Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [30]
Vernal equinox. Kip walked up the slow rise, returning from the barn, long arms swinging at his sides, dressed in worn denim pants and a holey jacket inherited from Marcos. Headed toward the paddocks in the opposite direction, Franny strolled beside an unshorn saffron hedge twittering with small birds. Each had been much on the other’s mind these days but when they collided, knocking heads, both were so caught up in thoughts having nothing to do with the other that they hardly recognized who stood before them.
In Franny’s face Kip mistook the prospect of Ariel. In Kip’s, Franny saw a shocked confusion that anticipated how Marcos would look today when, or if, he learned the truth about her past, her variant selves.
“My god, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” she exhaled. “You all right?”
Drawing up hard, he grasped her forearms as much to capture his own balance as to help her keep hers. She looked like she’d seen a hallucination see another hallucination.
“All I can say is, you’re as hardheaded as I am,” and he gamely laughed.
Rubbing his temple, he thought, What a curious girl. Weathered but pristine as some of those children he’d seen back in his cloying war. She had on a jean skirt and floppy wool sweater whose sleeves came down past the tips of her fingers; her plum hair was in disarray, not unlike his own grayed brown. Franny reached out and touched his face, searching for a bruise or cut, then straightened his hair. Thirty years ago he might have fallen in love on the spot.
Hearing that word Franny while peering into his wizened but piercing eyes, she wondered, wouldn’t this cockamamie old Kip be her perfect confessor? She knew Marcos liked him—had begun to adore him, in fact, as had Carl and Sarah. By working to the very edge of his reserves, he’d become a part of the ranch itself. And Kip seemed to value the Montoyas in ways she felt she didn’t dare, given the big lie that hovered behind her relationship with them. Maybe she and Kip were meant literally to bump into each other. Maybe he could hear her out first, before Marcos.
The Mary within hesitated, but Franny said, “Hard heads hide soft hearts. Isn’t that the saying?”
A shadow ascended across her face, and Kip was reminded of melárchico children, who were sad because they’d lost someone precious whom they were deeply attached to. Maybe this was what he’d noticed in Franny before, the abandoned melárchico look. In the olden days, kind strangers were supposed to tie red ribbons on their wrists in the hope this would cure them. He remembered that it was Brice McCarthy’s mother who had taught him the word back in school, telling him that it wasn’t just boys and girls who became melárchico; a pet bird or family cat could be so upset when its mistress or master died that it would no longer sing songs or play with a ball of string.
“I’m not much for sayings. My mother used to swear There is none that doeth good, no not one, when she was in a bad mood. Book of Common Prayer. I remember that expression because I never agreed with it.”
“That’s surprising.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re worldly wise and it seems like the kind of proverb somebody who’s been around the block would go along with.”
“Well, Franny. I think it’s more a worldly weary than worldly wise kind of saying.”
“I’m not sure I agree with it, either.”
“My mother had a lot of wisdom in her. She sometimes hated her circumstances, is all.”
“Your father working at Los Alamos and everything, you mean.”
Kip said, “You’re looking for Marcos, I bet.” I was.
“He’ll be happy to see you. Got to go,” Kip smiled and began to walk away.
“Can I ask a question?”
He stopped, turned around, saying nothing.
Hesitant, unsure of herself, she nonetheless took the leap of faith. “Remember how your name was William when I first met you?”
Kip’s premonitory sense about