Wrapped in Rain(104)

Then his hand moved. We leaned closer and he moaned at us, but we couldn't hear him because of the lunatic screaming from the eight speakers that surrounded him. Bryce and I stood in silence, hiding behind one another while a crowd of neighbors gathered around to make sure we weren't hurt, and waited for the paramedics. We formed a circle of eager spectators, but nobody approached the car and absolutely nobody touched the man. He lay there alone, bleeding, moaning, connected to two legs that seemed twisted into the floorboard.

Two doors down, my mom had heard the crash. She flew out the front door, lifting her apron over her head, throwing it on the sidewalk, and then bounding down River Road, hiking her skirt just above her knees. I remember watching her knees float up and down like two white pistons as she ran down the middle of the street. She saw us, our safety registered somewhere in her brain, and then she eyed the car. Without even a break in her step, she elbowed her way through the crowd, knelt next to the car, and laid the man's bloody hand in hers. With her other hand, she reached in, placing it either on his leg or the steering wheel. Then, right there in front of God and everybody, she started praying.

My mom can't pray without crying. As soon as she closes her eyes, she's a soaking wet mess, so as she bowed her head, the tears started dripping off her nose. As they did, his head bobbed her way. His eyes were jumping all over the place and never did seem to focus, but Mom never skipped a beat. While she dripped tears, he muttered something only she could hear, and his fingers squeezed around hers.

I think God was listening too, because He turned off that radio. And when He did, it got pin-drop quiet except for Mom. I've had some twenty years to think about it, and I'm pretty sure it was God, because neither the driver nor Mom ever touched the power button. Maybe God just got tired of listening to it.



It struck me then and it strikes me now that when my mom hit her knees, she towered above the rest of us. Sometimes when I think of her in my mind, even though she's still very much alive, the picture I see is the one of her reaching into that car.

I think that was the first glimpse I'd ever had of Miss Ella.

Since then, there've been many: one night-maybe I was eight or nine-I had a high fever and was, at least I thought, pretty close to dying. I looked up from the bucket and saw Mom kneeling at the steps that climbed up into my room. Now, since I'm setting my mom up to be such a saint, don't think my dad didn't pray. He did, and still does, but he was holding the bucket and was focused on catching everything flying out of me. There was the day she took Lewis and me to the hospital and parked us below the sign that read "Do not leave kids unattended" before walking into Roosevelt's room and holding his hand because he was close to dying. (He didn't die either.) There was the time my sister got attacked by the German shepherd on Halloween night, the time a kid I had never seen before and would never see again stole my bicycle right out from under me, and then there was the day that I came home from college, banged up, broken, never able to play football again, and she met me at the foot of my bed, said, "Hey, Squee," and prayed like I'd never heard her before. I could go on.

Anyone who knew me as a kid will tell you that I had a pretty good dose of the devil in me. Knowing this, my parents fought back-they reached in, grabbed my bloody hand, and prayed. I don't ever remember a time in my house when bedtime didn't begin with prayers. My folks knelt by my bed, or got in it with me, every night of my life. And even when they stood, kissed me, and turned out the light, I never slept alone.



Because God has a pretty good sense of humor, each of our three boys got the same dose-they come by it honestly. Like my folks, Christy and I are reaching in and fighting back-growing calluses on our knees and not our knuckles.

Sometimes, I wonder how different my life would be had they not. Would I be here at this computer with my wife and three boys tucked in snug down the hall? Maybe locked up in a prison cell far from home? Or worse yet, lying cold and still beneath a marble tombstone painted with my mom's tears? Fact is, they did, and I'm here. The knee-width, parallel lines at the foot of my bed were real, and because of that-and the brass plumb in my mom's apron pocket-I'll never know.