Only the Rain(44)

My plan for the morning was to spend some time with Emma, doing whatever my little Princess wanted to do, even if it meant sipping imaginary tea with her and Pooh Bear. Then I’d call Pops and ask him to come sit with her for an hour or so while I paid a visit to the hospital. So I set Emma up at the breakfast table with some French toast with sliced bananas and a cup of milk, and went off to grab a shower and shave.

Emma and Dani both know they aren’t supposed to answer the phone if it rings, or go to the door if somebody knocks. They know this. Which is why my heart jumped up into my throat when I stepped out of the shower and heard voices in the kitchen. I barely got the towel around my waist before busting into the kitchen like a crazy man.

I got to admit, seeing Cindy’s mother, Janice, sitting there at the table with Emma was a hell of a relief, even if Donnie was over at the counter, helping himself to a cup of coffee. Janice looked up at me and grinned. “Well aren’t you looking good this morning,” she said.

My first thought was that Emma was safe. My second thought was that I’d already told Donnie in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t welcome in my house. So I said to him, hoping to keep my voice calm enough not to scare Emma, “What are you doing here?”

He set the cup down and held up both hands. “I only dropped by for a second. There’s something I need to talk about with you.”

I pointed at the back door. “Outside.”

Janice said, “You going outside dressed like that?”

I was too angry to answer. I went into the pantry and out the back door and waited for Donnie to follow me.

The moment the door closed behind him I said, “What did I tell you?”

“I know what you said but this is for your own benefit. I’m worried about my daughter and those little girls.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know what those McClaine boys have against you,” he said, and before he could say another word I felt myself stepping up close to him, so close he fell back against the outside wall.

“Hold on!” he said. “I’m just delivering a message is all!”

“Then deliver it.”

“All I was told is, ‘He knows what he owes us.’ That’s all Phil said. And that he wants it back now.”

“What do I owe him?” I said. I’m standing there up against him, all but naked, barefoot in the grass. He’s maybe two inches taller than me in those cowboy boots he always wears, but I’m feeling so goddamn huge right then, so fiery hot and huge with rage even though every inch of my skin is bristling with goose bumps. It was unlike anything I ever felt over there with you, even in our worst moments. Over there I was almost always scared, straining to hear every noise and flicker of movement. But there in my backyard I felt, I don’t know . . . so hungry for violence I was shaking. Does that make any sense to you? Did you ever feel like that?

I’m ashamed to admit there was something, and I don’t use this word lightly, but something glorious about the anger and hatred I felt. God, I wanted to tear him to pieces. I wanted to rip him apart piece by piece until I was dripping with his blood.

“I told you,” he said, barely breathing now, and God how I loved how scared he looked at that moment. “I don’t know nothing about nothing. All I know is what he told me. You have something of his, he says, and he wants it back.”

“Or what?” I said.

“Huh?”

“What if I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about? Which means I can’t give him back whatever he thinks I owe him. What then?”

“Hell, Rusty,” he said, and that did it for me, that finally tripped the trigger, him calling me Rusty the way Pops sometimes did. My hand shot up and around his throat so fast and hard that his head banged back against the wall. Both his hands went to my wrist, trying to pull me off, but I knew I could kill him if I wanted to. And I wanted to, Spence. I wanted to pinch his head right off him.

“You ever call me that again,” I told him, “and it will be the last word you ever say.”

I stood there like that another five seconds or so, feeling how easy it would have been to crush his throat and be done with him. Then I let go and stepped back. “You have five seconds to get off my property,” I told him. “You don’t, I’m going to finish the job right now.”

He didn’t say a word. Just ducked away from me and hustled toward the street, coughing all the way.

I went inside and said to Janice, “Donnie’s waiting for you out on the sidewalk.”

Maybe it was the way I said it, I don’t know. Maybe I looked as monstrous and invincible to her as I felt. Anyway, she got up and kissed Emma goodbye and was out the door and gone.

I have never in my life felt an emotion like that one. Like I was the elephant, you know? All loaded and cocked to rape the living shit out of anybody who even dared look at me the wrong way.

And now I’m wishing you were here to tell me it was a good thing I felt that day. In fact I almost wish I was back over there with you right now, back there breathing sand every minute, working our way door to door, death waiting behind every wall and around every corner. I’d do every minute of that hell over again if I could, because if I could do that, I could come back home again in one piece, and that would change everything. I mean if there was only one single moment I could change, I got to be honest with you. As much as I wish I could see that big-toothed grin of yours again, and talk to you again in person the way we used to, I’m sorry to say I’d have to let you be. Because the moment I’d change is that wet-looking morning last summer when Cindy catches me staring out the kitchen window at a dawn sky filled with dark clouds, and she says to me, “You want me to get the girls up?” That’s the moment I’d have to redo, Spence. I’d give her the biggest smile in the world and say, “Yeah, babe. You mind?”