The Immortalist Read Online Free Page B

the bottom of Mendon Hill, during the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, a 188-mile bikeathon to benefit cancer research. As she lifted herself off the asphalt, bleeding from a gash in her calf, she blew up. She called Hank an ape, an oaf, a reckless idiot. He returned a patient smile, then bound her wound with duct tape. Within minutes, he had her laughing. They rode the rest of the way side by side. That evening, after she got her cut properly stitched up at the stage camp in Bourne, they camped out together on the beach at Grey Gables. By then, she realized that behind his good humor lay a first-rate intellect. They stayed up the whole night, trading research ideas and visions of the future.
    Their marriage should have been one of the great scientific matings, like Pierre and Marie Curie, or Louis and Mary Leakey. But Hank, for all his brains, had no urge to change the world. What he wanted was the quiet life—a houseful of kids to play with, cozy evenings by the fireplace, weekends for sailing in his damned boat. Sure, he was conscientious about his work, but when five o’clock rolled by, he would flick a little switch in his mind and turn into something quite . . . ordinary .
    She had looked down on that. It never occurred to her that maybe Hank had a wisdom that she lacked, and that that was what had attracted her to him in the first place. Not the Gary Cooper looks, not the paper on viral recombination, but balance . A knowledge of what really counted in life.
    What kept things going as long as they did was Daddy. Daddy had been like the strong force of the nucleus that keeps all the protons and neutrons from flying apart. He liked Hank and gave him a job at the institute. He refereed their marital spats. While Daddy lived, Cricket didn’t think about the problems in her marriage because Daddy always knew how to smooth things over. It was as though Daddy were more than a man, something like Odin or Zeus—at least until a heart attack at his desk proved he was a man after all. When he died, the hole he left behind was enormous. Cricket threw herself even deeper into her work, with predictable results. She became less and less of a wife and mother, until Hank had enough of it and pulled the plug. She accepted the divorce without demur.

    A creak of oaken boards. Cricket turned to see a teenage girl in a sleeveless, green top, dark jeans and sandals staring at her from the middle of the staircase. The girl’s straight blond hair had been pinned back to keep it off a square of gauze taped to her forehead.
    â€œDad, why is she here?” asked the girl with a voice as frightened as it was defiant.
    Cricket tried to smile. “You know why. I’ve been sending you e-mails every other day for the past six weeks.”
    â€œI don’t read them.”
    â€œNor do you answer long-distance cell phone calls, apparently. Well—you’re coming home, sweetie.”
    â€œI am home.”
    â€œLook, Emmy, we need to give this a shot. Both of us. I’m . . . I’m worried about you. You have no idea how scared I was when I heard you got hurt—”
    Emmy glared. “You can’t be serious! There’s no way I’m going with you.”
    â€œYou know that it was just a voluntary arrangement between your dad and me for you to go on staying here. I was traveling too much back then. But we’re now returning to the original custody agreement.”
    â€œYou can’t!” Emmy screamed.
    Cricket cued Hank with a nod.
    Hank bowed his head. “She can, hon.”
    Cricket turned away and rested her free hand on the mantel of the fireplace, leaving Emmy’s death stare to deflect harmlessly from her shoulder blades. A bad start . Why can’t there be an easy way to do this? She groped in her mind for gentler words, but was afraid to let her self-doubts show. She had plenty of them. “Why don’t you get your things together, sweetie?”