Wrapped in Rain(26)
I shook my head and drove the three miles to Waverly Hall, where the rain had killed the power. It was raining so hard now that I had to lean forward just to see the edges of the road. I drove around back to Miss Ella's house, carried the boy onto the porch, handed him to his mother, and then returned for the bags and the bike. The wind and rain were deafening, and both beat against the tin roof like a drum. I unlocked the door, and we stepped inside the single-room cottage, where it was no less quiet. The woman carried her son through the door, set him on the couch, and kept her face hidden in the shadows, behind her sweatshirt and beneath her hat. I searched for towels and a few candles. Finding both, I handed her one and lit the other. I placed the candle on the table and, for the first time, got a good look at her face. It took me a moment, and she had grown up, but there was no mistake. Not that face. The past flooded back, slammed me in the chest, and I took a step backwards.
"Katie?"
Her first instinct was to bury her face farther behind the hood, but seeing my eyes, she picked up the candle and held it closer to my face like she was studying hieroglyphics on a dark and ancient tunnel wall. She looked past the suntan, the wrinkles around my eyes, the mud from the ditch, the wet hair stuck to my face, and the three-day beard. Somewhere in there, the lightbulb clicked on.
Her eyes grew wide, and she breathed in quick and short. "Tucker?"
Candlelight danced across our rain-soaked faces while the silence perched on our shoulders and screamed in our ears. She stepped forward, looked closer, and let out a sigh.
"Tucker, I'm sorry. I didn't know..." A tremble of relief rippled through her body like a wave. It left her limp, leaning on her son and breathing deeply. "Oh, Tucker."
There, in that sigh, I heard the heart of a girl I once knew and the echo of a woman's voice filled with fear.
Chapter 8
IT WAS THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER BREAK. MUTT AND I were nine and Katie a year younger, but with few playmates within a few miles, age, grade, and gender mattered little.
Miss Ella woke us with the sun, spread our clothes at the end of the bed, and disappeared downstairs to the smell of pancakes and bacon. Katie got the top bunk, and Mutt and I shared the bottom-meaning I spent the night getting kicked in the face. Mutt slept in fits, wrestling with his sheets, tossing and turning, often placing his head where his feet should have been. Worst of all, he ground his teeth. He ground them so hard, he wore grooves in his teeth and later required four crowns.
My hat and two-holster belt were hanging on the post and my boots placed beneath the bed, but it was summer and I seldom wore shoes when the heat and Miss Ellalet me get away with it. I jabbed Mutt in the stomach and he moaned. Between the two of us, I was the morning person. Always have been. He crawled out, yawned, and strapped on his sword and eye patch. Katie climbed down the ladder, stepped off the top bunk, and gently slipped into the glittery wings and tinfoil crown she had worn all summer. Our closest neighbor, Katie only lived a mile away, and sleepovers were a regular occurrence.
"Mutt," I said, strapping on my holster, "you got to quit eating those cheese puffs."
"Yeah," Katie chimed in while straightening her crown, no more cheese puffs for you." She held her nose and said, "Phew!"
"What?" Mutt rubbed his eyes and tried to act like he didn't know what we were talking about.
"You know what I'm talking about," I said, tying the red bandanna around my neck. "You've been gassing me out of here all night. I almost suffocated under those sheets. I'm glad Rex didn't walk in and light a match."
"Yeah," Katie said, jumping up and down and looking over each shoulder at her wings, "and then it floated up to me." We ran downstairs like a herd of tiny buffalo, wielding shiny six-shooters, plastic swords, and glittery wings. Breakfast sat on the table, steaming hot.
Miss Ella stood at the sink, drying plates, being careful not to chip the edges. Rex didn't know the first thing about fine china, but he had a cabinet full of it. Each plate was worth more than Miss Ella made in a week, but he gave us no other option. When she stacked the last plate in the cabinet, she dried her hands on her apron and turned to inspect the table and its. The three of us had just finished breakfast and sat, backs straight, plates clean, hands folded, and forks resting at three o'clock. A picture of polish and respectability. You'd have thought Gloria Vanderbilt had come to Clopton.
Our charade had to do with one thing-we wanted out of that house. The world was outside and we wanted at it. If it meant putting our forks at three o'clock, sticking them in our ears, sucking on a lemon, or eating broccoli, we'd have done it and asked for more.
After a minute of eyeing the table, Miss Ella noddedthe final word. We knew she didn't spend all that time cooking breakfast just so we could waste it, so we devoured it in short order. I saw the permission on her face, said, "Thank you, Miss Ella," pulled my hat down tight over my eyes, and almost broke the screen door trying to get it open.
Katie hopped off her chair and made her usual detour through the living room and by the piano. She played a few notes from some dead, white-wigged composer, made Miss Ella smile, and then flapped her wings off the back porch. Katie's mom was a music teacher who taught lessons in their home. So morning to night, and often well past it, somebody was always playing the piano in her house. Even at age ten, Katie had a noticeable gift. She could play most anything, and while she could read music with proficiency, she seldom needed to. Her ear could pick up a key or melody and then her mind would translate it down through her fingers. She was no child prodigy, but her fingers danced across the keyboard like a company of ballerinas with the New York Ballet. She'd climb onto the bench, her feet dangling six inches off the ground, back straight, chin high, arms poised. A picture of strength and grace.