Michael O’Toole took a deep breath. This is wrong, he said to himself, struggling to force the painful memories of his son’s death out of his mind. This is wrong, he repeated. This is a time for joy, not sorrow. For Simone’s sake I must not think of Tommy now.
178 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
He closed the Bible and wiped his eyes. He stood up at his desk and walked into the bathroom. First he shaved, slowly and deliberately, and then he stepped into the hot shower.
Fifteen minutes later, when he opened his Bible again, this time with pen in hand, Michael O’Toole had exorcised the demons of his son’s death. With a flourish he wrote an additional entry on the Milestones page, pausing when he was finished to read the final four lines.
10-31-97 Birth of grandson, Matthew Arnold Rinaldi,
in Toledo, Ohio 8-27-06 Birth of son, Benjamin Ryan O’Toole, in
Rama
3-7-08 Birth of son, Patrick Erin O’Toole, in Rama 1-6-15 Marriage to Simone Tiasso Wakefield
You are an old man, O’Toole, he said to himself, looking at his thin gray hair in the mirror. He had closed his Bible several minutes earlier and returned to the bathroom to brush his hair one final time. Too old to be getting married again. He remembered his first wedding, forty-seven years earlier. My hair was thick and blond then, he recalled. Kathleen was beautiful. The service was magnificent. I cried the moment I saw her at the end of the aisle.
His picture of Kathleen in her wedding dress, holding on to her father’s arm at the other end of the aisle in the cathedral, faded into another memory of her, this one also shrouded in tears. In this second image the tears belonged to his wife. She had been sitting beside him in the family room at Cape Kennedy when the time had come for him to check in for the flight to LEO-3 to join the rest of the Newton crew. “Be careful,” she had said, in a surprisingly emotional farewell. They.had hugged. “I’m so proud of you, darling,” she had whispered in his ear. “And I love you very much.”
“Because I love you very much,” Simone had also said when Michael had asked her if she really, really wanted to marry him and, if so, why. A soft image of Simone came into his mind as his memory of his final good-bye
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with Kathleen gently faded away. You are so innocent and trusting, Simone, Michael mused, thinking of his young bride-to-be. Back on Earth you wouldn’t even be dating yet. You’d still be considered just a girl.
The thirteen years in Rama flashed through his mind in an instant. Michael recalled first the struggle of Simone’s birth, including the glorious moment when she had finally cried and he had laid her gently on her mother’s stomach. His next image was of a very young Simone, a serious girl of six or so, earnestly studying her catechism under his tutelage. In another picture Simone was skipping rope with Katie and singing a joyous song. The final fleeting image was a scene of the family picnicking beside the Cylindrical Sea in Rama. There was Simone, standing proudly beside Benjy as if she were his guardian angel.
She was already a young woman when we arrived at the Node, General Michael O’Toole thought to himself, his mind moving to a more recent sequence of images. Extremely devout. Patient and selfless with the younger children. And nobody has ever made Benjy smile like Simone.
There was a common theme to all these pictures of Simone. In Michael’s mind, they were bathed in the unusual love that he felt for his child bride. It was not the kind of love that a man normally feels for the woman he is going to marry—it was more like an adoration. But it was love, nevertheless, and that love had forged a powerful bond between the unlikely pair.
I am a very lucky man, Michael thought as he finished adjusting his clothing. God has seen fit to show me His wonders in many ways.
In the master suite at the other end of the apartment, Nicole was helping Simone with her dress. It was not a wedding dress in the classical sense, but it was white and full with small straps over the shoulders. It was certainly not the casual attire that all of the family were accustomed to wearing on an everyday basis.
Nicole carefully placed the combs in her daughter’s long black hair and studied Simone in the mirror. “You look beautiful,” Nicole said.
180 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
She glanced at her watch. They had ten more minutes. And Simone was completely ready except for the shoes. Good. Now we can talk, Nicole thought fleetingly. “Darling,” she started, her voice surprisingly catching in her throat.
“What is it, Mother?” Simone said pleasantly. She was sitting on the bed beside her mother, carefully putting the black shoes on her feet.
“When we had that talk last week about sex,” Nicole began again, “there were several topics that we didn’t discuss.” Simone looked up at her mother. Her attention was so complete that Nicole momentarily forgot what she was going to say. “Did you read those books I gave you . . . ?” she eventually stammered.
Simone’s wrinkled brow revealed her puzzlement. “Yes, of course,” she replied. “We discussed that yesterday.”
Nicole took her daughter’s hands. “Michael is a wonderful man,” she said. “Kind, considerate, loving—but he is older. And when men are older—”
“I’m not sure I’m following you, Mother,” Simone gently interrupted. “I thought there was something you wanted to tell me about sex.”
“What I’m trying to say,” Nicole said after taking a deep breath, “is that you may need to be very patient and tender with Michael in bed. Everything might not work right away.”
Simone stared at her mother for a long time. “I had suspected that,” she said quietly, “both from your nervousness about the subject and some unspoken anxiety that I have read in Michael’s face. Don’t worry, Mother, I do not have unreasonable expectations. In the first place, we are not marrying because of a desire for sexual gratification. And since I have no experience of any kind, except for holding hands occasionally during this last week, whatever pleasure I feel will be new and therefore wonderful.”
Nicole smiled at her amazingly mature fourteen-year-old daughter. “You are a jewel,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Thank you,” Simone replied, hugging her mother. “Remember,” she added, “my marriage to Michael is
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blessed by God. Whatever problems we encounter, we will ask God to help us with. We will be fine.”
A sudden heartache devastated Nicole. One more week, a voice inside her said, and you will never see this beloved girl again. She continued to embrace Simone until Richard knocked on the door and told them that everyone was ready for the ceremony.
8
G
Iood morning,” Simone said with a soft smile. The rest of the family were all seated at the table having breakfast when she and Michael walked in, hand in hand.
“Good mor-ning,” Benjy replied. His mouth was stuffed with buttered toast and jam. He rose from his seat, walked slowly around the table, and hugged his favorite sister.
Patrick was right behind him. “Are you going to help me with my math today?” he asked Simone. “Mother says that now that we’re going back I have to be serious about my studies.”
Michael and Simone sat down at the table after the boys had returned to their seats. Simone reached for the coffeepot. She was like her mother in one respect. She didn’t function well in the morning until she had had her coffee.
“Well, is the honeymoon finally over?” Katie asked in her usual irreverent manner. “After all, it’s been three
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nights and two days. You must have listened to every piece of classical music in the data base.”
Michael laughed easily. “Yes, Katie,” he said, smiling warmly at Simone. “We’ve taken the DO NOT DISTURB sign off the door. We want to do whatever we can to help everyone pack for the voyage.”
“We’re actually in pretty good shape,” Nicole commented, delighted to see Michael and her daughter so comfortable together after their long seclusion. / needn’t have worried, she thought quickly. In some ways Simone is more adult than I am.
“I wish the Eagle would give us more specifics about our return trip,” Richard complained. “He won’t tell us how long the journey will take or whether or not we’ll sleep all the way or anything definite.”
“He says he doesn’t know for certain,” Nicole reminded her husband. “There are ‘uncontrollable’ variables that could result in many different scenarios.”
“You always believe him,” Richard countered. “You are the most trusting—”
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