Lovelock Read Online Free

a little.
    I put my hands on her cheeks and gave her a wide-mouthed kiss on the lips. She kissed me back, squeezing her own lips together as though she were kissing a small child. Then she lifted her arm enough that I could pull my tail out of the embrace.
    Carol Jeanne must have taken that release of pressure as a sign that the embrace was over; she started to pull away. But I could not let that happen, not so soon. I scrambled to their shoulders and held them together, my hands firm on their shoulders. They laughed at me as they renewed the embrace, but I knew how soon their trembling turned from laughter to silent weeping.
    I held them together there until I could see Mamie bustling over, no doubt to “cheer them up.” I knew Carol Jeanne would not want to be caught so emotionally exposed, so I chattered softly. She took the cue—probably without even realizing I had given it—and pulled back, drying her eyes on her sleeve. Irene, of course, had a handkerchief. She was prepared for emotion; Carol Jeanne was always taken by surprise.
    Then I turned around on Carol Jeanne’s shoulder and glared at Mamie. She looked at my bared teeth and for a moment seemed to catch on to the idea that her intrusion might not be welcome. At least she paused in her headlong rush.
    Oblivious to Mamie, Carol Jeanne spoke again to Irene. “I guess I can’t expect you to write.”
    “I can, the whole time you’re in solar orbit. And I’ll pray for you, too, all my life. Of course, a few weeks into your real journey, I’ll be dead of old age. Then you’ll be on your own.”
    “On the contrary. Then you’ll watch over me. Then I’ll know you’re taking care of me, protecting me.”
    “It’s the saints who get to do that,” Irene said. “But wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could? I’d watch over you, and Lydia, and Emmy, and even Lovelock, until you joined me in heaven.”
    I chattered at that—the particular sound that I knew they interpreted as laughter.
    “God knows you,” Irene said to me. “Don’t you doubt it.”
    I had my own ideas about what God, if he existed, must think of me . If he had wanted creatures like me to exist, he would have arranged for it himself. There was no one like me when Adam was naming the beasts. If there was anyone like me in the mythical Garden, it was a certain talkative snake.
    “Light a candle for me,” Carol Jeanne said.
    “I’ll light enough candles for you to keep the church warm in winter.”
    Mamie, of course, was suffering greatly, being in the presence of a connection between human beings that she didn’t control. “Oh, you two mustn’t be so sad,” she said. “You can talk to each other for months by phone, until the voyage actually starts.”
    They gave no sign that they heard her.
    “Good-bye,” said Irene. “God bless you.”
    “I love you.” Carol Jeanne barely whispered the words, but I knew that Irene felt them, even if she didn’t hear them.
    By now, Stef and Red had brought the girls along, and Mamie seized the opportunity. “Your pretty little nieces want to say bye-bye to Auntie Irene,” she said. “You mustn’t make them sad, now, with all these silly tears.”
    Only then did Carol Jeanne and Irene pay attention to the rest of the family. Irene hugged Lydia and Emmy as Mamie thrust each of them toward her; despite Mamie’s orchestration of the scene, Irene’s love for the girls was real, and they had always adored this strange creature who had no children to love but them. Irene’s embrace of Red was more clumsy, but only because he felt so awkward hugging a nun; she genuinely liked Red, and he liked her, too. Then she shook hands with Mamie and Stef.
    “You’re such a dear thing,” said Mamie. “We’ll all miss your little visits so much.”
    Stef said nothing, but nodded to Irene as he shook her hand, as if to say that he understood her grief and approved of the strength of her commitment, even if he didn’t share her faith.
    Irene turned