Send Down the Rain(63)

I said nothing because I didn’t know what to say.

Tim cleared his throat, and I turned toward them. “Becca and Tim, I’d like you to meet Allie.”

Tim hopped down off the back of the flatbed and toweled off his hands. “This is Allie? Like . . . the Allie?”

I nodded. To her surprise, Tim hugged Allie and said the two of them had long wanted to meet her.

I asked, “How’d you find me?”

Allie held up the brochure and pointed at my picture in the background, then she slipped her hand into mine. “I need to ask you something, and I need an honest answer. Okay?”

I nodded. “I’ve only lied to you once in my life.”

“When?”

“When I told you I was going to California to outrun the war.”

“Did you really go?”

“Yes.”

“What about Suzy’s evidence? The fact that you have no record?”

“For me to tell you the secret of my life means I have to destroy someone else’s. And while part of me might wish that . . . I can’t do it.”

Allie’s eyes narrowed. “Bobby.”

I didn’t respond.

She shook her head. “But Suzy said you have no military record, and they have all kinds of stuff showing you were in California.”

I shrugged. “That wasn’t me.”

“How can you say that? They have your signature.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Allie pounded my chest. “It matters to me. You matter to me.”

“How’re Gabby and Diego?” I asked. “And Rosco?”

She shook her head. “Thick as thieves.” She paused. “For once and forever, I need you to tell me why you won’t tell the truth.”

“It won’t change the past.”

She clasped my face in her hands. “I’m not talking about changing our past, Joseph. I’m talking about changing our future.”

I searched for the words. “I told you I had an ulcer once.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“It was anger. Anger eating a hole in me.”

Allie clung to me. “Can you prove any of what you’re telling us?”

“Yes.”

“Will you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“For me to do what you’re asking is to go back to what I know, which is killing, and I won’t do that. Not anymore. Whatever life I would gain is not worth what it will cost.”

“But—”

“Allie—” I brushed her hair out of her face. “Anger, rage . . . they’re as real as you and me. They don’t have bodies like us, but they live . . . live in us. Take up residence in our soul. If I do what you’re asking, I let them out where they spill out across the world and spread to other people. But if I don’t . . . then they die with me. I take them to the grave. It’s the only way to win a war I’ve been almost fifty-four years fighting.”

“But what about me!” She clutched my shirt and pulled herself to me. “What about me?”

Becca wrapped an arm around me, and the four of us walked to the house, where we sat on the porch and Allie listened to me tell the story of the last year and then some. I guess I don’t need to tell you that she cried through much of it.

When I finished, she relayed the story of life on Cape San Blas. Manuel, Javier, Peter, and Victor had transferred most of the carnival and set it up across the street. Business was so good that they’d had to hire some friends from the trailer park. Bobby’s people had come through, and she’d been able to help them and their families navigate the path to citizenship. Catalina was almost single-handedly running the restaurant. The kids were in school. Rosco seemed happy enough, but often in the afternoons he’d stand on the porch and stare in the direction he last saw my truck. The Blue Tornado had prospered, the critical reviews were astounding, and my Corvette was lonely and waiting for my return.

“And you?” I asked.

She slipped her hand in mine. “I walk the beaches at night. Still holding my love.”

While we were watching the sun fall, Tim returned from the kitchen with the radio. “You two better listen to this.”

The distraught voice belonged to Suzy’s producer. “We’ll keep you posted throughout the night and tomorrow, but I’ve known Suzy a long time, through all the ups and downs. This started with a desire to find her father. That never happened. Then the Joseph Brooks debacle of last year.” A pause. “I don’t know if Suzy will ever return to the microphone. She’s alive, but . . . I just don’t know. I think we may have lost the one voice who made us believe.”

Tim turned off the radio and explained that Suzy had been found unresponsive at her Los Angeles home. An empty bottle of pills next to her. They’d gotten her to the hospital in time.

I sat quietly a long time. Eventually Allie asked me, “What’re you thinking?”

“I’m thinking how a forty-year-old war can still kill people.” I turned to her. “You in a hurry to get back?”

She spread her fingers inside mine. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.” She kissed me. “Ever.”