"Judith Merril - That Only A Mother UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

I finally got to ‘see her? It’s all true, what they say about new babies and the face that only a mother could love—but It’s all there, darling, eyes, ears, and noses— no, only onei—all in the right places. We’re so lucky, Hank..
Fm afraid I’ve been a rambunctious patient. I kept telling that hatchet-faced female with the mutation mania that I wanted to see the baby. Finally the doctor came in to “explain” everything to me, and talked a lot of nonsense, most of which Fm sure no one could have understood, any more than I did. The only thing I got out of it was that she didn’t actually have to stay in the incubator; they just thought it was “wiser.”
I think I got a little hysterical at that point. Guess I was more worried than I was willing to admit, but I threw a small fit about it. The whole business wound up with one of those hushed medical conferences outside the door, and finally the Woman in White said:
“Well, we might as well. Maybe it’ll work out better that
way.” -
I’d heard about the way doctors and nurses in these places develop a God complex, and believe me, it is as true figuratively as it is literally that a mother hasn’t
a leg to stand on around here. -
I am awfully weak, still. I’ll write again ‘soon. Love,
Maggie.
March 8.
Dearest Hank,
Well the nurse was wrong if she told you that. She’s an idiot anyhow. It’s a girl. It’s easier to tell with babies than with cats, and 1 know. How about Henrietta?
I’m home again, and busier than a betatroс. They got everything mixed up at the hospital, and I had. to teach myself how to bathe her and do just about everything else. She’s getting prettier, too. When can you get a leave, a real leave?
Love,
Maggie.
May 26.
Hank dear,
You should see her now—and you shall. Fm sending along a reel of color movie. My mother sent her those nighties with drawstrings all over. I put one on, and right now she looks like a snow-white potato sack with that beautiful, beautiful flower-face blooming on top. Is that me talking? Am I a doting mother? But wait till you see her!

July 10.
Believe it or not, as you like, but your daughter can talk, and I don’t mean baby talk. Alice discovered It— she’s a dental assistant in the WACs, you know—and when she heard the baby giving out what I thought was a string of gibberish, she said the kid knew words and sentei~ces, but couldn’t say them clearly because she has no teeth yet. I’m taking her to a speech specialist.

September 13.
We have a prodigy for real! Now that all her ftunt teeth are in, her speech is perfectly clear and—a new talent now-abe can sing! I mean really carry a tune! At seven months! Darling my world would be perfect if you could only get home.

November 19.
at last. The little goon was so busy being clever, it took her all this time to learn to crawl. The doctor says development in these cases is always erratic.,.

SPECIAL SERVICE TELEGRAM
• December 1, 1953
08:47 LKS9F
From: Tech. Lieut. H. Marvell X47-016 GCNY
To: Mrs. H. Marvel!
Apt. ‘K-l7
504 E. 19 St.
N;Y. N.Y.
WEEK’S LEAVE STARTS TOMORROW STOP WILL
ARRIVE AIRPORT TEN OH FIVE STOP DON’T
MEET ME STOP LOVE LOVE LOVE HANK
Margaret let the water run out of the bathinette until only a few inches were left, and then loosed her hold on the wriggling baby.
“I think it was better when you were retarded, young woman,” she informed her daughter happily. “You can’t crawl in a bathinette, you know.”
“Then why can’t I go in the bathtub?” Margaret was used to her child’s volubility by now, but every now and then it caught her unawares. She swooped the resistant mass of pink flesh into a towel, and began to rub.
“Because you’re too little, and your head is very soft, and bathtubs are very hard.”
‘“Oh. Then when can I go in the bathtub?”
“When the outside of your head is as hard aa the inside, brainchild.” She reached toward a pile of fresh clothing. “I cannot understand,” she added, pinning a square of cloth through the nightgown, “why a child of your intelligence can’t 1~arn to keep a diaper on the way other babies do. They’ve been used for centuries, you know, with perfectly satisfactory results.”
The child disdained to reply; she had heard it too often.
She waited -patiently until she had been tticked, clean and sweet-smelling, into a white-painted crib. Then she favored her mother with a smile that inevitably made Margaret think of the” first golden edge of the sun bursting into a rosy pre-dawn. She remembered Hank’s reaction to the color pictures of’ his beautiful daughter, and with the thought, realized how late it was.
“Go to sleep, puss. When you wake up, ‘you know, your Daddy will be here.”
“Why?” asked the ‘four-year-old mind, waging a losing battle to keep the ten-month-old body awake.
Margaret went into the kitchenette and set the timer for the roast. She examined the table, and ‘got her clothes from the closet, new dress, ‘new shoes, new slip, new everything, bought weeks before and saved for the day Hank’s telegram came. She stopped to pull a paper from the facsimile, and, with clothes and news, went into the bathroom, and lowered herself gingerly into the steaming luxury of a scented tub.