The Ramblers by Aidan Donnelley Rowley Read Free Book Online Page A

these years. She’s wired to worry, to fret, to feel shame. It comforts her that after several years of not being able to contribute anything at all, she’s now paying half the monthly maintenance, but she wishes she could do more. Quite simply, she can’t; she has her college loans to repay. She knows Smith understands, but it all continues to make Clio feel uneasy even though Smith’s been nothing but generous. Even when she was with Asad, when he was here all the time and Clio was concerned that she should get out of their way, Smith made genuine efforts to involve Clio, to have her around.
    Smith reappears. Hands Clio her favorite stainless steel travel mug, a gift from Jack from years ago, filled with hot coffee. “Extra sweet. Just how you like it.”
    â€œThanks, you.”
    â€œClio?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œLook, I know it’s scary, but if you open up and let him in, it willbring you closer. And if it doesn’t, Clio, I hate to say this, but maybe that means he’s not the right person. You deserve to be with someone who loves all of you, even your messy parts.”
    â€œI know,” Clio says. “Either way, I’ll survive.”
    And she will. She’s survived much more than this.
    â€œI’ll see you after your tour,” Smith says.
    Clio smiles weakly at her friend, grabs her binoculars, and slips out the front door.

9:04AM
    â€œIt’s too late.”
    I t’s a bitterly cold morning. It will no doubt be a quiet day of birding, but Clio doesn’t mind. Quiet is fine. Quiet is better on a day like today when she hasn’t slept much and her mind is far away. She shivers and pulls the collar of her jacket up over her mouth. All these Manhattan winters and she still hasn’t invested in a proper parka, one of the puffy sleeping-bag coats everyone seems to live in as soon as the temperature drops. She wears the ski jacket she’s had since high school, a cheerful cherry red, and layers it over a thick wool sweater. The coffee Smith made does the trick, waking her up just enough to function. She approaches the dock at Turtle Pond, where the week’s group waits for her. She waves.
    She slips her phone from her pocket to check it one more time as she heads over to join them. Still nothing at all from Henry. Just a lonely Okay in response to her texts in the middle of the night telling him she had a panic attack but that he shouldn’t worry because she was fine and safe and needed a bit of space. Okay. That’s it. Her exhaustion is thick like fog and it’s hard to tell what she feels most right now. Fear that she’s irrevocably botched the one romantic relationship she’s had in her life. Disappointment that he didn’t race after her, down those steps, out onto the blustery sidewalk. Anger that she can’t react normally to a romantic gesture.
    Clio wears her dark glasses, a pair she’s had forever, the lenses scratched and earpieces subtly bent. She feels safer behind them today, like she’s hiding from the world.
    At the dock, she scatters hellos and answers questions about her trip to the Andes. There are a few new people today who read about her in New York magazine, but at this point in the season, most of her birders are her regulars, the only souls who would venture out in this breed of cold.
    There’s Bob, probably seventy, a retired environmental engineer, and Jewel, fifty-five or so, who teaches high school English, and Sophie, a slight woman in her eighties who had a big career in fashion, and Jackson, a fourteen-year-old boy. His mother came for the first walk and pulled Clio aside and told her that her son was on the autism spectrum and that he knew an impossible amount about birds. This has proven to be true. Jackson is often the first to identify the birds they encounter. Oh, and Lillian, in her sixties, who is a widow and a breast cancer survivor, and Victoria, a sophomore at