So what? Can’t you imagine how I feel, to know I can have them? And does this country need babies now!”
Henry let go of the wheel with his right hand. He reached out, touched her dark hair, moved his hand under it, found her neck, squeezed it lightly and went back to driving. He didn’t say anything more than the touch said. But she looked toward him fondly as she snuggled against Charles. It would be, she felt, the finest thing on earth to have a father like Charles. But, certainly, it would be almost as fine to have such a grandfather as Henry Conner would make a boy—or a girl.
At the house, they could see smoke from the fire in the barbecue pit, and the assembled next-door neighbors, along with the Laceys and their children. Two strangers besides.
Henry went around and opened the car trunk. Al had put the keg in at five. It was wet with its own coldness. A whole keg of beer, and a bung-starter with it—beside the tire tools.
“Gimme a hand,” he called.
But Chuck was already streaking through the hedge. ‘What do you think?” he called.
“Lenore’s going to have a baby! I’m going to be the father of a child!”
Mrs. Conner’s eyes blurred with happiness.
Nora Conner’s did not. “That’s nothing!” she said.
“Queenie’s just been the father-of five.”