“No, pupik,” she agrees, kindly. “But that’s not your fault. You know what I think? I think maybe the age you were born into, all these years of fat and comfort, this time between the great wars and whatever’s coming next—and something is coming, you can feel it, can’t you?—maybe this time has all just been some sort of. . . accident. An anomaly. Or a cruel joke. Or—” “A rest stop,” he mutters with a rueful laugh.
