Wrapped in Rain(53)

She took off her shoes and propped her feet up on the dashboard, staring out the passenger window. A BandAid wrapped around the back of her ankle. "Cut yourself shaving?"

"Yeah." She pulled it back and checked the cut. "I'm lucky I didn't sever an artery. I went through two razors cutting through a rain forest." The ability to poke fun at herself-that sounded like Katie.



Minutes passed with me keeping my eyes on the road and my mind elsewhere. She started twirling her hair and leaned her head back against the headrest. I didn't ask, but if I had to guess, I'd say she was thinking about Trevor and just how long it would take him to find the Volvo. As we drove into Jacksonville, the sun came up through the windshield.

Due to a wreck, traffic was backed up to 1-295. Katie had to make a stop at the rest area, so I pulled over and let her run in. Jase was still sleeping soundly in the backseat, curled up inside the plaid fleece blanket with his stable of stuffed animals. I sat in silence, waiting on Katie, tapping the steering wheel, glancing back at Jase, and wondering how long it'd been since I slept that soundly.

Katie walked around the secrecy wall and headed for the truck via the soda machine. With a Diet Coke in her hand, she sat sideways in the seat, slid one leg underneath the other, and said, "You were going to tell me about your dad."

"My dad?"

Katie nodded.

"Oh yes, my dad."

She pointed to her eye and said, "I know a little bit about people who lie to themselves when their loved ones are violent."

I took a deep breath, checked to make sure Jase was still sleeping, and wondered how much of this story to tell. "You know some of the story. He was still pretty rough on us after you left." I rubbed my chin. "Miss Ella used to say his vigor was in his liquor, and when he got to the bottom of about his fifth glass, he found it. And usually a lot of it."



Another glance at Jase and I continued. "Mutt got hit on his bicycle riding home one day. Rex found out about it and showed up at the house that night. He was in a bad place. Woke Miss Ella, and by the time Mutt and I heard the screaming and could get to her, he had already beat her unconscious and left. She was lying on her front porch, her nightgown was spotted red, mostly from her face, and her mouth was all cut up 'cause he had broken about eight of her teeth. He walked off and left her there, so we ran around the back of the house and waited until he got inside. Then we drug her off the porch and into her house. The sight of the whole thing really got to Mutt. He kept looking at her mouth and turning his head because her face was swelling pretty bad. I phoned Mose, he came running, and she woke up a few minutes later. She was in a lot of pain but tried not to let us know it. Rex had also broken a few of her ribs, which we found out later. When the swelling had gone down, the dentist took out most of her front teeth because the breaks were too high and too many." I shook my head. "Her dentures arrived about two weeks later. She never liked them, but they were better than the alternative.

"Mose kept a pretty close watch on Miss Ella, and for eight years, Rex didn't lay a hand on her. When I was a senior, I came home from baseball practice, grabbed the milk jug out of the fridge, and heard Rex scream and glass break upstairs. Nobody needed to tell me. I remember feeling my metal baseball spikes digging deep grooves in the wood as I ran across the wooden floor of the kitchen. I threw open the closet door and grabbed the first thing I saw. A gold-inlaid, field-grade Greener, twelvegauge. Rex's favorite. I picked two high-brass number fives out of a box, broke open the barrel, and flew up the stairs, three at a time. I hit the landing, ran down to Rex's room, and found him down on one knee just beating her, over and over and ..." I swallowed and breathed deeply. `Blood, cuts, and teeth covered his fist. She was long-since unconscious and just hanging from his hand like a rag doll. He'd cock his right hand and then, well ... I remember hearing her cheekbone crack when lie hit her. Rex's face was beet red, the veins in his neck were about to burst, and his eyes had been bloodshot for a week. He was screaming something about her being an ignorant ..." I faded off. A minute passed. "She lay crumpled on the floor below him, one eye disfigured and her dentures scattered in pieces on the floor.



"Rex saw me and smiled his glazed-over, twelve-hour, unfocused smirk. I took three steps, grabbed him by the throat, picked him up on his toes, and shoved that barrel six inches down his throat. When I did, his front teeth just shattered and. . . "

I looked far down the road, beyond where my headlights lit it. Katie sat quietly beside me. I glanced back at Jase to make sure he was still sleeping and continued with my story. "For the first time in my life, I saw something I had never seen before. Rex was afraid of me."

I took a deep breath, noticed my white knuckles, and eased my grip on the steering wheel. "My left hand was around his throat, cutting off his air supply, and the short eighteen-inch barrel sticking out of my right was blocking it. `Go ahead, pull it,' he managed around the blood and steel. I slipped my finger inside the trigger guard and felt a tug on my ankle. Miss Ella had crawled over, the floor behind her smeared red. `Tucker, he's not worth it.' She choked and I heard a gurgle deep within her chest. `Evil won't die when you pull the trigger. It'll wander the earth and settle on you, snuffing out your light forever.'



"I rammed the barrel in further, cutting off his air supply completely. Rex's face turned blue, his hands gripped the red velvet chair, and his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head. That's when I started screaming ..." I glanced at Jase again and dropped my voice to a low whisper. "`I love that woman! I love her more than you love your liquor. More than life itself. You ever touch her again ... and I'll pull this blasted trigger.' Either from the liquor or the lack of oxygen, Rex passed out. I let go, threw him against the wall, and he crumpled against the baseboard. I broke the breech, threw the shells across the room, and tossed the shotgun on the bed.