The chicken-run came alive; the barn followed minutes later. There were chores to do, the same chores he'd done all his forty-one years. Except that now, with the new regulations about wheat and corn, he had only a vegetable patch to farm. Sure, he got paid for letting the fields remain empty. But it just didn't seem right, all that land going to waste....
Davie. Blond hair and a round, tanned face and strong arms growing stronger each day from helping out after school.
He turned and shook Edna. "What happened to Davie?"
She cleared her throat, mumbled, "Huh? What happened to who?"
"I said, what...." But then it slipped away. Davie? No, that was part of a dream he'd had last week. He and Edna had no children.
He felt the fear again, and got up fast to escape it. Edna opened her eyes as soon as his weight left the bed. "Like hotcakes for breakfast?"
"Eggs," he said. "Bacon." And then, seeing her face change, he remembered. "Course," he muttered. "Can't have bacon. Rationed."
She was fully awake now. "If you'd only go see Dr. Hamming, Harry. Just for a checkup. Or let me call him so he could—"
"You stop that! You stop that right now, and for good! I don't want to hear no more about doctors. I get laid up, I'll call one. And it won't be that Hamming who I ain't never seen in my life! It'll be Timkins, who took care'n us and brought our son into the world and...."
She began to cry, and he realized he'd said something crazy again. They had no son, never had a son. And Timkins—he'd died and they'd gone to his funeral. Or so Edna said.