The Light Through the Leaves(127)

“No.”

“You’re even more screwed up by all of this than I am! You know that, right? You’re a mess. You’re acting crazy. Are you aware of that?”

People in the restaurant were looking at them. She didn’t care. She wouldn’t let him go.

“Oh my god! Okay, I get the point. Unconditional love is so awesome. Now get off me.”

“Are you a train wreck?” she asked.

“No. I’m The Little Engine That Could. You can let me go.”

She let go. “What is The Little Engine That Could?”

“A book my grandfather used to read to Jasper and me. It sucked. Now get on your side of the table.”

She returned to her side.

“You need to back off,” he said seriously.

“Why?”

“Because what you’re doing just triggers the contrarian in me.”

“What am I doing?”

“Caring too much.”

“Do you really want me to care less?”

“Yes.”

She leaned across the table. “The day of the accident, I didn’t let you drown in that water, and I won’t let you drown now. I hardly knew you that day, but I cared. I cared a lot whether you lived or died. You’re my brother, and you’re my friend. You can be as contrarian and mean to me as you want, but I’m still going to care.”

“What if I throw you into an alligator pit?”

“You already did that.”

He laughed. “Were there alligators that day? Did you see any?”

“I was too busy saving our lives to notice. But Ellis said there are a lot in that place.”

“Would you have wrestled an alligator for me?”

“Yes.”

“Would you battle Godzilla for me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who Godzilla is?”

“No.”

“You see? You really don’t know what you’re getting into with me.”

Maybe she didn’t. Who could know their future with a person they cared about? And even if they did somehow find out something bad was going to happen with that person, would they give up on them? Let them suffer alone? Love couldn’t be removed like a thorn from a thumb.



Three days later, the hurricane hit and River’s Saturday AA meeting was canceled. Good thing, because Ellis and Maxine needed their help getting nursery plants into shelter. Overnight, the storm’s path had changed. It would skirt the eastern coast as it traveled northward, bringing much stronger winds inland than at first predicted. There was a possibility it would make landfall over the central part of the peninsula. Ellis said if that happened, the wind could cause damage to the nursery.

The rain and wind started late in the morning. Raven was soaked. And exhausted. She’d moved a lot of plants into the greenhouse and other protected parts of the nursery. Longleaf pine. Saw palmetto. Swamp milkweed. She pushed a fire bush toward River while she picked up a pot of grass with her favorite name. Fakahatchee.

“Look at that,” River said.

She looked up at huge billows of gray and black clouds roiling in the eastern sky.

“It looks kind of like a funnel starting, doesn’t it? Mom said hurricanes can make tornadoes.”

The churning dark clouds looked enraged. Raven wondered what Mama would have thought of that sky. Would she see spirits in the clouds? Would she fear their fury? Raven had begun to doubt the spirits. She had felt them gradually leaving her since the day she’d blamed them for nearly killing her brother. Their disappearance hurt, made her feel terribly alone even when she was with her family. Mama had said that would happen if she lived in the outer world.

A slippery sensation stirred in her belly. She put her hand there, down low, not on her stomach. It happened again. As if a fish were swimming around inside her.

“Are you okay?” River asked.

The little creature inside her moved again. She pressed both hands on it. Rain driven by the wind pelted her face. River couldn’t see her tears.

But Maxine stared at her. As if she knew. She often gazed intently at Raven like that. She came to Raven, put her hands on her arms, looked into her eyes.

“What’s going on?” River said.

Maxine nodded toward the house to say he and Raven should go back. She made more gestures, indicating they had done enough. They should go home.

Ellis came over. “Yes, you two should go,” she said. “Get a hot shower before we lose power.”

“You’ll for sure lose power?” River asked.

“In these rural areas, trees fall on the power lines in almost every big storm. And with a hurricane, it could be out for days, even weeks.”

“We won’t have water?”

“The pump runs on electricity, but Maxine will hook it up to a generator if we have a long power outage. Those will be cold showers, though. The water heater will go down.”

“Cold showers?” River said. “No way.” He jogged down to the barn house.

“Go on. We’re about done,” Ellis told Raven. “Thank you for your help.”

Raven walked into the blowing rain. The tops of the oaks tossed madly in another gust. Her wet hair whipped her face, but she couldn’t feel it. The wildness of the earth didn’t touch her. She was insensible to it all.