A Gentle Rain (50 page)

"Do you think I like having to manage my brother's life? I didn't ask to be his guardian; the role was bequeathed to me. Our mother was an alcoholic, Ben. Our father wasn't much better. So I'm the person who was put in charge of keeping the Tolbert name out of the mud our parents created. I salvaged our family pride, and I will make certain my retarded baby brother isn't robbed blind by some little money-grubbing bitch like Karen Johnson."

The blood came to my head like mercury in a thermometer. I hit him.

I'd been wanting to do it for years.

Square in the teeth. He fell down, knocked over a chair, hit the wall. I ain't proud of that, cause I was raised not to hit except in self-defense or a fair fight. Glen was in real good shape, plus good four-inches taller than me and about twenty-million dollars richer, give or take a million. But at sixty-plus he was also a good fourteen years older than me, a helluva lot slower, and he hadn't been trained to knock other men onto their ass for a living.

I had.

A nurse glanced into the room then went running, probably for a security guard. Damn. I shook my hand and winced. Like I've said, use your elbow first, whenever possible. Those little knuckle bones in your hand ain't good for squat.

"I'm sorry, Glen." I really sorta was. "You were born into life as the heir of a rich, shitty family with no-account parents. Everybody knows your mama's drinkin' was probably what messed Mac up. I've always heard she guzzled liquor when she was pregnant with him. Guess she wasn't drinkin' back when she had you. You got lucky. Mac didn't. Does that make you feel guilty?"

Glen scrubbed blood from his lower lip. "This is finished. You've crossed a line, this time."

"You can't make up for what your folks did to Mac. It ain't your fault. But don't add to it by bein' a controllin' asshole."

He stared up at me. "All I can control is the money."

"You got to look past the money and see what hurts people, and what helps `em. It's got nothing to do with money. It's got to do with heart. Leave the past be, Glen."

He got to his feet. A couple of security guards rushed in. Our private conversation was over. "I'm flying back to Florida this afternoon," Glen yelled at me. "And I'm taking my brother away from your ranch. Away from Lily. Away from Karen Johnson. And there's nothing you can do to stop me."

He walked out.

Kara

When Ben's call came, Miriam and I were trying to wake Gator and shoo him off the back porch. "He's gonna make a fine pocketbook and some Gator Tots some day," Miriam said grimly. She prodded him with a broom. "Gator Tots are like Tater Tots, only made of fried gator instead of tater. You hear me, Gator?"

I pulled my phone from my shorts pocket and, heart racing, clamped it to my ear. "Is Joey all right?"

"He's doin' fine. You and me got a different problem."

My heart sank. "Yes, we need to talk about my future, here. But please, can we do it in person?"

"It ain't about us. You got to get Mac and Lily away from the ranch. Now."

My blood chilled. "Why?"

"Glen's coming to get Mac."

"No!"

"He's mad. He showed up here at the hospital a little while ago, and I punched him."

"The confrontation was about me, I'm sure. He's learned I'm a Whittenbrook."

Miriam yelped. "Oh, my gawd. You're a ... oh, mygawd."

I waved her into silence. "Ben?"

"No, baby, he don't know who you are, yet. But he needs to find out."

My lances went weak. I sat down in a metal lawn chair. Gator shifted sleepily. Miriam, still holding the broom, ignored him and stepped closer. She listened with unabashed interest. I took a shaky breath. "You think this is the time to announce I'm Mac and Lily's biological daughter?" Miriam squealed and dropped the broom. