Only the Rain(39)

Cindy never said a word about the incident at the picnic until she came to bed that night. I was already in bed, stiff as a board underneath the cotton sheet. She came out of the bathroom wearing a full set of summer pajamas, which I knew right there was a bad sign. Plus she left the bathroom light on, then also turned on the table lamp on the nightstand. And tossed that sheet of paper down on my chest.

“You plan to tell me or what?” she said. “Cause if you’re not, you might as well get out of my bed right now.”

I took the paper and crumpled it up and dropped it off the side of the bed. Then I rolled toward her and pulled the covers back. “Turn the lights out and come lay down,” I said.

It took her a few seconds to move, but she finally did. She flicked off the bathroom light, then the table lamp. Then she climbed in, rolled onto her side and looked me square in the eyes. “Why’d you lie about having those boots?”

A long, slow breath came out of my mouth then. It felt like surrender, which I knew I had to do.

“Remember that day I got caught in the rain coming home from work?”

“What about it?”

“That was the day I found out the plant was closing. I had to take a new way home because of an accident on the main road. It was mostly farmland, second-growth timber, a few houses here and there . . .”

“And?”

“I’m taking it fairly easy in the rain because the roads are slick. And I pass this one house, out in the middle of nowhere. A little cottage is all it is. Some kind of mongrel dog chained up to the front porch. But there’s music blasting out of the house, I can hear it from the road. And there’s this woman in the yard. Turning circles in the mud and the rain. Dancing, I guess.”

“What kind of a woman?”

“That one at the picnic today. With the two guys.”

“So you stopped?”

“No! I mean I did, but only because she slipped in the mud and fell down flat on her back. So I slowed down and kept watching and she never got up. Never even moved. So yeah, I stopped. If she was hurt, you know, I couldn’t ride away and leave her lying there.”

“Was she hurt?”

“I really don’t know. She was high as a kite on something. I mean . . . she was outside dancing, and she was . . .”

“She was what, Russell?”

“She didn’t have any clothes on.”

“What!” she said.

I just nodded.

“What did you do?”

“I asked if she was okay, but I couldn’t understand much of what she said.”

“Did you call 911?”

“I should have. That’s what I should’ve done. But she was trying to get up then and said something about me carrying her inside.”

“I thought you couldn’t understand her.”

“Most of it I couldn’t. A word here and there is all. But she kept reaching up to me and saying what I thought was, ‘Take me inside. Take me inside.’ So I picked her up and carried her inside.”

“She was completely naked and you picked her up?”

“Sweetie, what was I supposed to do? Let her lay there hurt?”

“How did you pick her up?”

“One hand under her shoulders, one hand under her knees.”

“And then what?”

“Then I carried her inside.”

“Where inside?”

“The front room was like . . . nothing but a couple of chairs and a TV set. So I took a look in the nearest room and there was a mattress on the floor, so I laid her down on it.”

“Nothing but a mattress?”

“A single old mattress, that’s it. I kept asking if she was okay, if she wanted me to call anybody, but all she did was to keep smiling, you know? It didn’t seem like she was in any pain.”

“So you what? You left her there?”

“I honestly didn’t know what else to do. She seemed fine physically, other than being sky-high on something. And that house, I don’t know, it felt strange to me. It wasn’t a place people lived. So I’m thinking about you, I’m thinking about the girls. I’m thinking whatever this place is, I don’t want to be seen here. So yeah, I left. I got my ass out of there and back home to you.”

“And that’s it?” she said.

“That’s it. I swear.”

“It was your boot prints on the floor?”

“Probably.”

“So what do they care for? Those men. If that’s all that happened. They should be grateful to you. Not looking like they want to hurt somebody.”

“All I can figure is they came home and found her there, probably sleeping it off on the mattress, mud everywhere, some man’s boot prints leading into the room where she is, and they jumped to the wrong conclusions. I don’t know if you noticed or not, but she had a pretty good-size bruise on her face. Somebody had laid into her for some reason.”

Cindy was silent awhile, looking at me but not looking at me, if you know what I mean. Convincing herself to believe me, you know? And I want her to believe me, Spence. More than anything in the world I want that. Even though I’m sick to my stomach for not telling her the whole truth.

So finally she says, “So now what?”