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Show 188 looked puffed and mismatched in what Hunt knew to be the image of contained tears. "You're in such good shape!" she shot at him: "Why don't you run to Chicago? Why don't you swim to the Midwest - and transport him back." "... God," Hunt heard her burst a moment later from their bedroom. "I think you're driving me crazy. Crazy; crazy! Our yard looks like a sugar cane plantation after harvest! My son is trapped in a terminal in an alien city! My refridgerator is stuffed full of liver! And last night, all night: I kept waking up -- thinking I heard some animal scratching. -But it was probably only you ..." Her voice was stretched now, like a wire, " . .. on the couch! Suppressing all your sexual desires!" Hunt heard the bedroom door slam. They were finishing dinner that night in silence, when Todd brought his surprise to the table. "Guess what?" he said, and he had something about sixteen inches square, draped with a paper towel. Both Hunt and Leah stared. Todd whisked the sheeting off to reveal an oil painting: a family portrait, the family fishing in Idaho. Certain lines, certain strokes were a bit hurried, yes, but the whole was startlingly rich, accurate, even professional. Todd read the respect immediately on his parents' faces and announced. "I'm a born painter!" "Painters aren't born - they mutate," Leah said. "-But this is very good, Todd. It's wonderful." Hunt found it hard even to speak. Give it "up: he heard his mind forming the short dicta. But he could not move his lips. He just nodded. And kept |