Only the Rain(33)
And with Cindy it was those weekend afternoons when she was pregnant with Dani. She was supposed to stay in bed as much as possible, so I wore out my shoes going back and forth to the library for her. And I remembered how her eyes would light up when I’d come home and dump a load of books down beside her, and then she’d grab one and start reading out loud, and most times I’d fall asleep there lying up against her, the same way the girls do with me, and I’d be thinking as I drifted off how peaceful and sweet our lives together had become.
Anyway, I went home that night with books for everybody. Picture books for Emma and Easy Readers for Dani and a couple of Lemony Snicket books for me to read to them. For Cindy I got a boxed set of paperbacks. We had watched all of those movies about the girl who loves a vampire and a werewolf, and after every one we had the same friendly argument, with me saying how stupid it was to choose a white-skinned soulless dude over a hunky werewolf, and Cindy saying that the pale guy was so tragic and damned that of course the girl would love him better.
Dani and Emma squealed and hugged me when they saw the books, and at first Cindy’s eyes lit up like they used to but then they went dark again and she stood there looking at me until the girls went running off to the living room with their presents.
I said, “You can exchange them if you want to. I know we already saw the movies, so you know how everything ends. I didn’t know what else you might like.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “Today was your last day of work. We don’t have any idea how we’re going to pay our bills, and you spend what, a hundred dollars or more on books?”
“Baby, a hundred dollars isn’t going to make any difference one way or the other.”
“A hundred dollars is four bags of groceries,” she said.
“I wanted to do something to cheer you up is all.”
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate it,” she said.
“But it doesn’t cheer you up, does it?”
“We can’t eat books, Russell. We can’t pay a doctor’s bill with books.”
I never intended to show her the rest I’d brought home, but at the time it seemed like I should. “I forgot something,” I said, and then I went back to the garage and then back to her carrying a wad of twenties and fifties in my hand. I laid it on the table beside her empty plate. She just stood there staring at it, and then after a while she looked up and stared at me.
“That’s my termination bonus,” I told her. “It was a thousand dollars until I bought the books.”
“Really?” she said, and then the tears came into her eyes and she started crying and I stepped up and put my arms around her and held her tight against me.
“I’m sorry I’m so afraid,” she said, and she was shivering in my arms. “I know you’ll do anything to take care of us. I know you will.”
I stroked her hair and held her, and when she was ready she pulled away and scooped up the money and stuffed it into the rooster cookie jar with the money she had been saving for Dani’s school lunches and such. Then she went to the oven and looked in at the tuna noodle casserole she’d made.
“Can you tell the girls to go wash their hands?” she said. Then, a second later, “Wait. Did you know you were getting that bonus?”
“Didn’t have a clue,” I told her.
That night I read for a half hour to the girls, and when I went into our bedroom Cindy was sitting there in bed reading the first book from her set. I showered and brushed and then slid in beside her. She reached out and squeezed my hand but kept right on reading.
“Read to me,” I said, and she said, “Really?”
“Like you used to,” I told her. “I miss that.”
I didn’t care about the words but only the sound of her voice, the way it reminded me of Gee and my mom when I was little. And after a while I had to turn my face to the wall, but I couldn’t bear to let go of her hand.
What happened to the next day, Sunday, I can’t really say. It’s pretty much gone from my memory. A guy loses his job and it’s like, Who am I now? What’s my definition now? Sure, I’m still a father and husband, but part of that definition, a big part, is being a good provider for the family. Losing your job, even when you know it’s coming, is like suddenly having your legs cut off. I guess I went through all the motions that day with my head in a fog, not really knowing who I was or what I was going to do next or how I was going to get that part of my definition back. Especially now that another definition, one I never wanted, the one called thief, was sucking all the energy from me. I mean literally sucking me dry.
The next morning I woke up gasping for air, though I didn’t know why. Couldn’t remember if I’d been having a bad dream or not. But I woke up in a panic with my heart racing a mile a minute, beating hard against my chest, thumping in my temples the way it used to when we were moving door to door against those mud walls. It was the open doorways that scared me the most, the ones that didn’t have to be yanked open before a gun barrel would show itself. A man could stand in those shadows and never be seen, not a ripple of movement until you saw the muzzle flash itself, by which time it’s already way too late.
Anyway, that’s how I woke up Monday morning, out of breath, heart beating like an old generator in those last two seconds before it runs out of gas, like it knows it’s the last gulp of fumes it’s ever going to get. The air was gray and warm and Cindy was sleeping with her mouth close to my shoulder, her little puffs of breath hitting my skin like ice on a raw nerve.