“I am here until you ask me to leave.” He must have felt me cringe, because he hurried on. “My personal reasons do not matter. Not even to me. Twenty thousand years. Can you fathom that? Your lifetime is merely a flash of sunlight on one raindrop in an endless storm.” His voice dropped, “And I do not want to miss your radiant moment.”
Ew. Did he really just say that out loud? “I’m sorry, but that’s just—”
“Until you ask me to leave. Besides . . . ” He gave my hands a quick squeeze before letting go. “You may be the key that has eluded us.”
And here we were again.
“Before you tell me how screwed up my genes are, at least tell me your real name.” When he looked away, I persisted. “Come on now, is that too much to ask? You apparently know everything about me—which, for the record, is revolting. So why can’t I know your name?”
“I do not have a name.”
“None of you have names? How do you tell each other apart? Numbers?”
“The others have names. My Female Giver chose not to assign one to me.”
I waited for more, but he was silent—watching me as I evaluated him from a new perspective. This twenty-thousand-year-old alien, this beautiful, giant man-child, was sitting before me simply because he had no one else. No one who cared enough to make him feel wanted—no one except for a lowly human who was a speck among billions.
Except that I didn’t want him, I needed him—to protect my daughter.
“Do you remember me telling you what your name means?”
“It is Portuguese for salt.”
“Sal is also short for Salvatoré. Savior.” I leaned forward and laid my palm against his cheek. “Thank you, Sal. My daughter is everything to me, and I am grateful . . . ” I rubbed my sweaty hand on my jeans, “ . . . but please tell me why you’re so bizarrely hot all the time.”
“My modulators. They monitor every cell in my body, providing optimum health; but they are also regulators. When we regressed to animalistic impulses, we redesigned the modulators to punish wayward emotions.”
“Punish . . . ?”
“They trigger our brains to feel extreme heat. Psychosomatically, our bodies then begin to overheat. Controlling our impulses signals the modulators to correct the misinformation.
“Wayward . . . ?”
“Anger, lust, desire . . . the base hungers.”
“You . . . you . . . ” Having only recently come to terms with the existence of sadistic alien missionaries, I couldn’t reconcile the idea that they would be self-punitive as well. “You don’t mean you agreed to this!”
“We did begin with noble aspirations, Lila.”
“But it’s masochistic!”
“How so?”
“How so? No wonder y’all aren’t a real family! Sometimes there’s a mighty fine line between anger and giving a damn. And how can you experience love—romantic love—without desire?” What was wrong with these people? “Jesus, Sal! Why would you ever agree to something so sick?”
His skin had turned blotchy, and I realized I’d gone too far.
“I’m sorry. That was really rude of me . . . ” I pulled one of his hands into my lap and patted his arm to soothe him, but he made a fist and pulled away. “Really, I am sorry. I’ve read about religions like that. I should be m—”
“It is not our religion.” His mouth twisted as if the word was poisonous. “We deserve torture, but this is nothing.”
“Why do you deserve—”
“No, Lila.” He patted my knee before standing. “You are young, but please respect my privacy on this matter.”
“Don’t just walk away.”
“They are returning.” He offered a sad smile and a hand so I could stand. “My Female Giver allowed me to keep my enhanced hearing.”
I listened but heard nothing and risked one more question.
“Sal, tell me now. No deceptions. When I was a child, that day at the parade . . . did you hurt that woman?”
He closed his eyes, and I heard Adam’s truck pulling into the driveway.
“I did not intend to.” He opened his eyes again, and I saw that they were wet. “Can you believe me?”
As he waited for an answer, I heard the truck doors slam and Eileen’s feet pounding up the steps. My child needed him, and that meant I needed him. What I believed didn’t matter.
Eileen burst into the house talking a mile a minute.
“We got everything ready! Adam’s boat is cool, with a cabin and everything, and he let me steer it! And he already had a crib and stuff, but we got diapers, and yes, we got the natural ones. And soy formula, although Cara will probably breast feed, right? Didn’t you?”
“Hey to you, too.” I moved in for a hug, but she tugged at my hair instead.
“Your hair’s messy.”
Adam made it to the doorway in time to hear her. “So’s yours, kid.” But his eyes moved from my hair to Sal with a frown.
“I was on a boat!” she huffed, raking her fingers through the tangles. “So what did thealien have to say?”
Sal had joined us, but she ignored him with the will that only a teenager can achieve.
“Well . . . ”
“Are we part alien? Is that why we can see things?”
“Um . . . ”
“And why are you important?” She sounded a trifle jealous.
“We didn’t quite get to that part . . . ”
“Why not?!”
“I . . . fell asleep, and we only talked a few minutes.”
Eileen and Adam looked at me in disbelief.
“You fell asleep? That’s crazy!”
Never one to mince words, my daughter.
“Young one, you do not have all the facts. Give your mother the benefit of the doubt.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Her heart—”
I cut Sal short. “We sat down to talk, and I just sort of crashed, honey.”
“There’s no way—”
“Eileen, that’s enough.” Adam’s reprimand was quiet, but it carried weight.
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled. “Sorry, Mom.”
“S’okay. Trust me, I’m dying to grill him some more but it’s gotten late and I’m guessing we need to feed him again.” I looked at Sal for help. This is your fault!
“Yes, thank you. I was just explaining to your mother the details of how my modulators work. Very proficient, but they require a lot of energy.
