She felt a sigh of relief travel from her throat to the base of her foot as she stepped through her doorway. She immediately felt guilty. "I'm sorry Frank, you probably want to be home in your own space relaxing."
Frank grinned for the first time in what seemed like days. "Are you serious? Neither of us would be relaxing if I was at home. I'd be pacing the floor worrying about what you were planning. And you'd be- well, you'd be planning."
Nella laughed. "I'm too tired to plan."
Frank's grin faded. "You aren't going alone."
"Let's not worry about it just yet. I'm sick of being scared."
He gently grabbed her chin and turned her face toward him. "We don't have to talk about it right now Nella, but you aren't going alone. I may seem like an amiable pushover sometimes, but I mean it."
Nella dropped her eyes for a second and then looked steadily at him. "We don't need to argue about it now."
"Or ever," he said. She shook her head and smiled. She walked away from him toward the bathroom.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"To brush my teeth. I can still taste that house in my throat."
"I'm going to get a change of clothes from the car then."
Nella turned around. "Do you want me to come with you?" she asked.
Frank looked confused. "No, I know right where my bag is. Are you okay?"
Nella smiled but it wavered like a false reflection. "Yeah, just nervous I guess."
"I'll be right back, I promise."
"I know," she said and went to clean off the stench of Dr. Carton.
She was in the closet carefully packing away the guns when he came back. She jumped when he said in a low voice from behind her, "I'm glad we didn't have to use those."
"Me too," she said and shoved the trunk back against the closet wall. It hit with a bang she hadn't intended and she tensed again.
"Nella, you have to calm down. What is it you are scared of? That old man?" She could see a ripple of revulsion pass up Frank's frame. "He's sick, there's no doubt about that, but surely this isn't so far afield from things you've had patients dealing with during the Cure, is it?"
Nella waved a hand dismissively as she backed out of the closet and shut the door. "No," she said, "it's not Dr. Carton. I've just had this overwhelming feeling of dread since we left the prison today. I don't know why, but I keep thinking I'm overlooking something important. As if everything depends on me figuring it out and as if something or someone is going to stop me before I can."
Nella shrugged. "I don't know," she sighed, "it's probably nothing. I think the pressure is just making me jumpy."
Frank's face was tight and anxious. Nella laughed and patted his arm. "Don't worry. I'm not quite cracked yet. A little paranoia is healthy." He didn't relax. She looked at him for a moment. "I'm glad you're here," she said.
"Me too," he said with an immediate smile. Nella felt her interior gravity shift. It startled her and she walked into the kitchen before he could say or do anything else.
"Come on," she called back to him, "You must be starving. I am."
"Really? After hearing all that, you're still hungry?"
Nella paused for a moment. "Surprisingly, yes."
"All right. Let me change first. Besides I made lunch, it's your turn to cook," he said and disappeared into the bathroom.
Nella watched the steam curl out of the bottom of the bathroom door as she cooked. She had always been comfortable in her apartment. She didn't go looking for things to add to it, they just sort of found her. Gifts from friends or things she'd saved from empty, abandoned places. Like her cookbooks. Her life was like a net gathering bits of flotsam after the storm. She didn't go looking for people to add to her life either. She didn't push people away, at least, she didn't think she did. But sometimes people seemed to swirl around her and stick when she was least prepared for it. Less and less lately. She watched the warm, clean mist creeping out of the bathroom and wondered if Frank was one of those people. She realized she was lonely. Nella sighed. What was she thinking? She was a psychiatrist hired to be an impartial observer for the most important trial in history. Even having the defense counsel over for dinner was seriously questionable. And now they were both privy to something that could change not only the outcome of the trial but the fate of civilization as well. She tried to be rational. I'm a logical person, not some weak-willed woman who runs after other people for affection or protection. Nella immediately felt ashamed of the thought. Why was she feeling so judgmental? Was it what others would think? Or what she thought of herself? She rapped her wooden spoon on the side of the pot in an angry burst. Why did she even like him? She knew very little about him. He was pleasant, but she had met many pleasant men over the years and never thought twice about it. Perhaps it was simply the pressure of the trial. But she rejected that as well. She had survived far worse without turning to intimacy for comfort. He was not pretty. Even now, she could admit that. Too thin and and angular, dark scars twisting his face and arms, and still visibly fragile and pallid from long illness. No one would think that he was handsome. But it had been a while since Nella had found him ugly, despite all that. She was having a terrible time trying to convince herself that he wasn't attractive. Because, of course, he was. She didn't know if it was something physical, like the grace with which he moved his ridiculously long limbs when she expected him to constantly be tripping over himself, or if it was something deeper and less defined. Nella had noticed Frank's patience with people even when he was unfairly treated and she didn't ignore his kindness to everyone around him and most especially toward herself. Nella was modest, but she wasn't blind. Frank had been sending clear signals. She knew he was just waiting to find out if she felt the same way about him. She felt a pang of sympathy when she realized he had reasons to be less confident than she. She wondered if he'd been rejected many times since the Cure or if he'd ever been able to move past the death of his wife. Nella felt ridiculous and self conscious. She scolded herself into concentrating on what she was doing. The constant, quiet splash of the shower ended and Nella could feel panic set in. That's enough, she thought, stop being silly Nella. I can't do anything until after the trial. Otherwise we'll both lose our jobs. She thought she had convinced herself into rationality by the time Frank walked quietly out of the bathroom.
