Read Fiction River: Moonscapes for Free Online Page A

imagine.”
    Alcohol wasn’t part of the manifest for the first moon colony. The payload had been rigorously planned right down to the last piece of spare underwear. Everything they were taking with them was useful and necessary. Alcohol was a luxury, as was hot chocolate, apparently. Nick had had his last cup the night before.
    Mrs. Parker held the drink, but she didn’t take another sip. “I don’t think my parents knew what to make of me. First child, odd child, so they doted on my sister instead. I’m sure the story is old to you, but when I was seven, my sister was the bane of my existence. She was the one who believed in you and the one you visited, but I’m the one who saw you.”
    Nick remembered Felicity Parker’s sister. Monica. A cute little girl with golden ringlets and a sweet disposition. He’d brought her the toy she’d asked for. He hadn’t brought Felicity anything at all.
    Monica had died of leukemia when she’d been eleven. Nick had grieved for her, as he grieved for all his kids who left the world too early.
    “Why did you allow me on the program?” Nick asked.
    “I’ve asked myself that quite often, as a matter of fact.” She looked at him again. “To deprive all the ‘good’ little boys and girls of your visits?” She sighed, an odd sound from such a self-assured, self-aware woman. “I’d like to think I’m not that petty.”
    “In case you’re wondering, I’m no longer in that line of work,” Nick said. “I’ve been... replaced. Downsized, I suppose you could say.”
    “And I could also say I was sorry to hear that, but I’m not sure that would be the truth.”
    Such an odd mixture of emotions. Nick wondered if every child who hadn’t received a yearly gift from him would react the same way to seeing him after they’d grown up. Had that been part of the reason no one would hire him? What if it wasn’t his age, but some long-forgotten and never quite forgiven slight that bubbled to the surface like an unscratchable itch just at the sight of him?
    Felicity Parker straightened her shoulders and gave him a small smile. “Besides, now that I’ve gotten to know you, I don’t believe you would have allowed yourself to be pushed aside if provisions hadn’t been made for things to continue after you were gone.”
    She was right. There were still good little boys and girls in the world, and a system was in place to take care of all of them. It wasn’t as personal a service as Nick had provided, but things changed as the world changed.
    “Like your husband did,” Nick said gently.
    “Yes, like Lincoln did.” She put the drink back on the corkboard coaster. “You asked me why I allowed you in the program. Why I overruled every one of my mission specialists who told me you were too old. Why I ‘took a chance’ on you, as I believe you told Ms. Wells.”
    She leaned forward, elbows on the table, her hands cradling her drink. The pilot made a slight course correction, and sunlight flowed from Nick’s shoulder to his chest as the sun came more fully into view. The air in the cabin smelled stale like all recycled air did, but now he caught a whiff of her perfume and it masked the smell.
    “I’ve always been a realist,” she said. “I trusted what I saw with my eyes, what I experienced, that was what I knew to be true. When my sister passed away...” Her voice caught for just a moment, but her eyes remained clear, her gaze steady. “When she died, that was the end of my childhood. Then I met Lincoln. He was a dreamer, the opposite of me. He told me once that you encouraged him to follow his dreams, but he was never quite sure you were real. I knew you were.”
    And she’d never told him. As sure as he’d ever been about any of his kids, he knew that Felicity Parker had never told her husband that Nick was real.
    “I don’t believe in coincidences,” she said. “I don’t believe in fate. I believe in taking advantage of opportunities when they walk through my