The Sunspacers Trilogy Read Free Page A

are messages for you,” Dad said as I pulled free of Mom and went past him into the living room.
    “Thanks, I said coldly, suddenly grateful for something else to do. I sat down by the phone and pressed in my thumbprint. The wall screen lit up with my first message:
MR. JOSEPH SORBY:
PLEASE REPORT JULY 1, 2056,
BERNAL HALL, DORM ROOM 108,
O’NEILL COLLEGE,
DANDRIDGE COLE UNIVERSITY AT L-5.
    — OFFICE OF THE DEAN OF STUDENTS
JUNE 21, 2056
    The second message appeared:
DEAREST JOE : [FLASHING LETTERS]
CHEERS FOR OUR FAVORITE
GRANDSON! WE CALLED EARLIER.
HERE’S SOMETHING TO HELP YOU
ON YOUR WAY, RIGHT INTO YOUR
NEW ACCOUNT #000-112-2-34789.
WE’LL CALL YOU WHEN YOU’RE SETTLED
AT SCHOOL. LOVE,
    —ANTONIA AND JOHN SORBY
LONDON, JUNE 21, 2056
    “Can I see?” Dad asked. The message flashed three times and blinked off. “Oh—is there anything from your mother’s parents?”
    END OF MESSAGES
    I ignored him. The screen went dark.
    “There will be one along,” Mom said, sitting down on the arm of my chair. “I told them.”
    “Don’t,” I said as she touched my shoulder.
    “We love you very much,” she said with difficulty, leaning back next to me and closing her eyes. I remembered playing with her when I was small, sitting on her belly and shouting for her to surrender. She still seemed as beautiful, but she wasn’t the same person.
    There was a long silence. Dad stood nervously in the center of the room, as if waiting for something.
    “Your mother and I will be separating,” he said finally. “Sorry to have to tell you now.”
    Mom sat up and looked at me. “We waited until you were ready for college.”
    “Why?” I demanded, feeling my anger rising again. “So it would be easier on you? Maybe you were planning to leave me a message about it?” It was obvious to me that they were still concerned solely with each other, and I was just another obstacle.
    “You’re older now,” Mom said, ignoring what I had said. “You’re ready to be on your own. The marriage contract happened to expire now. You can understand that.”
    I looked at Dad. He seemed lost. I wondered again why he had been so opposed to my going off-planet to school. Maybe he had thought that if I had gone to Columbia or NYU, it would have helped keep the marriage together.
    “When you come home,” Mom continued, jumping past any consideration of my feelings, “you’ll come here for part of the time, and to your grandparents in Brasilia, until I get a place of my own there. Eurico and Agata were very excited when I told them you would visit them.”
    “We’ll always be here for you,” Dad added tiredly.
    Mom let out a deep breath, and I could tell that she was relieved. Dad wasn’t about to start arguing again.
    “When do you have to leave?” she asked me. Her lid was on tight, and nothing was going to blow it off.
    “About ten days,” I said, struggling to control myself.
    Dad slumped down in the sofa. “How was the ceremony?” He was emotionally drained and physically exhausted from the trip. There was no fight left in him, and I saw my chance.
    “Pretty boring. You didn’t miss much.” I tried to sound as sarcastic as possible by putting myself into Morey’s million-year-old man mood, but it went right past them.
    “We should have been there,” Mom said sternly as she stood up. She looked thinner in her slacks. “We know and we’re sorry. You don’t have to excuse us.” She sounded as if she were talking about some other people.
    Dad was looking down at his feet. “Nothing can excuse it,” he said as if he were speaking to Mom. I might just as well not have been in the room. “We’ll make it up to you.…”
    “Sure—how are you going to do that?” I demanded, feeling crushed. “You don’t listen to each other or to me. It was shitty of you not to make sure that you would be back in time. You could have done that! Do you hear me?”
    Dad looked at me in surprise. You don’t need us anymore , his eyes