She heard the door to—to this hideous travesty of a room opening. Her eyes darted around the shrunken metal-walled shell, even the ceiling curved overhead, and she saw two grotesque daubs taped to the walls that parodied the paintings of her dead brother Alex. The coloring was ugly and the proportions out of line. And it was not canvas but curling sheets of paper taped and painted to resemble frames!
A big man, sandy-haired and with vertical wrinkles deep between piercing blue eyes, came into the room. She shrank into the bed, seeing that the sheet she tugged taut across her breast was ragged and blue.
"Ruth," he said, a slow smile making his face almost handsome, "you're better. You haven't spoken in weeks."
Ruth wanted to giggle. As though they could keep her quiet. Daddy was always shushing her.... But who was this big man in his dusty drab coveralls and dropped dust mask dangling upon his chest?
"Don't you know me, Dear? It's Buhl, your husband."
Buhl was fifteen and only a couple of inches taller than Ruth. Of course he had sandy hair like this man. But this man was old enough to be Buhl's father. This was crazy—like one of the dreams that always made her unhappy.
So? So it was a dream. She felt warmth and release. Why not see what this dream had to offer that might be amusing to remember and tell Buhl sometime soon. Wouldn't he laugh when he heard she had dreamed about him? And been married to him.
She saw the strip of shiny metal that masqueraded as her mirror, and where her four long windows, with their thick, loose-woven drapes, had been there were only four taped strips of paper with crude pictures of draped windows daubed on them. There were even green dabs of paint and black splashes to stimulate her beloved maple tree.
"Ruth! Do you feel better now? Please don't smile at me like that. I know you loved the baby, but this Martian atmosphere is tough even for men. It wasn't your fault."
"Go ahead and talk," Ruth laughed gaily. "This is just another bad dream and I know it. I'll wake up in a little while and be back in my cool old room."