Free The Orphan by Christopher Ransom Page A

Instead of blowing his inheritance on drugs and parties and cars, like so many college kids might have, he had invested it in a strip mall located in a rough but improving neighborhood on the east side of Milwaukee. Later, when he left the ad firm and struck out to launch his first company, his eighty-hour work weeks and entrepreneurial plans put their plans for a second child on hold.
    They started trying again when Raya was three, and this time it became much more of a struggle. Neither Beth nor Darren had any unusual medical conditions thwarting their efforts, but after eighteen months they lost their enthusiasm. Darren was busier than ever with work and Beth was fulfilled with Raya. Darren joked about needing a son so he would have someone who would sympathize with him when Raya was a teenager and the household was ruled by girls, but Beth had never sensed any real resentment or disappointment in her husband. By the time Raya was seven, they stopped discussing the possibility of a second child and let nature take its course, or not, with respect to matters in the bedroom. Nature had declined.
    But she had never stopped wondering if Darren still longed for a son, if the old jokes weren’t more than jokes. Why else the bike collection? Or, more precisely, his love of his own boyhood, and childhood in general, a love which had spawned his obsessive collection. Or was it the other way around? She could never tell if The Totally Radical Sickness collection was the result of his obsession and nostalgia, or the source. The addiction or the drug itself.
    Either way, his connection to his youth was almost magically pure, sometimes startlingly alive. The fact that he had built a shrine to it – the shop standing in their backyard – had rendered his past a tangible thing, even for Beth.
    Poor Raya. Between the ages of nine and twelve, a period as close to a true tomboy phase as she would ever have, she’d tried to get into BMX. Going out for rides with him, spending time in the garage working on bikes, trying to learn how to lace a rim with new spokes, opening herself to the enchantment these bikes cast over her father. But, patient as Darren was with her, and grateful for her effort, he could never keep her interested for more than a few summer days when she was bored. When Raya broke her collarbone one day at the dirt park, her interest in BMX came to an end.
    Well, too late now. They weren’t going to try for another in hopes of having a boy this time. If that was what he needed, he’d have to find another remedy for the Radical Sickness. Perhaps he already had.
    ‘We should take a vacation,’ Beth said from the kitchen, filling a cup of coffee before joining Darren in the great room. He was slouched down in the corner of the leather sofa, a fleece jacket zipped to the throat like a child’s jumper, picking at the bandage on his thumb. Was he shivering? She sat in one of the leather armchairs, sipping the hot Guatemalan blend. ‘I’m serious, by the way. In case you’re listening.’
    ‘Where would you like to go?’ Darren said, distracted, eyes punchy.
    ‘Mexico. Hawaii. DIA has non-stops to Costa Rica. Did you know that?’
    ‘What’s in Costa Rica?’ he said, still avoiding eye contact. She followed his gaze across the room, to the sliding glass door, and she knew he was thinking of the shop again. His damn bikes, or whatever else was out there keeping him up all night.
    ‘Volcanoes, rainforest, beaches. Who cares? As long as we get out of the house for a week or two.’
    ‘Raya just had spring break. She has the whole summer ahead.’
    ‘Lotta good it did her.’
    He faced her, nodding tightly. ‘I’m worried about her too.’
    ‘I’m thinking of finding someone for her to talk to.’
    ‘She talks to us,’ he said.
    ‘But we don’t know what’s going on with her. That’s the point.’
    He seemed to consider it for a moment. ‘I don’t know that the problem is Raya.’
    ‘You heard her