Read Online Ariel's Crossing by Bradford Morrow - Free Book Online Page A

was what to do with him. Once more, he had nowhere to go and soon would have nowhere to stay, either.
    Kip faced a new dilemma brought about by, of all things, his improving health. One question formulated deep in the night when he couldn’t sleep any better than other insomniacs who resided at the center was whether or not he should allow himself to continue with the broadening respect he felt toward Sarah Montoya. Where did she think he ought to go? What should he do? Could he tell her that the drifting, seesaw fantasy of reuniting with or running from his abandoned daughter made him feel more alone than ever? Could he try to tell her who he was? Did he even know anymore?
    As it happened, he needn’t have worried about some of what he wanted to confide to her. Having slowly turned it over in her mind as Kip processed through his recovery, Sarah remembered the name suddenly, an unusual joining of Anglo and Hispanic, not unlike her own. Emma Inez, she thought as she walked from Juniper across the long grass lawn toward Fuller Lodge, where, in a cluster of small rooms on the top floor, she meant to look it up in the records of the Historical Museum. All of it came back to her as she stood on the grounds of that most recognizable landmark in town, where the Manhattan Project physicists had argued theory, schedule, strategy, and everything else under the sun about their atomic gadget during colloquia in the greatroom, held before the massive tuffstone fireplace where burning logs big as men cast an amicable glow over the proceedings. A butterfly wafted by Sarah like some sentient rusted leaf as she recalled hearing how this Emma Inez and her husband had been killed in a car crash—something to do with a trip back east, in the late sixties, to visit their boy at college in New York. That boy, nicknamed Kip was he not, would be this very same William Calder, her charge now. The wind, still invested with winter, ruffled her navy blue wool coat fronted with bone buttons as she turned back toward where she’d parked near the movie theater. She walked with her arms crossed, deep in thought.
    The day on which she intended to confront him as to why he would want to remain anonymous in this place where he had been born and raised, and from which he’d gone on to be a local but unknown hero in Asia, was the same day Kip decided to attempt his revelations to Sarah in his own roundabout way. Not finding him in his room, she was told that he was out back of the infirmary, where she came upon him raking stones and troweling the flower bed in which columbines and lavender would soon be blooming.
    She wished him good morning, and he her. “Have a moment?” she asked and Kip, face pinkened by the morning light and his exertions, answered by saying he’d been wanting to discuss a couple of things with her if she had the time. He rose stiffly and sat on one of the rocks that served as perimeter for the garden. Sarah sat beside him.
    “At the risk of sounding like an ingrate, I hope you don’t mind my saying I don’t understand why I’m alive.”
    “You let us help you is why.”
    “I appreciate that. But what I mean is, I’m left with the question, What for?”
    “You’re obviously meant to be alive or else you wouldn’t be.”
    “It wasn’t what I wanted at the time, but whether I wanted it or not, I’m here thanks to you.”
    “Thank you back.”
    “Why thank me?”
    She shrugged a shoulder. “Because you lose most of your people in a place like this. Sometimes they go in a matter of days or weeks, other times they’re among the living dead for years. Dignity and comfort are just about all we can offer. What I’m saying is, I appreciate your recuperation.”
    Kip quietly said, “Dying’s easy compared to living. Don’t get me wrong. Like I say, I’m grateful. But if I don’t do something that makes up for it somehow, don’t use this spare chance, what’s the point? The world doesn’t need another air