Free Arkwright by Allen Steele

a buddy in the service. But when he saw the surprised and … God help him, pitying  … look on George’s face, he realized this assumption was in error.
    â€œOh no.” George’s face became pale, his eyes wide. “Oh, God … Harry, I didn’t know. She told me she’d written you a letter, and I thought … I assumed … you’d received it already.”
    â€œThe mail is slow getting here. I told you, it sometimes takes…” Harry swallowed something hard that had formed in his throat. “Are you telling me that Maggie has started … you mean, she and Nat are…?”
    George looked down at the ground, slowly nodded. “I’m so sorry. I thought you already knew.”
    â€œI … I … Maggie’s going out with…?”
    â€œDr. Hallahan?” By then, the MP had caught up with them. “General LeMay wants you to come along.” He gave Harry a hard look, silently admonishing the lowly petty officer for distracting a civilian scientist from an important task.
    George nodded and then turned to Harry again. “Look, I have to go. Maybe we can get together again, okay?”
    â€œYeah, sure,” Harry murmured. “Go.”
    George gave his arm a brief squeeze that was meant to be commiserative, and then he fell in beside the MP as they returned to the hangar where Enola Gay was being kept. Harry watched them walk away. All at once, the sun was no longer hot, he could barely feel the ground beneath his feet, and New York was on the far side of the Moon.

 
    9
    â€œI got Maggie’s letter the day after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.” Harry continued to stare out the window; his gaze hadn’t left the street since he’d begun to tell Kate the story of what happened on Tinian sixty years earlier. “It was addressed to me and not someone named John, but it was pretty much the same.”
    Kate slowly nodded. Even after all these years, it was clear that Harry still recalled the pain he’d felt that day. “I guess you never forgave my grandfather for that, did you?”
    â€œNo, I eventually did.” Harry finally looked at her again. “By the time I got out of the service and returned to the States, Maggie and Nat had already broken up. It was kind of a foolish fling for her, really. She was lonely, I’d been gone for four years, and since Nat was there…” Another shrug. “I couldn’t blame her. Hell, I couldn’t even blame Nat all that much. It just … well, happened, that’s all.”
    â€œMy mother told me that my grandparents met during the war.”
    â€œThat’s true. Nat did meet Judith around that time … but it wasn’t until after he and Maggie broke up. Maggie and I never got back together again, although she eventually became my literary agent.” Then he grinned. “Her first client was Nat, and her second one was me. I guess she had a thing for taking on old boyfriends.”
    â€œThat was kind of her.”
    â€œKindness didn’t have anything to do with it. Maggie’s an agent. Her bread and butter come from being a go-between for authors and their publishers. Nat was her most successful client, sure, but she couldn’t have made a living from his work alone, so she also had to represent lesser lights like me.” Kate started to object, but he held up a hand. “No, it’s true. In the Legion, all the luck rolled downhill and landed in Nat’s lap.” His gaze wandered over to the bookcase packed with paperbacks and book-club hardcovers bearing Matt Brown’s name. “I just consider myself fortunate enough to have been able to make a living at this for as long as I did. Better than factory work, and it took me to some interesting places.”
    From the street below, she could hear the sound of traffic picking up. The urban evening rush hour was beginning;