Only the Rain(27)

Then there’s a second knock, even louder, and I get up and go creeping out into the kitchen, thinking I’ll take a quick peek out the pantry door and if I don’t like what I see I’ll make a mad dash to the garage and grab the revolver from my saddlebag. I mean I’m ready to do it. I’ve got two little girls asleep in their tent. I’ll do whatever I have to do.

But a glance out the glass in the pantry door is all I need. It’s Janice standing out there, Cindy’s mother. Donnie’s standing behind Janice and smoking a cigarette, looking fairly pleased with himself, like he sold some schmuck a used car for twice its actual value. Janice is smiling too, but with a lot less conviction than Donnie. She’s wearing way too much makeup, but not enough to hide that sort of dazed and rumpled look she always has. Pops would say she looks like she’s been rode hard and put away wet.

I open the door a crack and say to Donnie, “You want to blow that smoke away from the door?”

Janice turns to him and says, “Put it out, Donnie, okay?” He gives me a big grin, sucks in another lungful, drops the butt down to the cement slab and grinds it out with his foot. Then he turns away from me and blows the smoke out his mouth.

Janice says, “We came to check on the girls, honey. How are my babies doing?”

“They’re sleeping right now,” I tell her. “Did Cindy call you?”

“We thought you could maybe use a hand with the girls.”

It didn’t sound at all like Cindy to ask her mother to come help me out. I’d called her after we left the doctor’s office, told her about the tonsillectomy in our future, but it was a short conversation because she was working behind her teller’s window. About an hour after that I got a text from her that said, You need anything? Dani okay? And I texted back, Everything fine. Going camping in the living room.

And then it hit me. Janice is one of those people who goes to the doctor twice a week or so to get whatever kind of prescription she can wangle. I’m fairly certain she patronizes a couple of different doctors and a couple of different pharmacies. Today was probably her day for the Med Express.

I told her, “We’re good, thanks. I’d rather not disturb their nap.”

“Can’t we come in and take a peek at them? It’s been a long time since Donnie’s even seen them.”

“I bet they’ve grown like weeds,” he said.

I didn’t give him any reaction, didn’t even turn my eyes to him. To Janice I say, “Can I talk to you a minute?” And I hold the door open just enough that she can squeeze inside. The second she’s over the threshold I close the door behind her.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she says.

“Look. Cindy doesn’t want him anywhere near this place. She told me that straight out.”

She clicked her tongue. “I wish I knew what in the world she has against him. He’s her father, for God’s sake.”

I said nothing to that, so she looked up at me and asked, “Why is she so mad at him all the time?”

“You’d know that better than me,” I said.

She scowled and shook her head, as if the whole situation was beyond her comprehension. “He used to be overly critical sometimes, I know. But he’s not that way anymore.”

“I think maybe the problem was bigger than that.”

“There’s nothing else to it,” she said. “She makes things up, is all. She always has.”

“I’ve never known her to make anything up.”

“Well she’s going to have to get used to this situation. He’s going to be around now. He’s part of the family.”

“Janice,” I told her. “Let me put it to you this way. You’re always welcome here. But if he so much as ever sets foot inside this house again, I’m going to punch him in the face.”

That was probably the first time all morning her eyes came all the way open. Then she blinked at me a couple times. I sort of felt bad when she started to tear up, because I’m not usually the kind of guy who says things so bluntly. But then she turned away and jerked open the door and stepped out to him, giving him just enough time to look at me with a hurt and puzzled expression on his face before she took him by the arm and yanked him around.



That evening, my camping buddies and me picked up Cindy at the bank. I could tell by the way she came striding across the parking lot that she was seriously ticked off about something. She glared at me when she climbed in, then turned off the look long enough to smile at the girls in the seat behind us and ask, “My baby girls doing okay?” After she talked to the girls a minute or two, she hit me with that glare again.

“So how was your day?” I asked her as I was pulling out into the traffic.

“I need to stop at the store and get some Jell-O,” she said.

“I think there’s a couple boxes in the cupboard,” I told her.

“You think so or you know so?”

I figured she was either pissed at me for threatening to punch her father, or because she found out that the plant was closing. The first option seemed highly unlikely. She was more likely to be pissed because I didn’t punch him. Which left the second option.

For the rest of the ride home I kept my mouth shut and did what I was told.

Back at the house, she got the girls settled in front of the TV with a couple of pudding cups, then she said to me, “I want to talk to you in the garage.”