part of the firm had decided to step over there for lunch — and most of those hadn’t, yet, got in their good wishes. By the time Nicole and Gary had been seated at a table, the procession was up to parade strength. Nicole would have enjoyed it a fair bit if her stomach hadn’t been growling at her. It was a long time since breakfast, and this body wasn’t used to being hungry.

Lunch was delicious. For one thing, Mexican food in L.A. was, not surprisingly, a hell of a lot better than in Indianapolis. For another, she hadn’t tasted corn or tomatoes or chilies in all the time she’d been in Carnuntum. The Romans hadn’t known about any of them. She hadn’t particularly noticed that while she was there; she’d been too busy surviving. But now she had them in front of her, she was ravenously hungry for them.

“Thanks, Gary,” she said as she set her fork down on an empty plate. “That hit the spot.”

“Probably tastes like heaven after hospital food,” Ogarkov said — again, doing her work of concealment for her. She nodded. She hadn’t been thinking about hospital food, but he didn’t need to know that.

Almost as good as the food in her estimation was that he seemed to have decided to lay his guilt aside. He was just as she remembered, good company, occasionally witty, willing to talk shop or gossip or whatever she happened to be in the mood for. Whoever said women were the worst gossips must have been a man; because when it came to dishing the very best and choicest dirt, the male of the species gave the female a solid run for the prize.

Nicole hadn’t enjoyed a meal so much since she couldn’t remember when. She went back to the office in a glow of good humor, all ready and set to tackle the papers Sheldon Rosenthal had slapped down on her desk. By mid-afternoon, after the interruptions had tapered off to one per hour, she was beginning to have a feel for the way the analysis should look. If there weren’t any surprises in the rest of the documents or in the case law that pertained to them, she’d be on solid ground in her assessment.

That was a good feeling. A very good feeling indeed. She’d missed this: the exercise of her mind in the intricacies of a legal system she knew and understood. And no man was patronizing her for being able to understand it. She really was a lawyer here, a woman lawyer, and that was maybe not common enough yet, but it was getting there.