Wrapped in Rain(3)

The fact that her back was turned meant absolutely nothing. Hidden behind that wiry and self-cut black-andgray hair were two beady little brown eyes that saw everything that happened and even some things that didn't. The eyes on the front of her head were kind and gentle, but the ones in the back of her head were always catching me doing something wrong. I used to think if I could catch her asleep, I'd tiptoe over and start picking through the back of her hair to find them. My problem was that even if I got the shower cap off, I knew that as soon as I peeled away the hair and found the eyelids, those beady little things would open and burn a hole in my soul. One second I'd be flesh and blood-breathing, curious, licking my lips, my fingertips touching her scalp, and my whole life before me-and the next second I'd be-poof.a column of smoke rising up out of my shoes.



I let myself back down onto the bucket, lightly tapped the window with the handle of my baseball bat, and whispered, "Miss Ella." Itwas a cold night, and my breath looked like Rex's cigar smoke.

I looked up and waited as the cold crept through the pores in my pajamas. While I danced atop the mop bucket, she wrapped a tattered shawl tight around her shoulders and lifted the window. Seeing me, she reached through and pulled me up-all fifty-two pounds. I know that because one week prior she had taken me for my fiveyear checkup, and when Moses put me on the scale, Miss Ella commented, "Fifty-two pounds? Child, you weigh half as much as me."

She shut the window and knelt down. "Tucker, what are you doing out of your bed? You know what time it is?"

I shook my head. She took off my hat, unbuckled my holster, and hung them both on her bedposts. "You're going to catch your death out here. Come here." We sat down in her rocker in front of the fireplace, which was little more than red embers. She threw on a few pieces of light kindling and then began rocking quietly, warming my arms with her hands. The only sound was the slow rhythm of the rocker and the pounding in my chest. After a few minutes, she pushed the hair out of my eyes and said, "What's wrong, child?"

"My stomach hurts."

She nodded and combed my hair with her fingers, which smelled like Cornhuskers lotion. "You going to throw up or need to go to the bathroom?"

I shook my head.

"Couldn't sleep?"

I nodded.



"You scared?"

I nodded a third time and tried to wipe the tear away with my sleeve, but she beat me to it. She snugged her arms about me tighter and said, "You want to tell me about it?"

I shook my head and sniffled. She pulled me back toward her warm, sagging bosom and hummed in rhythm with the rocker. That was the safest place on earth.

She put her hand on my tummy and listened like a doctor for a heartbeat. After a few seconds, she nodded affirmatively, grabbed a blanket, and wrapped me tight. "Tucker, that hurting spot is your people place."

My eyebrows lifted. "My what?"

"Your people place."

"What's it do?"

"It's like your own built-in treasure box."

I looked at my stomach. "Is there money in it?"

She shook her head and smiled. "No, no money. It holds people. People you love and those that love you. It feels good when it's full and hurts when it's empty. Right now it's getting bigger. Kind of like the growing pains you sometimes feel in your shins and ankles." She put her hand over my belly button and said, "It's sort of packed in there behind your belly button."

"How'd it get there?"

"God put it there."

"Does everybody have one?"

"Yes."

"Even you?"

"Even me," she whispered.

I looked at her stomach. "Can I see?"

"Oh, you can't see it. It's invisible."

"Then how do we know it's real?" I asked.

"Well"-she thought for a minute-"it's kind of like this fire here. You can't actually see the heat coming off those coals, but you can feel it. And the closer you get to the heat, the less you doubt the fire."



"Who's in your tummy?" I asked.

She pulled me back to her chest, and the rocker creaked under our weight. "Let's see." She put my hand on her stomach and said, "Well, you. And George." George was her husband who had died about six months before she answered Rex's ad. She didn't talk about him much, but his picture was sitting above its on the mantel. "And Mose." She moved her hand again. "My mom, my dad, all my brothers and sisters. People like that."

"But all those people are dead except me and Mose."

`Just 'cause somebody dies doesn't mean they leave you." She gently turned my chin toward hers and said, "Tucker, love doesn't die like people."

"Who's in my dad's stomach?"

"Well ... " She paused for a minute and then decided to tell me something pretty close to the truth. `Jack Daniels, mostly."

"How come you don't fill yours with Mr. Daniels?"

She laughed. "For starters, I don't like the taste of him. And secondly, I want to fill mine with something I only have to swallow once. If you drink Mr. Daniels, he'll leave you thirsty. You have to drink him all day and then every night, and I don't have time for all that foolishness."