Wrapped in Rain(83)

I looked down the long hall and shoved my hands in my pockets. "This is where I keep some of my work."

She fingered several of the pictures and walked down the hall. She turned to me, mesmerized. "This is amazing. You did all this?"

I admit it. I was quite proud. "On this wall"-I leaned against the wall closest to the back of the house-"are the newspaper covers or features. And on this wall"-I pointed to the wall closest to the front of the house-"are all the magazine covers. And down there"-I pointed to the end of the hall where a bench seat had been built below the window-"are the biggies. Time, Geographic, Newsweek, People, even Southern Living."

She walked down the hall, letting her fingers gently touch and uncurl the yellowed and scrolled edges hanging on the walls. "You took all these?"

I nodded. "But for every good one you see, I took somewhere between a hundred and five hundred not-sogood ones." When she made it to the end of the hall, she sat down on the bench seat, crossed her legs, and gazed at the walls. The razor cut on her Achilles had healed over and her ankles were stubble-free.

"Tucker, this is phenomenal. You traveled to all these places?"

I nodded and looked up and down the hall, remembering.



She shook her head and looked at each one a second time. "It's too much. I can't take it all in. I have to come back later and study each one."

I stood and walked to my and Mutt's bedroom. "Suit yourself, but they're just a bunch of old pictures. Most are forgotten now." I waved a hand and pointed inside the door of our bedroom. "Haven't done much here."

She walked inside and ran her fingers along the bunk bed railings. The dusty rails were worn and scarred with everything from teeth marks to crayons to pocketknife carvings to dings from a baseball bat that I shouldn't have been swinging inside the house. She spotted two worn parallel lines next to the bed, about a hip's width apart, and she bent down, running her hands along the lines. "I had forgotten she spent so much time here."

Katie let her eyes survey the room. She walked to the window, looked out over the pasture, and said, "The view hasn't changed. The whole place just sprawls out before you like a fairy tale."

"Rex put us in this room because he knew it was practically impossible for us to climb out that window once he locked the door. The drop is about twenty-five feet and he'd never let our hair grow that long."

"He actually locked you in this room?"

I nodded.

"What had you done?"

I thought for a moment. "Breathe. And maybe take up too much space in the cosmos."

We walked out into the hall and beyond Rex's door. I walked right by and didn't say a word.

"You ever go in here?"

I shook my head.

She walked in as if invited. I stayed in the hall and leaned against the doorjamb. I hadn't walked back in that room since the fight, and I had no intention now. Katie walked over to the bed, now covered in dust, and looked around the room. I studied the floor and could still pick out the specks of bloodstains. If I looked real hard, I could see the shattered pieces of Miss Ella's teeth. And if I closed my eyes, I could see Rex standing over her with his fist raised.



"She give you that?"

Katie pointed to the small silver wedding ring, about the diameter of a penny, hanging on a thin silver chain around my neck. Evidently, when I had reached up to straighten a picture, it came out from underneath my shirt.

"You don't miss much."

"I'm sorry," she said, digging her hands into her sleeves and covering them up with the cuffs. "I saw it in Jacksonville too. I'm just curious."

Talking to Katie had grown easy. Almost like it used to be. Something that both comforted and terrified me. "The night Miss Ella died, she was ... in a lot of pain. I think even breathing was painful. The cancer was everywhere, and she could barely move without grimacing. Mose and I were sitting by the bed. I was reading Psalm 25 . . . and when I finished, she pulled this out from under the sheets and motioned for me to come closer. I leaned in and she hung it around my head. She said, `Child, I didn't raise you to live life dragging a casket. You don't need an anchor; you need a rudder.' She poked me in the chest-her arthritis had pretty well gnarled her fingers-and said, `Cut it loose. Bury it. It's just dead weight. You can't rake the rain, box up the sunshine, or plow the clouds, but you can love. And this'she tapped the ring on the chain-'will remind you that love is possible. George gave it to me, and now I'm giving it to you.'



"I knew it was time because the light in her eyes was fading. She said, `Help me down on the floor.' It wasn't any use arguing with her, so I reached under the sheets and Mose helped me lift her out. She had lost a lot of weight by then. I think she only weighed about eighty pounds. I set her on the floor, but she was too weak to kneel, so she just kind of sat back on her heels and leaned against the bed. I don't know where she got it, but she pulled a small vial of oil out of her robe pocket and said, `Come here.' I leaned closer and she poured the whole thing over my head and then rubbed it in. `Tucker, you listen to me,' she said. `You remember this. You sear it in this stubborn head of yours and remember what Mama Ella is telling you.' Then she poked me in the chest again. `Don't hate him. If you hate him, you lose and the devil wins. And we don't want that old devil winning.'