There was coldness in his stomach. "No ... not exactly. I'm sorry."
She shrugged. Her arms and shoulders were rounded and graceful but their grace did not obscure the fact that she was old as he, or nearly. Why was it so reprehensible to long for freshness and beauty in women but the stamp of taste to want these qualities in anything else? "I'm sorry," he said for the third time, aware of the phrase's futility.
She smiled, showing a gold tooth. The others were white but uneven. "For nothing," she echoed the girl. "What is there to be sorry for?"
His eyes went from the creature on the bench to her and back again.
"Yours," she said calmly.
He had known, but knowing and knowing were different things. "Impossible!"
She showed the gold tooth again. "Why impossible? You make love, you have babies."
"But—like that?"
"Does everything have to be perfect for you?"
He regarded her with greater horror than he had his—his son. A beast, an animal, giving birth to beasts and animals. "Not perfect. But not ... this."