Wrapped in Rain(84)

"She tried to smile, but the pain was too much. It was hard for her to talk, and she wouldn't let me give her any more morphine. She said, `We want him to stay his miserable self in hell where it's hot.' She reached up, rubbed her fingers in the oil dripping off my head, placed her thumb on my head, and with every ounce of strength that remained, crossed me.

"The whisper grew more faint as the words left her lips: `You are the light of the world. So let your light shine before men. That it may reflect your Father. . .' Her eyes locked onto mine as she finished, `... who is in heaven.' Exhausted and breathing shallow, painful breaths, she pulled me down to her breast and squeezed me tight. The slowed, sporadic pounding of her heart scared me.

"Weak as she was, she lifted my chin with her finger and said, `Tucker, you won't understand this until you have a boy of your own, but listen close. The sins of the father are carried down to the son. There's nothing you can do to stop what's passed to you. You are going to wrestle with it until the day you die, whether you like it or not. The only choice is whether or not you pass them to your son. Stopping it is a choice you make.' She closed her eyes and breathed deep, then said, `Now, you look tired. Get some sleep."'



Katie tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth had filled up with tears.

"Mole cradled and guided her head as I lifted her back into bed, and she drifted off. About 2:30 a.m., she started humming and woke up. Her eyes were as crystal as the sun, and she looked right at me. `Tucker Rain,' she said. It was the first time she had ever called me that. `Don't you cry for me. This,' she said, tapping her bed, `is the greatest day. I'm getting new teeth, good eyes, no arthritis, no hemorrhoids, and finally, thank God! A good voice. I intend to use it too. I'm getting warmed up now.' She slipped her hand beneath mine and said, `Child, I'm going home to a permanent address that makes this place look like a shanty.' I started crying then because I knew what was happening. I said, `But, Miss Ella, I don't want . . .' `Shhhh,' she broke in, `I'm not long now. You listen to me. I'm going to be in heaven a long time before you get there, but I expect you to show up. You understand? It's up to you. I can't get you there. My praying is done. Every day that you get up, you got to lay that anger down. Lay it down and walk away. Then one day, you'll wake up and forget it's there. Only the remnant remains. An empty shell. If you don't, it'll eat you up and you'll rot like Rex. From the inside out.' She squeezed my hand, and her eyes closed. `Child,' she whispered, `love wins.' She placed her hand on my head and pulled me to her. `I love you, child. I'll miss you, but I'll be watching.' She squeezed my hand, I kissed her prickly, quivering lips, and she drifted off. A few minutes later she stopped breathing."



Tears were streaking down Katie's cheeks faster now as she held back the sobs. When I finished, they came bursting out. She sank to the floor and hid her face behind her knees and the bagginess of her sweatshirt. She tried to smile and shrug it off but couldn't talk for a minute. Finally, she caught her breath. "I'm sorry. It's just that ... it's just that ..." She shook her head and wiped her eyes again.

I looked off through the windows with a view of the orchards and pasture. "Not a day goes by that I don't hear her voice."

Katie looked out the window a few minutes. "What does she say about me?"

"She says you're a great mom with a fantastic boy. You ought to be proud."

"I remember watching her with you two. She was pretty good with boys." Katie walked around the room and stopped at the dresser where Rex set down his glass and emptied his pockets at night. "How did your dad get where he is? I mean, what happened?"

I looked at her, and a minute or two passed. I'm not sure why I answered honestly. "Rex started showing signs of both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's in his sixties. He met Mary Victoria, the lap dancer working the club downstairs, and pretty soon he was living on an all-liquid diet. In no time at all, she helped him lose all his money, or at least all the money he had told her about. Rex never told the whole truth to anyone. He started betting on horses, drinking around the clock, and pretty soon, three hundred million turned into ten million, which turned into thin air. Like most drunks, he turned his anger on her, and like most angry women associated with Rex, she turned the IRS on him. Pretty soon, they had confiscated his office, boxed up all his files, and were leading the horses out of the barn, except they couldn't take Waverly because it wasn't his. He had gifted it to Mutt and me years before. He had some offshore stuff, but that was a bit more difficult to trace, so that trail went cold. I found it a few years ago and had been using it to keep Mutt down at Spiraling Oaks." I scratched my head and shifted my weight. `By the time the illness really set in, Rex was too sick to understand that he was too heavily leveraged to fix it. In his heyday, everything he touched turned to gold, but he had lost that.



"Ten years ago, en route to Calcutta to cover Mother Teresa, my plane was taxiing down the runway when I read in the New York Times that Rex had been indicted by the IRS and at best he'd lose everything. At worst, he'd lose everything and go to jail. After three days in Calcutta, I and a couple other photo junkies were vying for a chance to catch Mother Teresa at work. You know, a shot of the saint leaning down like the good Samaritan to heal the bodies of the wounded. She walked out of one of her several orphanages, grabbed the hand of a sick and emaciated child, and of all people, turned to me. She looked up, studied my eyes, and said, `There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.'