Sparrow Migrations by Cari Noga Read Free Book Online

crumpling at last under the stress of the entire day. She collapsed on one of the beds, her back to the other, curling her knees up to her still-aching ribs. “I can’t talk about this anymore.”
    “Deborah, I love you. I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.” Christopher sat behind her, touching her shoulder.
    “And I never thought you would,” Deborah said woodenly, contracting more tightly into her fetal position, away from Christopher.
    The click of the door opening roused her from the memory. Christopher appeared, carrying two Starbucks cups.
    “Morning.” He sat on the bed he’d slept in and pushed one cup across the nightstand to her.
    “Dark roast, black.”
    “Thanks.” Deborah took a sip.
    “Sleep OK?”
    She shrugged. “I’ve had better.” She suddenly recalled her nightmare, of the baby she’d seen with his mother on the wing. In the dream he was in the water instead of his mother’s arms. He seemed fine, smiling even, trying to swim to Deborah. She reached out, but the waves carried him away. Unable to swim, she was forced to watch the smiling baby bob up and down, just out of her reach.
    “Me too.” Christopher looked at his cup.
    “Is the coffee a peace offering?”
    He took a long sip. “I guess you could say that.”
    “I want to know what you would say.”
    He set his cup down and reached across the gap between the beds for her hand.
    “It’s a peace offering. But I don’t know what to say after that. It’s not like this is something we can compromise on. We’re in two different places.”
    “Are we? You said yesterday that you wish it had worked out differently. We could be in the same place.”
    He sighed. “I don’t know if I can go there again. If it didn’t—”
    “If it didn’t, then we would be done. Right now, we still have the last three embryos.”
    He looked wary. “So what are you suggesting, exactly?”
    “One more try. All three embryos. Just like the specialist said. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll be done. I promise.” She squeezed his hand, as if she could imprint the pledge.
    Christopher exhaled deeply, removing his glasses to massage his temples. Deborah held her breath, recognizing the habit from when he did his most serious thinking.
    “All right,” he said at last. “I’m not promising anything right now. But I’ll think about it.”
    Deborah called Helen from Christopher’s phone after they checked out, while he went to the airline’s command center in the hotel ballroom to fill out paperwork. As her call traveled west, skipping across the Great Lakes, the Great Plains, and the Rockies to the Pacific coast, it comforted Deborah to picture a phone ringing crisply on Helen’s nightstand or kitchen counter, somewhere in the scenery of her sister’s blissfully normal, mundane life.
    “Hello?” The voice was a bit breathless. At this hour on the West Coast, Helen was probably on her treadmill for her usual morning workout.
    “Hi, Helen. It’s me.”
    “Deborah! I keep seeing coverage of the crash. I still can’t believe you were on that plane. Have you talked to anyone else? Are you and Christopher really OK?”
    “We are. Really, we’re fine.” Physically, anyway. Her bruised psyche was something else again. “But, Helen, we’ll have to figure out another time for a visit. We’re going home to Ithaca. I don’t even have my purse. No ID, no money, no clothes.” She recited Christopher’s arguments into her sister’s ear. “I wish I could convince him to still come, but he says it’s a bad time. And it’s not a good time for us to be apart, either.” She lowered her voice, not wanting to say it aloud herself.
    “He’s talking about wanting to stop the IVF.” Her sister had been a confidante during the past two years, buoying her with optimism at the ebbs. “You’ll be such great parents,” she said during every conversation, her use of the future tense a gift.
    Not today, though. “Oh, Deborah, I’m so