Proximity Read online

CHAPTER 4

  It’s not that I have never found a human man attractive before.

  In many ways, I am just like any human female. I have an eye for fashion, am obsessed with music, and keep up with popular culture (someone has to make sure my family can blend in when necessary).

  I’ve just always kept appreciation for the male of the species as a long-distance activity. Pursuing anything remotely resembling a relationship just seemed pointless. And I’m not a one-night-stand kind of girl. I am actually a hopeless romantic. I can practically recite every Jane Austen novel by heart. I’m such a sucker for happy endings.

  But I gave up long ago on any dreams of my own happy ending.

  My sister Sabela disagrees wholeheartedly with my point of view on interspecies relations. It took many years of characteristic patience, but she ultimately found her one true love. Dominick Holloway is an astronomer—as is my sister—currently doing research at the Very Large Array (VLA) radio observatory west of Socorro, New Mexico.

  You might guess from the name that Dominick is entirely human. They worked together for over five years before Sabela mustered the courage to confide in him and reveal her true identity. She might have never done so, but as he declared his love for her, she felt compelled to enter into the relationship on completely open terms.

  Their distinctly different genetic makeup aside, Dominick and Sabela are a perfect match. He is calm, gentle, and exceedingly shy. Hence the five-plus years to work up the nerve to even ask a girl out. On first encounter, he comes across as your garden-variety science geek. He is taller than average, bordering on lanky. Now middle-aged, his short blond hair is noticeably thinning. But his wide, vividly blue eyes and prominent dimples give his face a more youthful appearance. There is an unmistakable kindness and generosity about him. He was all of twenty-five years old when they met—practically an infant in comparison to Sabela—but he has always demonstrated considerable wisdom beyond his years. I imagine the prospect of a romance with a beautiful alien female was the stuff of his fantasies in those early days. But he fell so comfortably into place beside her that it is clear they simply belonged together.

  Sabela had an interest in astronomy from a very early age, even prior to her firsthand experience with interstellar travel. It seems to flow naturally from her own inherent gift—an uncanny sense of direction, even in unfamiliar terrain. She has described it to me as “tunnel vision”—if she concentrates on whatever it is she is looking for, everything else disappears from view.

  As a mere child, it was Sabela who assisted my father to find a safe landing place upon entering Earth’s atmosphere. And it was by her navigational skills that they were able to locate the ideal setting for their first home in Utah. We would probably still be there if not for a famed incident near Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947.

  With the rapid advances in technology over the years since our arrival, we had all known that the time would come when humankind would take more of an interest in the surrounding universe. The level of interest picked up with the mysterious appearance of a purported “flying disk” on a ranch near Roswell. The public interest was fleeting at the time, but of course my family’s interest was piqued. My father investigated, and was able to ascertain that the culprit was neither a weather balloon nor little green men. The U.S. government was probably correct in the assumption that revealing the true explanation—a Soviet aircraft over U.S. airspace—would have created much greater pandemonium. Content that this at least kept us from immediate and personal danger, my father all but forgot about the affair.

  It was over thirty years later, in 1980, that the incident lurched back into the limelight, prompted by a widely-publicized interview with one of the original crash site investigators. The allegations of a government cover-up brought UFO researchers out of the woodwork. My father was confident there was neither a real alien ship nor a government conspiracy to hunt down such aliens, but he felt it best if we relocated a little closer to the center of the hubbub. He hoped that he would be able to calm the frenzy and get the curiosity to blow over. Still wanting us a safe distance away, he settled upon Albuquerque as our new home.

  Over the years, my sister had casually pursued her interest in astronomy, and she was ecstatic when the VLA was inaugurated in 1980. She began conducting research there in the late eighties, and it was there that she met Dominick. Of course, she has spent much of her time watching over Onontí—redirecting any attention away from it as an uninteresting, uninhabitable rock amid an equally uninteresting solar system.

  She was obliged in recent years to give up her overt association with the VLA, as everyone around her began to age, while she remained virtually unchanged. Fortunately, we have a trustworthy ally in Dominick, who has graciously stepped into the role of Onontí’s guardian.

  The proximity of the VLA to our ranch south of Albuquerque has allowed us all to continue residing there together. We don’t all share a house—that would be a little awkward—but I can see both my father and my sister’s front doors from my upstairs bedroom window. Dominick shares a home with Sabela, as it should be. You would think my father would have gone ballistic at the thought of Sabela finding a human mate—not to mention letting him in on our whole story. But his own years of loneliness had softened his heart, and he actually welcomed the idea with very little protest. It helped that Dominick was clearly not the type to seek out public attention.

  My sister is overwhelmingly happy with her closeness to Dominick, and she is genuinely okay with the fact that she will inevitably watch him grow old and die. We acknowledged early on that there were differences between humans and ourselves. Most notable is that we’re much more durable. We’re not immortal—far from it—just more resistant to disease and injury, quicker to heal. From this resilience comes our impressive longevity.

  Rather than dwelling on the inevitable, Sabela chooses to treasure her days with Dominick, trusting that his memory will comfort her in the long years after he is gone. Her experience nursing our aging father has prepared her for the reality that she will someday be Dominick’s caregiver as well.

  I, however, can’t help but notice every gray hair that appears on his head (or disappears with his receding hairline), and at times I am filled with sorrow for her future. She will not be the only one to grieve his loss—I have grown to love Dominick as a brother, and he is in many ways the son my father never had. But I know I cannot begin to approximate Sabela’s devotion.

  When I watch the two of them together, I do ache for a similar connection with someone. But until lately I hadn’t come across anyone who would sway me to surrender my fears. The thought of leaving myself vulnerable to a love that would inescapably end in sorrow—my sorrow—has been a sufficient deterrent to any pursuit of a similar relationship. Yet when I look at Eric, I can feel my courage building.