Rama 3 – The Garden of Rama by Clarke, Arthur C.

Nicole pulled his head to her shoulder and cried with her son. His entire body shook with his sobs. Nicole was now furious with herself for having procrastinated so long. He’s known all along, she thought. Ever since that first conversation. He’s been waiting. He thinks nobody wants him.

“You have a choice, darling,” Nicole managed to say when she had collected her own emotions. “We would love to have you come with us. And your father and Simone would be delighted if you stayed here with them.”

Benjy stared at his mother as if he did not believe her. Nicole repeated her statements very slowly. “You are telling me the truth?” he asked.

Nicole nodded vigorously.

Benjy smiled for a second and then looked away. He was silent for a long time. “There will be no-bo-dy to play with here,” he said at length, still staring at the wall. “And Simone will need to be with Dad-dy.”

Nicole was astonished at how concisely Benjy had summarized his considerations. He seemed to be waiting. “Then come with us,” Nicole said softly. “Your Uncle Richard and Katie and Patrick and Ellie and I all love you very much and want to have you with us.”

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Benjy turned to look at his mother. Fresh tears were running down his cheeks. “I will come with you, Mommy,” he said, and put his head on her shoulder.

He had already made up his mind, Nicole thought, holding Benjy against her body. He’s smarter than we think. He only came in here to make certain he was wanted.

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nd dear Lord, let me properly cherish this wonderful young girl that I am about to marry. Let us share Thy gift of love and let us grow together in our knowledge of Thee. … I ask these things in the name of Thy son, whom Thou sent to Earth to show Thy love and to redeem us for bur sins. Amen.”

Michael Ryan O’Toole, seventy-two years of age, unclasped his hands and opened his eyes. He was sitting at the desk in his bedroom. He checked his watch. Only two more hours, he thought, until I will marry Simone. Michael glanced briefly at the picture of Jesus and the small bust of St. Michael of Siena in front of him on his desk. And then later tonight, after the meal that is both wedding feast for us and birthday dinner for Nicole, I will hold that angel in my arms. He could not stop the next thought from coming. Dear Lord, please do not let me disappoint her.

Michael reached into his desk and pulled out a small Bible. It was the only real book he owned. All the rest of his reading material was in the form of small data cubes

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that he inserted into his electronic notebook. His Bible was very special, a memento of a life once lived on a planet far away.

During his childhood and adolescence that Bible had gone everywhere with him. As Michael turned the small black book over in his hands, he was flooded with memories. In his first recollection he was a small boy, six or seven years old. His father had come into his bedroom at home. Michael had been playing a baseball game on his personal computer and was somewhat embarrassed—he always felt ill at ease when his serious father found him engaging in play.

“Michael,” his father had said, “I want to give you a present. Your very own Bible. It is a true book, one that you read by turning the pages. We’ve put your name on the cover.”

His father had extended the book and little Michael had accepted it with a soft “Thank you.” The cover was leather and felt good to his touch. “Inside that volume,” his father had continued, “is some of the best teaching that human beings will ever know. Read it carefully. Read it often. And govern your life by its wisdom.”

That night I put the Bible under my pillow, Michael recalled. And it stayed there. All through my childhood. Even through high school. He remembered his machinations when his high school baseball team had won the city championship and was going to Springfield for the state tournament. Michael had taken his Bible with him, but he didn’t want his teammates to see it. A Bible wasn’t “cool” for a high school athlete, and the young Michael O’Toole did not yet have enough self-esteem to overcome his fear of the laughter of his peers. So he designed a special compartment for his Bible in the side of his toiletry bag and stored the book there, enclosed in protective wrap. In his hotel room in Springfield he waited until his roommate took a bath. Then Michael removed the Bible from its hiding place and put it under his pillow.

/ even took it on our honeymoon. Kathleen was so understanding. As she always was with everything. A brief memory of the bright sun and the white sand outside their suite in the Cayman Islands was quickly followed by a

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powerful feeling of loss. “How are you doing, Kathleen?” Michael said out loud. “Where has life taken you?” He could see her in his mind’s eye, puttering around their brownstone condominium on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. Our grandson Matt must be a teenager by now, he thought. Are there others? How many altogether?

The heartache deepened as he imagined his family— Kathleen, his daughter Colleen, his son Stephen, plus all the grandchildren—gathered around the long table for a Christmas feast without him. In his mental image a light snow was falling outside on the avenue. / guess Stephen would give the family prayer now, he thought. He was always the most religious of the children.

Michael shook his head, returning to the present, and opened the Bible to the first page. A beautiful script writing of the word Milestones appeared at the top of the sheet. The entries were sparse, a total of eight altogether, the chronicle of major events in his life.

7-13-67 Married Kathleen Murphy in Boston, Massachusetts

1-30-69 Birth of son, Thomas Murphy O’Toole, in Boston

4-13-70 Birth of daughter, Colleen Gavin O’Toole,

in Boston

12-27-71 Birth of son, Stephen Molloy O’Toole, in Boston

2-14-92 Death of Thomas Murphy O’Toole in Pasadena, Calif.

Michael’s eyes stopped there, at the death of his first-bom son, and they quickly filled with tears. He recalled vividly that terrible St. Valentine’s Day many years before. He had taken Kathleen out to dinner at a lovely seafood restaurant on Boston Harbor. They had been almost finished with their meal when they first heard the news. “I’m sorry I’m late showing you the desserts,” apologized the young man who was their waiter. “I’ve been watching the news in the bar. There has just been a devastating earthquake in Southern California.”

Their fear had been immediate. Tommy, their pride and

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joy, had won a scholarship in physics at Cal Tech after graduating as the valedictorian at Holy Cross. The O’Tooles had abandoned what was left of their meal and rushed into the bar. There they had learned that the earthquake had struck at 5:45 in the evening, Pacific time. The giant San Andreas fault had ripped apart near Cajon Pass and the poor people, cars, and structures within a hundred miles of the epicenter had been tossed about on the surface of the Earth like hapless boats at sea during a hurricane.

Michael and Kathleen had listened to the news all night long, alternately hoping and fearing, as the full magnitude of the nation’s worst disaster of the twenty-second century had become better understood. The quake had been a fearsome 8.2 on the Richter scale. Twenty million people had been left without water, electricity, transportation, and communications. Fifty-foot-deep cracks in the Earth had engulfed entire shopping centers. Virtually all the roads had become impassable. The damage was worse, and more widespread, than if the Los Angeles metropolitan area had been hit with several nuclear bombs.

Early in the morning, before dawn even, the Federal Emergency Administration had issued a telephone number to call for inquiries. Kathleen O’Toole gave the message machine all the information they knew—the address and phone number at Tommy’s apartment, the name and address of the Mexican restaurant where he worked to earn spending money, and his girlfriend’s address and phone number.

We waited all day and into the night, Michael remembered. Then Cheryl called. She had managed somehow to drive to her parents’ home in Poway.

“The restaurant collapsed, Mr. O’Toole,” Cheryl had said through her tears. “Then it caught fire. I talked to one of the other waiters, one who survived because he was out on the patio when the quake hit. Tommy had been working the closest station to the kitchen—”