The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [188]
Annie nodded. “No, he doesn’t like small spaces.” She was surprised by her pride at the extensive flying her father had apparently done and flying of a dangerous kind too. “He’s a flyer.” She smiled.
***
Annie was falling asleep with Dan’s phone on the pillow, in case there was another phone call from her father. She was thinking about why and when he had first wanted to fly, about all the different childhood dreams he’d reached for but failed at, or forgotten. Had there ever been a gift from his parents as key for him as the King of the Sky had been for her? She doubted it. Her father and Sam appeared to remember their childhoods so unhappily that they didn’t want to remember them at all.
But now that Annie thought back, now that she let herself remember those seven years with Jack Peregrine on the road, what she remembered was not unhappiness but stars, poems, praise. She remembered dance and song and laughing.
She thought back to Raffy’s singing to her.
What is love? ’Tis not hereafter.
Present mirth hath present laughter.
What’s to come is still unsure.
She remembered laughter.
part four
West
Chapter 48
Tomorrow Is Forever
Early in the morning, Georgette, about to leave for Emerald Hospital, saw Clark Goode in the front yard of Pilgrim’s Rest, where he was raking up the few remaining branches from the past weekend’s storm. Teddy the old Shih Tzu lay down on the leaves as soon as there were enough to make a cushion.
Georgette raised her briefcase and waved it at Clark. “Work! It’s what I do instead of a life,” she called. “Where’s Sam?”
“Moving furniture into Jack’s room.”
Georgette opened her hands in an inquiring gesture. “According to Brad, Jack’s either dead or disappeared.”
“I wish he’d make up his mind.” Hoisting the rake over his shoulder, Clark strolled across the gravel drive to her. “Want to come to ‘Play It, Sam’ tonight? She’s showing some island movies.”
“Like Blue Lagoon?”
“More like L’Avventura.”
“I’d rather take inorganic chemistry again.” Georgette put down her briefcase while she searched for her car keys in her purse.
“I know you haven’t heard this one. One hydrogen atom says, ‘I’ve lost my electron.’ The other one says, ‘Are you sure?’ First one says, ‘Yes, I’m positive.’” Clark held the rake out like a vaudeville cane, slow-dancing sideways.
“You’re right; I haven’t heard it.” She found her keys, shook them at him. “Clark, you know how I feel about voting for politicians: it only encourages them? Well, that’s one reason why I don’t laugh at your puns.” She picked up her briefcase. “Brad said Sergeant Hart arrested Annie. I was feeling guilty because I didn’t tell her about Ruthie, but frankly she’s got enough on her plate as it is.”
“Told her what?” Clark pulled leaves from the rake. “That Sam’s got the idea that Ruthie’s Annie’s mother?”
Georgette wryly noted, “Jack’s home movies of Aunt Ruthie were a lot more riveting than L’Avventura’s going to be. Ruthie was hot.”
Clark glanced across the yard at the Nickerson house. “Yes, she was.” Taking off his glasses, he rubbed at his eyes. “But don’t believe everything you hear.”
“I don’t,” said Georgette, opening her car door. “I’ve got a patient who tells me he’s Jesus Christ.”
“Well,” smiled the tall thin man, pulling the last leaves from the rake prongs, “Jesus did say He was coming back.”
“This man also thinks cockroaches are crawling all over him.”
Clark told her that when he was a POW in Hanoi, cockroaches were crawling all over him.
“Clark, you’re getting old. Unless they watch the History Channel like me, people my age don’t know Hanoi from Hamas.” Georgette started her engine. “Maybe we should get some bail money together for Annie. And a lawyer who can go for an insanity plea.” Annie had either suffered a radical psychotic breakdown or she was living a very romantic life of the sort Georgette had always wanted to live herself. Well, romantic except for the fact that she might soon be killed or court-martialed.
“Georgette, honey, with love, I think crazy’s