"That smells great," he said, coming into the kitchen. He rummaged around the cabinets looking for silverware. He was humming something without knowing it. Nella watched him as he set the table. How the hell did I ever think he was ugly? She wondered. He turned around and saw her watching him. He stopped humming and smiled self consciously. "What?" he asked.
Nella blushed and returned his smile. "Nothing. What were you humming?"
Frank thought for a second. "I have no idea. Sorry, does it bother you?"
"No, not at all. I was just curious." She turned back to the stove and filled their plates so she could blush in private. We should have dinner and then I should send him home. Not should. Will send him home.
But her resolve weakened as the evening wore itself away. He seemed comfortable with her, unwound even, as if he had been screwed together too tightly for far too long. When she met him, she had thought he was too introverted to be a lawyer. He had been friendly but it had seemed rehearsed, like something he often got wrong. But now she wondered if the world had made him that way after the Cure. He had been so subdued with both Dr. Pazzo and Mr. Grant. It was easy to believe Frank was so ashamed of what the infection had done to him that he became deferential to anyone who treated him poorly, that he really thought he deserved it. She was hesitant to shatter what comfort he had found with her by sending him away.
He looked at her intensely for a moment, but Nella's mind was so far away she barely noticed.
"Stop psychoanalyzing me," he said, "I told you I didn't want you to think about me that way."
"I
wasn't-"
Frank laughed. "You're a terrible liar. But I guess that's good in a doctor."
"Well how do you want me to think about you then?"
Frank got up and picked up his plate. He leaned over her and paused as he picked hers up too. "Now you're changing the subject," he said gently and then walked to the sink. Nella's ribs felt too tight. She tried to ignore it.
"What makes you think I was psychoanalyzing you?"
Frank turned the water on and spoke over the splashing, but didn't turn his face toward her. "Because you were staring at me for a while. And I think you've gotten over your revulsion of my scars by now, so it wasn't that-"
"I was never revolted by you-" Nella tried to interrupt.
"You were," Frank laughed and it was dry and brittle like an old leaf hanging between them. "You tried very hard not to show it, I know. Maybe you even tried very hard not to feel it, but I could see you flinch every time I came near you-"
Nella sprang from her seat and across the kitchen. "I'm not revolted by you," she said when she reached him. He turned off the faucet and calmly began wiping the clean dishes. Frank looked at her.
"I know. Not any more, anyway. So I know you weren't watching me because you were frightened or disgusted." He handed her the dry plate and she stared dumbly at it because his fingers had touched hers as he passed it to her and the sizzling it left in her mind made her too dizzy to put the plate in the cabinet.
"But you weren't staring into space, Nella, you were staring at me." Frank smiled, "All I can think is that you were either analyzing me or you were trying to figure out a way to toss me out for the night without feeling guilty."
Nella blushed. "I wasn't psychoanalyzing you."
He handed her the other plate. "If you want me to go," he said quietly, "All you have to do is say so. Nothing will be different tomorrow. We'll still be friends."
"I don't want you to go," she said and then rushed to put the plates away so that she wouldn't see his face.
"Good," he said, "because I'd like to stay. Your couch is comfortable."
She laughed despite her anxiety and turned back toward him. "How did you know what I was thinking about?"
"Because I've thought about it too. I'm an adult, Nella, I know how the world works. I'm not supposed to like you. And you're supposed to be impartial and everyone is supposed to play by the rules. If anyone found out that we weren't strangers to each other, the world would riot. And that's just the trial."
