Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [72]
That evening, after a second visit to the hospital, Ariel had dinner with her relatives. Bonnie Jean’s husband, Charlie, barbecued whatever he could find in the freezer while Bonnie threw together the rest of their impromptu meal. Ariel sat on the patio and held, as best she could, a conversation with her uncle. Not the brightest light bulb, especially in this cerebral county of nuclear physicists and high-tech engineers, Charlie nevertheless possessed what her grandmother would call a sweet spirit. Potted geraniums and petunias stood at every extremity of the modest backyard, and though she loathed geraniums and petunias, Ariel complimented him on them. Long day. Keep the peace.
“It’d give Bonnie a boost to know you like them. Some are as old as the Hill itself, swear to you. They’re her pride and joy,” he somewhat mournfully smiled and sat down at the pebbled green-glass table with his niece, who was sipping a lemonade from concentrate. “She says you’ll be staying a while.”
One was perennial, the other annual. Not as old as the Hill.
“I’d like to stick around until Granna’s better. But only if it isn’t an imposition.”
“Not hardly. You’re family.”
“It’s good news they say she’s going to be okay.”
“Myself, I’m more scared of hospitals than sickness itself.”
“She seems in good hands.”
“Never liked hospitals,” Charlie concluded.
Amid the mayhem, Ariel tried phoning her parents a few times but never reached them. Well aware of Bonnie’s long-standing animosity toward Brice, she nonetheless thought it odd that her aunt hadn’t mentioned his name all day. She decided, however, to cut the woman some slack, distraught as she was beyond distraction. Bonnie’s first thought would be not of her brother but her mother, who lay in the hospital, frightened surely, sedated, attached to a cardiac monitor.
Bonnie Jean clearly still considered Brice the boy who’d left the Hill for the big city back east, the man who’d disenfranchised his family and the community that had given him so much. If it was true that one could never go home again, Ariel thought, maybe it was because the people left behind never discarded their sense of having been abandoned. She wasn’t surprised when Bonnie, after thanking her for complimenting the flower garden, finally mentioned her brother by vaguely dismissing the need to telephone him that night. Why not wait a day or two, until they really knew something concrete about their mother’s affliction? No need to bother Brice until they had some specifics.
“We have specifics to tell him now, Aunt Bonnie.”
“Not really. We don’t have a prognosis.”
“Very mild stroke. A little rest and she’ll be back home better than ever.”
“This will put the kibosh on her smoking and drinking, anyway.”
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll call him tonight. He’ll want to know.”
“You go ahead, Ariel,” said Charlie, not looking at his wife. “And tell your father everything’s under control.”
The three of them ate, Sam having rambled off with friends to play WarZone 2100, a video game they considered ultracool for Hill kids to access, given its premise of rebuilding life after global nuclear devastation. Ariel asked after Sam’s older brother, Charlie junior, who was rock climbing up in Eldorado Springs, having grown up in a hurry since his cousin saw him last. Conversation ran calmly at variance with the day. They sat, each abstracted.
“These