Shadow of the giant

shrank from doing it.
    "I'll leave you alone to read it," he said.
    "You mean you didn't come here for my homecoming so you
could find out what was in it?"
    "Petra." Mrs. Delphiki stood in the doorway to the
parlor. She looked mildly shocked. "Peter didn't come here for you. He's
here all the time."
    Petra looked at Peter and then back and Mrs. Delphiki.
"Why?"
    "They climb all over him. And he puts them down for
their nap. They obey him a lot better than me."
    The thought of the Hegemon of Earth coming over to play with
her children seemed freakish to her. And then it seemed worse than freakish. It
seemed completely unfair. She pushed him. "You came to my house and played
with my children?"
    He didn't show any reaction; he also stood his ground.
"They're great kids."
    "Let me find that out, will you? Let me find it out for
myself!"
    "Nobody's stopping you."
    "You were stopping me! I was doing your work in Moscow,
and you were here playing with my kids!"
    "I offered to bring them to you."
    "I didn't want them in Moscow, I was busy."
    "I offered you leave to come home. Time after
time."
    "And let the work fall apart?"
    "Petra," said Mrs. Delphiki. "Peter has been
very good to your children. And to me. And you're behaving very badly."
    "No, Mrs. Delphiki," said Peter. "This is
only slightly badly. Petra's a trained soldier and the fact that I'm still
standing—"
    "Don't tease me out of this." Petra burst into
tears. "I've lost a year of my babies' lives and it was my own fault, do
you think I don't know that?"
    There was a crying sound from one of the bedrooms.
    Mrs. Delphiki rolled her eyes and went down the hall to
rescue whoever it was that needed rescuing.
    "You did what you had to do," said Peter.
"Nobody's criticizing you."
    "But you could take time for my children."
    "I don't have any of my own," said Peter.
    "Is that my fault?"
    "I'm just saying I had time. And ... I owed it to
Bean."
    "You owe more than that."
    "But this is what I can do."
    She didn't want Peter Wiggin to be the father figure in her
children's lives.
    "Petra, I'll stop if you want. They'll wonder why I
don't come, and then they'll forget. If you don't want me here, I'll understand.
This is yours and Bean's, and I don't want to intrude. And yes, I did want to
be here when you opened that."
    "What's in it?"
    "I don't know."
    "Didn't have one of your guys steam it open for
you?"
    Peter just looked a little irritated.
    Mrs. Delphiki came into the room carrying Ramon, who was
whimpering and saying, "My paper."
    "I should have known," said Peter.
    Petra held up the envelope. "Here it is," she
said.
    Ramon reached for it insistently. Petra handed it to him.
    "You're spoiling him," said Peter.
    "This is your mama, Ramon," said Mrs. Delphiki.
"She nursed you when you were little."
    "He was the only one that wasn't biting me by the
time..." She couldn't think of a way to finish the sentence that wouldn't
involve speaking of Bean or the other two children, the ones that had to go on
solid food because they got teeth so incredibly young.
    Mrs. Delphiki wasn't giving up. "Let your mama see the
paper, Ramon."
    Ramón clutched it tighter. Sharing was not yet on his
agenda.
    Peter reached out, snagged the envelope, and held it out to
Petra. Ramon immediately began to wail.
    "Give it back to him," said Petra. "I've
waited this long."
    Peter got his finger under the corner, tore it open, and
extracted a single sheet of paper. "If you let them get their way just
because they cry, you'll raise a bunch of whiny brats that nobody can
stand." He handed her the paper, and gave the envelope back to Ramon, who
immediately quieted down and started examining the transformed object.
    Petra held the paper and was surprised to see that it was
shaking. Which meant her hand was shaking. She didn't feel like she was
trembling.
    And then suddenly Peter was holding her by her upper arms
and helping her to the sofa and her legs weren't working very well. "Come
on, sit here, it's a shock, that's all."
    "I've got your snack all ready," said Mrs.
Delphiki to Ramon, who was trying to get his whole forearm inside the envelope.
    "Are you all right?" Peter asked.
    Petra nodded.
    "Want me to go now so you can read this?"
    She nodded again.
    Peter was in the kitchen saying good-bye to Ramon and Mrs.
Delphiki as Andrew padded down the hall. He stopped in the archway of the
parlor and said, "Time."
    "Yes, it's time, Andrew," said Petra.
    She watched him toddle on toward the kitchen. And