"What do you mean, 'that's just the trial?' Is there something else?"
"You're an Immune. You're supposed to be registering with DHRS and marrying another Immune so you can have lots of little Immune children. And I'm an Infected-" he held up his hand to stop her protest, "whether I've been Cured or not, I'll always be an Infected. I don't have the genetic resistance to pass on to the next generation. I'm supposed to die out, wither out of the gene pool."
"I don't care about that-"
"You might not. Your friends might not even care. But the rest of the world will. People like Mr. Grant will. Maybe we'd lose our jobs or be shunned or cheated at the market. Maybe we would have to live in more dangerous places than this." Frank sighed. "I know you aren't naïve Nella. I realize you've thought about this already. That's what you were thinking about before I interrupted you. I just don't know what you decided."
"What did you decide?"
Frank leaned against the counter and crossed his arms as if he were preparing for a blow from her. "That I gave up caring what the world thought of me a long time ago. That I already took the bitter leavings the world tossed at me every day, why shouldn't I accept the beautiful things it put in my path too?" Frank reached out to touch her face, but stopped short and pulled back. He stopped looking at her and looked toward the door, expecting to be walking through it. "But I still care about what the world thinks about you and what it would do to you if I were involved with you. This life is hard enough as it is. We both know that. I don't want to make it any harder."
The sink plinked a sorry tune between them as Nella thought about what she wanted to tell him. "Frank," she said at last, "the world isn't just nasty people like Mr. Grant and his cronies. It's also people like Sevita and Wells and Johnson. The world has always had bigots in it. I think it always will. If the Plague proved anything, it proved that. Even when we're on the point of extinction we still waste energy on hating each other. Living according to the standards of the Mr. Grants of the world isn't going to make them go away. And it will only make you- us miserable." Nella reached up and touched the scar on Frank's cheek with the fingertips of her bandaged hand. "How could I ever be revolted by you? If I ever did, I'm sorry for it now. You've shown nothing but kindness and patience, even to people who treated you badly. Even to people that I couldn't bring myself to be patient with or kind to. How could you make my life anything but better? If the judge wants me to recuse myself I will. If the Mr. Grants of the world want me to stop practicing, I'll do that too. But I don't want you to go."
Nella was a little amazed to realize how much she really meant it. She smiled and looked up at Frank. But his face was grim and still. He hadn't moved, even when she'd touched him. Nella's smiled withered away. "What's wrong?" she asked before her throat could snap shut with panic.
"I'm not what you believe. I'm not patient and I can be cruel, Nella. I can't do this." He gently moved her aside and walked toward the door.
"Frank wait." The lamp sparkled on his face like frost. The rest of him in shadow, slipping away, his hand already turning the door knob.
"Wait," she said again, but she was calm, not pleading. He waited, turning toward her, but didn't move from the door. The light behind him made his face a dark room she couldn't see into.
"It's not for you to decide," she said, "You may think you're protecting me from some mistake by leaving, but it's my mistake to make," she smiled, but her eyes felt pinched and there was a rough stone in the base of her throat. "And it's already been made."
Frank's shoulders sagged. He shook his head. "You don't know me. You don't know what I've done."
She wanted to tell him she didn't care, that whatever it was, it couldn't be that bad. But in the world that remained after humans had slaughtered each other with their bare hands and sick people had been executed not only to insure safety, but also for sport even after the Cure, in this world, that wasn't true anymore. The little voice in the hollow still place of her chest said that, yes, it could be that bad. So she was calm, too rational to tell him what she really meant, when she said, "How will I know if you never tell me?" She took a step toward him. "You can stay the man you've made yourself into, and I'll never know what you were before. No one's going to betray you, no one's going to tell your secrets." Nella paused and crossed the remaining space between them so she could see his face in the dim light. "Or you can tell me what it is you think you've done. You can spill it out in the most wretched language you like and be free of it. And let me decide."
He was silent. She desperately wanted to watch his hand on the knob, as if it, alone, decided what happened next. Her hand ached to take his away from the door. She forced herself to focus on his face. He shifted his weight and she shut her eyes so she wouldn't see the door open. "It isn't a kindness, this way Frank. It isn't sparing me anything to just leave with things half said."
She felt his sigh like a slide of warm sand shifting against her side. She opened her eyes and he had let go of the doorknob.
"There was a kid, Nella. That's why we were Infected." he sat wearily on the couch.
You Had a Child?