Wrapped in Rain(89)

That's when the sound reached me.

Notes from Rex's grand. They filtered down through the house and lifted me out of the cellar. I walked into the den looking like I'd been shot with grape puree and found Katie sitting at the piano, singing through her fingertips. I don't know who or what she was playing, but next to Miss Ella's voice, it was the most beautiful sound to ever fill our house. Mutt walked in holding a funny-looking wrench, lifted the lid of the piano, and leaned in, listening. Every few seconds, he'd reach across the strings and tighten or loosen one just as calmly as if he were adjusting a carburetor. Mutt sat next to Katie on the bench and watched her fingers dance atop the keys. I set the bat in the corner, sat on the floor, and picked the glass from my hair, tasting the bitter wine on my lips. It stung the cuts on my face, and its acrid taste burned my throat.



Katie played until the first hint of morning lit the window. I don't know how many pieces. Maybe a hundred. All from memory. Every few moments Mutt would stand, walk around the piano, tinker with a string, and then sit back down next to Katie. He in his striped polyester suit, her in silk pajamas, and me in grapes, glass, balsam splinters, bitterness, and beauty.





Chapter 40


MIDMORNING, I STOOD WITH WET HAIR, WRAPPED IN A towel, and pouring a cup of coffee when Mutt walked through the kitchen carrying a chain saw in one hand and a sledgehammer in the other. Yes, he piqued my curiosity, but given the last twenty-four hours, anything was possible.

"Good morning," I said, but Mutt was gone. Entrenched in his own world, he had checked out and didn't acknowledge me. His face was pointed out over his plodding feet like a man walking a very big dog. I walked downstairs and began dressing when I heard the first crash.

To be honest, I didn't care if he destroyed the entire house. Any change would be an improvement. I will say, though, that I climbed the stairs hoping Mutt was being constructive with his destruction rather than just plain destructive.

I nursed my coffee and watched from the door while Mutt struggled to shove Rex's dresser through the window. He pushed it onto the ledge, slid it halfway through, and with a single finger, tipped it out the window and watched it fall, crashing into a dozen pieces onto the marble and granite porch below. He pulled his safety glasses over his eyes, cranked the chain saw, cut Rex's bed in two, and sent it to a violent and glorious granite death. Next, he hip-tossed the remains of the rolltop desk through the window and followed it with a Frisbee throw of the now faceless portrait hanging above the mantel. He dislodged the mantel with one strong whack from the sledgehammer, ripped the bedroom door off its hinges, and flung both onto the pile below. Having emptied the room, Mutt picked up his tools, nodded at me, walked outside, and began piling up the splintered furniture on a little section of grass at the foot of the porch. Glue sauntered across the pasture and stuck his head over the fence with curiosity. As did Jase and Katie, who were sitting on the porch by then, watching and listening to the fireworks. Mose mucked Glue's stall with a look on his face that told me he'd been expecting this. It also told me he was enjoying it.



Mutt turned the barn inside out looking for kerosene but found none.

I raised a finger. "I've got just the thing." I fetched Whitey's two jugs from beneath my bed, and Mutt emptied both onto the pile. "You'd better stand back," I said to Jase and Katie. He threw on a match, the white lightning sparked, and flame erupted and climbed twenty feet into the air, sending a black plume upward as it burned off the glue and fabric.

Mutt walked into the kitchen, washed his hands, grabbed a box of popsicles from the freezer, pulled out a banana-flavored one, and peeled off the paper. With half the popsicle sticking out of his mouth, he offered the box to me. I lifted my coffee cup and shook my head. He pointed the end of his popsicle at me and said, "I don't understand why anyone would eat any flavor other than banana." We watched as the flames licked the bottom of Rex's portrait. It wrinkled like Saran Wrap on a hot stove, balled up, turned black, and then disintegrated into ashes.

Mutt polished off his popsicle, threw the stick at the fire, and began relieving the rest of the house of furniture he didn't like. It didn't take me long to gather that if he had a negative memory associated with that particular piece of furniture, it found itself in the fire. Three dining room chairs, several rows of books, two sets of fireplace pokers, half a dozen lamps, two bar stools, pretty much the entire bar, two sofas, three large chairs, several end tables, a globe, all of Rex's clothing, shoes, or anything he had ever worn, a small oriental rug, the carpet out of one of the bathrooms, five or six paintings, a bathroom sink, every picture of Rex he could find, the dining room table which came out in pieces, most if not all of the curtains, a ceiling fan, several seat cushions, all of the bedding, and finally, the Greener. He carried the Greener down the steps and looked at me. I nodded and he threw the fivethousand-dollar shotgun atop the pile.



It was a warm fire. Expensive, but comforting. Mose walked out of the barn with a pitchfork in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He leaned against the fence, smiled, and raised his cup at me. Katie walked off the porch and said, "Tuck, aren't you going to stop him?"

.Why??

"Well"-she waved her hand across the house"couldn't you two do something good with all this?"

"Like what?"