"So, why didn't you tell them I was coming?" I asked once we were all seated and Vic's wife was making tea. I'd told my mother that I didn't want any, especially since the younger woman seemed to dislike me, but my mother had insisted. I was seated across from Tommin with my mother on my right and my other brother on my left. Nella, my niece, sat next to Vic on Tommin's side and my sister-in-law sat opposite her daughter.

"I dunno." Tommin shrugged. "I suppose I forgot." Tommin and Vic seemed to have reversed roles in the past seven years. Tommin's cool maturity melted away to reveal an inner child while Vic's annoying self-importance had dimmed with the responsibility required for being the head of his own family.

"Yeah," I said shortly. "I guess you did." I wasn't really very angry at Tommin, I felt as though I couldn't be. There was something more beneath the surface but I didn't know what it was yet.

"Well, anyway," Janall said, beginning to pour the tea. "It doesn't really matter." She purposely sloshed some of the hot liquid onto my lap. I rose instantly and grabbed the front of her shirt. It took me a moment before I understood what I was doing. I had almost come to blows over her petty prank. I was ashamed of myself.

"I-I'm sorry," I said, sitting back down. The front of my pants was beginning to cool, leaving the fabric feeling clammy and sticky against my thighs. I rested my elbows on the table and put my face in my hands.

"You should've beat her," Tommin remarked.

My head felt odd and when I looked up the room seemed to spin. I was definitely not myself. My limbs felt like jelly and I thought I would fall over. I passed out then.

When I woke up I was on the sofa. There were several pairs of disapproving eyes on me and Janall was preening like a peacock.

"Well, I just knew there had to be a reason she stayed away," she said. "After all, what decent girl would avoid her family the way she's been doing? I'm not entirely sure we should be letting our Nella be around such a loose woman, Vic." She glanced over at my brother.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked. Janall gasped.

"Did you hear that?" she cried. "She cursed in the presence of a child!" She held her daughter close to her; the girl blinked confusedly not knowing what was going on.

"Eh," I shrugged. "She'll get over it."

"Well, anyway, Claudie," my mother said shortly. "You really should pay closer attention to how much you are sleeping, what with the baby and all."

I'd known that I hadn't been getting much sleep. Between work and worry there just wasn't any time left over. If someone wanted to lecture me on that, let them. I could take a lecture, they'd never meant much to me. Let them flap their gums, what use was it if they didn't ever act? What I hadn't expected to hear was the word baby used in the lecture.

"Baby?" I asked. My first reaction was to think that I'd heard wrong. I looked at all assembled, hoping that one would correct me. Some odd word that sounded like baby...now what could it be? Nothing came to me and no one spoke. "What do you mean baby?" I asked.

"Ha!" Janall looked smug. "She didn't even know she was pregnant. If that's not the sign of a slut I don't know what is!" I yawned and scratched my head, not comprehending more from a wish not to understand than a mishearing of words.

"You must have some skewed sense of what's decent now, Sis," I said through a second yawn. "May I call you Sis?"

"Absolutely not!" my sister-in-law half-screamed.

"So... Am I really pregnant, Tom?" I asked, turning to my eldest brother. He shrugged and wouldn't look me in the eye.

"That's what the doctor said," he told me. I considered for a minute. There was no questioning that my mother would have called a doctor if I'd passed out. She held the view that she couldn't become ill, lest it interrupt her oh, so important research (whatever research that was).

"Shit," I murmured again.

"Will you stop using those curse words?" Janall hissed.

"Can it!" I screamed at her. "I've just heard some very upsetting news."

"It's only upsetting because you're a little slut and you don't even know who the father is!" Janall countered. I ground me teeth, trying to hold in my temper. I was not going to cause more of a scene than I already had. "That's it, isn't it?" Janall sat back with a smug expression on her face and I lost my fragile grasp on my anger.

I crossed the room on wobbling legs and slapped her with all my might. Her head snapped sideways and she remained that way in shocked silence, the imprint of my hand glowing red on her meticulously pale skin. The welt from my wedding ring was just above her jawbone.

Every creature in the room drew in a breath and held it as they waited for the snippy little princess my brother had married to regain her composure. She began by blinking back the tears that had been ushered forth by the sting from the strike.

"Oh, suck it up," I whispered. "And, by the way, darling, I'm married."

Tommin had been perched on the arm of the sofa , but when I said that he toppled onto the floor. Everyone was staring at me once more. I could see the astonishment glistening in their eyes as I returned to the sofa and sank down onto the old piece of furniture.

"M-m-married?" my mother finally stammered. "But...Claudie, why didn't you tell us? I would have loved to see your wedding."

"The same reason I didn't visit or write," I answered miserably. "I didn't think it would be welcome. But more importantly now...now there's this...thing inside me and I don't know if it will be welcome in this world." I thought I would cry, but I forced that indignity to be beneath me.

"Of course it will be welcome, Claudie," my mother told me in the sagely tone I'd come to expect from all old women. It struck me nearly dumb to realize my mother of all people had become old. She'd always seemed to have a never ending supply of youth when I was a child. "What makes you say such silly things? It will have at least a mother, a father, and a grandmother who will love it very much."

"But you don't understand my situation," I tried to explain. "It isn't as though I'll be able to be home all the time and care for it."

"Oh, pah," my mother said. "Less and less women are doing that anyway these days."

"Yeah, but traveling all over Gaia? Going who knows where at who knows what times? I don't think there are many mothers with my job, mom," I sighed.

"What about your husband?" my mother pressed. "What sort of man is he?" I considered her question but could only conjure up an image of Veld doing the ironing and fail to hold back a snorting laugh.

"No, mother," I said. "His job is just as uncertain. Maybe more. No, I'm certain it's more so."

"Well, who is he?" my mother said. "It's not as though we know much about your life now, is it? The last thing I remember was your crush on that Valentine boy. Vincent, wasn't it? You didn't go off and marry him, did you?"

"No, mother," I said with a slight chuckle. "I didn't marry Vincent."

"Good," she murmured so that only I could hear. "There was something about that boy I never did like."