The Baltic War(64)

The problem was that, despite her own sincere Catholicism, Maureen Grady simply couldn't think that way. She knew Grantville, having lived there for years since she'd left Chicago to take a better job at the big Veterans Administration center in Clarksburg. The idea that she and her neighbors—her cop husband, too, with his mania for baseball? their two sons, with a worse mania? their three dogs, with their mania for stealing the best seats in the house and shedding fur all over them?—were all part of a miracle just seemed completely absurd to her. Miracles were like Star Wars. They happened long, long ago in places that were far, far way—and had names that were hard to pronounce. They did not happen in dog-food-out-of-a-can plain old West Virginia.



They just didn't, unless God was a lot more like an American Indian style prankster deity than the one Maureen had grown up with and worshipped. So, Maureen had long since plunked herself down on the "unknown natural causes" side of that debate. She could accept that blind nature might pick West Virginia for the Ring of Fire.



Why not, since nature had given them the seemingly immortal Senator Robert Byrd? Nobody ever explained him as being due to any sort of miracle. The occasional Republican whispers that he'd sold his soul to the devil could be discounted, she thought.





"This is the day-care center," Caroline said, as they entered a section of the settlement house that was a newly constructed extension from the medieval monastery.



Thorsten looked around carefully. The great one-room wooden structure was really just a huge barn, with what amounted to big stalls for children instead of horses or cattle. True, the floor was wood instead of dirt, and was amazingly clean given the swarms of children everywhere. But the design and craftsmanship of the extension itself was just about exactly what you'd get with a well-made barn. Very sturdy and solid, to be sure, but with no frills whatsoever.



The one thing that puzzled him at first was how they managed to keep such a big wooden structure warm enough in the winter. He saw no signs that the walls were insulated by anything except a double layer of planking. But then he spotted one of the peculiar-looking new American stoves that were becoming quite popular in the city. "Franklin stoves," they were called. Thorsten's own landlord had been talking lately about getting some for their apartment building.



He looked around again, and spotted two more. Apparently, they had such a stove in almost every one of the stalls for children.



"Well, what do you think?" Caroline asked. Glancing at her, Thorsten realized that he'd been silent for quite some time, as he'd given the day-care center much more than a casual examination. His friend Eric teased him about that characteristic quite often. Thorsten supposed it was probably true that he tended to concentrate on something to the point of being half-oblivious to the world around him.



"It's very sturdy," he said. "Former farmers built it, I am thinking."



"Well . . . yes, I suppose it could have been. It was done by a crew sent from two of the construction workers' union      s. Most of those men are from rural areas, true enough. I don't know if they were farmers, though. Why do you say that?"



Thorsten waved his hand about. "It's designed like a big barn, Caroline. Better made than usual, but that's what it is."



She looked a little startled. "A barn? I wouldn't have said so!"



Fearing that she was on the verge of becoming offended, Thorsten chose his next words carefully.



"Ah . . . I don't mean to be impertinent, but I take it you were not born and raised in a country village?"



Caroline's burst of laughter reassured Thorsten, as well as intrigued him. She had a raucous, almost harsh-sounding laugh, quite at odds with her actual voice. Everything about the woman was fascinating.



"Hell, no! I'm the o-riginal city girl, Thorsten. Born and raised in and around Washington, D.C. When I was growing up, going on a 'country outing' meant finding an Eritrean restaurant instead of the run-of-the-mill Ethiopian ones. The first time I saw a cow was when I transferred to WVU my junior year because I didn't like—well, never mind. Let's just say it took Rita Stearns fifteen minutes to walk me through the differences between a cow and a horse so I could tell them apart." She frowned rather dramatically. "And she's never let me forget it even though the truth is I could have managed it in two minutes if she hadn't been laughing her head off the other thirteen."



Thorsten tried to imagine not being able to tell the difference between a cow and horse at a glance. Finally! Something about the woman that was clearly far from perfect. It came as a great relief.