Read At the Heart of the Universe for Free Online

was startled. The Volvo jumped toward a ditch, then swerved back. Ever since the adoption, the image of Katie’s birth mom had never been far from Clio’s mind. The woman was always a presence, always there . Almost every day Clio would be surprised to find herself thinking of her—no, not thinking, more that she was just there . Not as a vision, never as a particular image, just a sense —like from time to time she still sensed her own dead mother there with her. The sense was of a slender, pretty but worn woman of thirty-something in a peasant’s shirt and pants, poor beyond belief but proud, even elegant, both shy and strangely sure. And soulful. Like Katie—whose sureness, Clio had come to realize, was a reaction to her own shyness, her own deep soulfulness. Only rarely would Katie mention her birth mom. On Katie’s birthday they’d light a twenty-one-year candle to her birth mother and say a prayer, to remember that wherever in China she might be, she too was remembering Katie that day. The first time Katie mentioned her she was about four. They were in the car, and suddenly from the backseat came, “Mommy, I came from another mommy’s tummy, right?” Clio was stunned, but ready. “Yes, darling, in China before we met you, you grew in another mommy’s tummy and they weren’t able to take care of you because they didn’t have enough food and money, so we went and got you and brought you home.” From the backseat, total silence. Clio held her breath. Finally she said, “Do you understand?”
    â€œYeah,” Katie said, “can I have french fries for dinner?” Pep broke out laughing, as did Clio—and Katie too, even though she didn’t know why. She screeched with laughter, like a happy bird.
    And so now when Katie brought up finding her birth mother on their trip back to China, Clio said, “What a great thought, hon. But it’s a big country—over a billion people—we probably won’t even meet her.”
    â€œYeah, but if we do she’ll recognize me.”
    â€œYes, maybe she would.”
    â€œShe will . And if we have a like chance to meet her, you’ll make it happen?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œAs hard as you can?”
    Clio loved this in Katie, her focus, her optimism, her being so quietly tenacious . Right from the first time they saw her, at four months. “Yes.”
    â€œPromise?”
    â€Promise.”
    â€œWe’ll meet her and stay for a while! Thanks, Mom.”
    Clio’s heart was beating fast, pulsing in her temples. Not so much at the “meeting her” part, but at the “stay for a while.” It wrenched her, a hand reaching in, twisting.
    â€œChina’s the biggest country in the world, right?” Katie asked.
    â€œYes, but India is catching up fast, and—”
    â€œChina will win. Trust me.”
    â€œOkay. Call me if I need you.” Clio said, using their funny goodnight line.
    ï­ï­ï­
    As they drove on to Mary’s Farm, Katie was strangely silent. They pulled into the rutted dirt road leading up to the barn. The woman who ran the place was a kind of earth mother, a divorced fifty-something who had inherited a plot of farmland and kept herself going by boarding horses and giving riding lessons to the rich New Yorkers who had moved upriver a hundred miles into Kinderhook County. But lately business had been bad. A brand-new, sparkly clean upscale riding venture called Ascot Equestrian was siphoning away her clientele. All of Katie’s private school friends went to Ascot now, but Katie insisted on sticking with Mary. The “Farm” was a ramshackle place with run-down old barns and leaky fences and haphazard cages and coops. Mary had horses and goats that shared the stable, and chickens and miniature ponies that could pull a cart and rabbits and a pig and a snake and any other stray animal that wandered in.