The Ramblers by Aidan Donnelley Rowley Page A

embraces her in a hug. Maybe she can tell something’s wrong. “I would love to hear more about the Andes sometime. It’s my dream to get there.”
    â€œOh yes, I’d like that very much,” Clio says, and means it.
    Everyone scatters, but Patrick remains.

11:21AM
    â€œI know all about this bench.”
    H ow about a coffee?” Patrick asks.
    â€œI’d love to but my friend Smith always meets me over by the Gill after my tours—it’s a kind of ritual we have. But maybe we could sit down for a bit?” Clio asks, her voice shaking.
    They walk back into the park, through the Ramble, and sit on what she has come to think of as her bench. Patrick is quiet while she takes a moment, before she forgets, to quickly jot the day’s findings in her journal. When she finishes, she tucks her notes away and looks over to him.
    â€œThat was something,” he says matter-of-factly, “though I certainly felt out of step with the others. Those folks seem to know what they’re doing. That kid is amazing. He might know more about birds than you do.”
    Clio laughs. “Jackson is by far my best student.”
    â€œHe made me miss my boys.”
    â€œI’m sure you’re excited to get home. But I know Henry is so glad you came,” Clio says. “And I love that you asked about hummingbirds. Have you ever seen one?”
    â€œI can’t say that I have,” Patrick says.
    â€œThey are the most amazing creatures,” Clio says. “Like flying jewels. So tiny and colorful and fierce.”
    â€œWell, I’ll be sure to add ‘see a hummingbird’ to my bucket list, then. How many years have you been doing this?”
    She thinks about this. “Let’s see. A little more than twelve. I started right after 9/11. That was a tough time, but doing this each week helped.”
    It was more than a tough time. Clio had just graduated from Yale and was new to the city, still harboring a tremendous amount of guilt about not returning home after graduation to be with her parents, who needed her. Her mother had stopped taking her medication and would call Clio at Smith’s apartment at odd hours, telling her to come home. She’d send disturbing e-mails about government conspiracies and hummingbird deaths and Clio would torture herself, reading her mother’s words again and again, committing her nonsensical musings to memory, etching them forever in her mind.
    They’re watching us, again, Clio, I see the red lights blinking in the windows! Did you know a hummingbird’s heart beats over 500 times per minute and then shuts down almost completely at night, Clio? Many hummingbirds die in their sleep, Clio. Did you know that did you know that? IN THEIR SLEEP?
    And then the attack on top of it all. She felt like the world might actually end on that impossibly gorgeous morning. When it happened, she was up at Columbia, waiting for her phylogenetics lecture to begin. She remembers her professor arriving a few minutes late, gripping thelectern as if he might fall, his face ashen, his voice shaking, as he made the cryptic announcement into the microphone. Because of this morning’s unfolding events, class is canceled today. He offered no details, but they swirled about her, bits coming from fellow students who were late to class, students who’d seen television coverage or heard something on the radio.
    She stumbled back to the San Remo in a traumatized daze, inhaling the terrifying smell of destruction that would linger over the city for weeks. When she got to Smith’s apartment she tried to call her parents to tell them she was all right, dialing the numbers over and over again for hours until she finally got through. Her mother went back to the hospital the next day and stayed there for weeks. Clio herself didn’t sleep through the night for months, and that’s how she found herself clutching her first prescription. Prozac.