A Dangerous Age (25 page)

“No, I will watch you hold him.”

“I want to hold him, but I’ll wait until he’s used to being here,” Mary Lily said.

“We are proud of you, Granddaughter,” Little Sun said. “You have made us very proud.”

“Philip Whitehorse has gone to see the lawyer who was the trickster at your blessing,” Mary Lily said, lowering her chin so Olivia could not see her face. “He is going to have a divorce from his wife. This is the news I have for you.”

“And then what will you do?” Olivia asked, smiling. “Will you go and live with him on Baron Fork and marry him?”

“I haven’t thought what I will do,” Mary Lily said. “Just because he is going to divorce his drunken wife doesn’t mean I have to live on Baron Fork.”

“Come hold this baby,” Olivia said. “He knows your voice. He’s been listening to me talk to you for months. Come on. He doesn’t care if people hold him. All those nurses hold him and he isn’t even kin to them.” She held out the sleeping infant, and Mary Lily took him in her arms and sat beside Olivia’s bed, looking down at his face and remembering his mother when they had placed Olivia in her care, so many years ago, but not
that many really, just days and nights that had passed like a dream to lead them all to this day when there would be a new life to lead them on.

“What do you think?” Olivia asked.

“I think I’m glad to have him in the world with me.”

“Would one of you go get me some newspapers?” Olivia asked. “No one in this place ever remembers to bring me the newspapers in the morning.”

Little Sun got up and walked out of the room, went down on the elevator, bought three newspapers, and brought them back to Olivia’s room.

It was August 27, 2005. The headlines read:

MAJOR HURRICANE FORMING IN GULF OF MEXICO

GOLD NEARS $500 AN OUNCE

ROBERTS HEARINGS TO BEGIN SEPT
. 12

HAMAS WANTS CREDIT FOR GAZA PULLOUT

BESLAN RESIDENTS MOURN ‘04 ATTACK

INVESTIGATION CONTINUES INTO TUNISIAN PLANE CRASH OFF SICILY

EGYPT ARRESTS SUSPECTS IN RESORT BOMBINGS

U.S. CASUALTIES IN IRAQ REACH 1,866

December 20, 2006. As of this date, $300
billion
has been spent by the United States on the war in Iraq. There have been 2,940 American casualties. Thousands have been seriously wounded, having lost eyes, ears, arms, legs, hands, feet, skin, blood, the ability
to live life as healthy human beings. Pray that we care for them as we have promised that we would.

For some branches of the armed forces, the bonus for signing up for four years of service has reached as high as twenty and even thirty thousand dollars. The president announced on December 19, 2006, that he was raising a larger army.

A bumber sticker in Fayetteville, Arkansas, reads, “We are making enemies faster than we can kill them.”

What in the hell are we supposed to do next?

—Excerpt from an editorial by
Olivia de Havilland Hand