Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz Read Free Book Online Page A

to care about words in any language.
    The world was so quiet.
    I fell asleep—and the dreams came again. It was raining outside and there was thunder and lightning all around me. And I could see myself as I ran in the rain. I was looking for Dante and I was yelling because he was lost, “Dante! Come back! Come back!” And then I wasn’t looking for Dante anymore, I was looking for my dad and I was yelling for him, “Dad! Dad! Where did you go? Where did you go?”
    When I woke again, I was soaked in my own sweat again.
    My dad was sitting on my rocking chair, studying me.
    My mom walked into the room. She looked at my father—then at me.
    “I didn’t mean to scare you.” I couldn’t make myself talk above a whisper.
    My mother smiled and I thought she must have been really pretty when she was a girl. She helped me sit up. “ Amor, you’re soaked. Why don’t you take a nice shower?”
    “I had nightmares.”
    I leaned my head on her shoulder. I wanted the three of us to stay that way forever.
    My dad helped me to the shower. I felt weak and washed out and when the warm water hit my body, I thought of my dreams . . . Dante, my dad. And I wondered what my dad looked like when he was my age. My mother had told me he was beautiful. I wonder if he’d been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that.
    When I went back to bed, my mom had changed the sheets again. “Your fever’s gone,” she said. She gave me another glass of water. I didn’t want it but I drank all of it. I didn’t know how thirsty I’d been, and I asked her for more water.
    My father was still there, sitting on my rocking chair.
    We studied each other for a moment as I lay in bed.
    “You were looking for me,” he said.
    I looked at him.
    “In your dream. You were looking for me.”
    “I’m always looking for you,” I whispered.

Two
    THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN I WOKE, I THOUGHT I HAD died. I knew it wasn’t true—but the thought was there. Maybe a part of you died when you were sick. I don’t know.
    My mom’s solution to my predicament was to make me drink gallons of water—one painful glass at a time.
    I finally went on strike and refused to drink anymore. “My bladder’s turned into a water balloon that’s about to explode.”
    “That’s good,” she said, “You’re flushing your system out.”
    “I’m done flushing,” I said.
    The water wasn’t the only thing I had to deal with. I had to deal with her chicken soup. Her chicken soup became my enemy.
    The first bowl was incredible. I had never been that hungry. Not ever. She mostly gave me broth.
    The soup returned the next day for lunch. That was okay too, because now I got all the chicken and the vegetables in the soup with warm corn tortillas and my mother’s sopa de arroz . But the soup came back in the form of an afternoon snack. And for dinner.
    I was sick of water and chicken soup. I was sick of being sick. After four days in bed, I finally decided that it was time to move on.
    I made an announcement to my mother. “I’m well.”
    “You’re not,” my mother said.
    “I’m being held hostage.” That’s the first thing I said to my father when he came home from work.
    He grinned at me.
    “I’m fine now, Dad. I am.”
    “You still look a little pale.”
    “I need some sun.”
    “Give it one more day,” he said. “Then you can go out into the world and cause all the trouble you want.”
    “Okay,” I said. “But no more chicken soup.”
    “That’s between you and your mother.”
    He started to leave my room. He hesitated for a moment. He had his back to me. “Have you had any more bad dreams?”
    “I always have bad dreams,” I said.
    “Even when you’re not sick?”
    “Yeah.”
    He stood at my doorway. He turned around and faced me. “Are you always lost?”
    “In most of them, yeah.”
    “And are you always trying to find me?”
    “Mostly I think I’m trying to find me, Dad.” It was strange to talk to him about something real.