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Show BREATH (for D. J. K.) "How long will Dad be in Boston?" Todd asked Leah. They were in the Airliner Cafeteria at the Tuscon airport, drinking juice and hot chocolate and coffee and eating the most expensive sweetrolls Hunt had ever paid for. "A week?" Leah asked. She set a hand on Hunt's hand, touched a vein with a finger. Hunt shrugged; he nodded. "Give or take," he said. "It depends on Gramma Hunt," Leah told Todd. "She's really sick, Toddy," Hunt said. He fixed the boy, framed him with a gaze, so that his youngest might understand, in part at least, the gravity. "Very." Hunt didn't look at Sean. He knew Sean was studying Jiim. "She's back in the hospital. Grampa won't say how sick. But, yes, probably it's very." Todd pressed his lips in an expression somewhere between an accomodating smile and discouragement. His face bore the glaze of embarrassment. What a crucial tear in his pants might produce. He was twelve, and it was all the same: his exposed body . . . and mortality. He mumbled something, as-much to stop his father's staring as anything else. "... Gaw." "Dad wants very much to be with her," Leah said. "Sure," Todd said, uncomfortable now that he'd set the whole discussion off. |