Free The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell Page B

premature births, the giardiasis, the gunshot wounds. And she gradually learned who among her medical colleagues on the island was willing to take referrals from her.
    George settled in as well, making endless lists, changing the locks on every door, window and storage cabinet in the clinic, overhauling the software linking the Jesuit Center with webs and libraries, installing the used but serviceable medical equipment Anne ordered. For his own satisfaction, he signed up at the Arecibo Radio Telescope as a docent, indulging his own long-latent interest in astronomy.
    That was where he met Jimmy Quinn, who would lead them all to Rakhat.

    "G EORGE, " A NNE ASKED at breakfast one morning, a few months after they’d moved to Puerto Rico, "has Emilio ever said anything to you about his family?"
    "No, I don’t believe so, now that you mention it."
    "Seems like we should have met them by now. I don’t know. There are undercurrents in the neighborhood I don’t understand," Anne admitted. "The kids adore Emilio, but the older people are pretty distant." More than distant, really. Hostile, she thought.
    "Well, there’re a lot of little evangelical churches in La Perla. Maybe it’s some kind of religious rivalry. Hard to tell."
    "What if we gave a party? At the clinic, I mean. Might break the ice."
    "Sure," George shrugged. "Free food is always a good draw."
    So Anne took care of the refreshments with the help of a few women in the neighborhood she’d made friends with. To her surprise, the very unpaternal George waded into the preparations and the fiesta itself with great enthusiasm, handing out sweets and little toys, setting off homemade rockets, blowing up balloons and generally being silly with the kids. And Emilio astonished her as well, doing magic tricks, of all things, working the crowd of children with the timing of a professional, provoking screams and peals of laughter, drawing in the mothers and grandmothers, the aunts and older brothers and sisters as well.
    "Where the hell did you learn to do magic tricks?" she whispered to him afterward, as shoals of kids passed around and between the legs of adults dishing out ice cream.
    Emilio rolled his eyes. "Do you have any idea how long the nights are near the Arctic Circle? I found a book. And I had a
lot
of time to practice."
    When it was all over, Anne walked back into the office after seeing the last of the children off and found herself in the midst of an argument between her two favorite men.
    "He believed you," Emilio cried, sweeping up the colored paper and confetti.
    "Oh, he did not! He knew I was kidding," George said, stuffing trash into a bag.
    "What? Who believed what?" Anne asked, going to work on the ice cream debris. "There’s a dish under that desk, sweetheart. Can you get that for me?"
    Emilio fished the bowl out and stacked it with the others. "One of the kids asked George how old he was—"
    "So I told him I was a hundred and sixteen. He knew it was a joke."
    "George, he’s only five! He believed you."
    "Oh, swell. Nice way to get to know people in the neighborhood, George. Lie to their kids!" Anne said, but she was grinning and laughed as the two men launched into a good-natured dispute over the moral distinction between lying to children and stand-up comedy. Both of these guys should have been daddies, Anne thought, watching them, alight with the simple satisfaction of pleasing children. It saddened her a little, but she didn’t dwell on it.
    The first fiesta was such a success that others, larger and even more fun, followed. There was always some health issue tied in. Anne handed out condoms and birth-control information to everyone over the age of eleven, or did immunizations for kids under six, or checked for head lice or took blood-pressure readings. The week after a fiesta always brought in more patients than usual, people with "little questions," which often turned out to be serious medical problems they’d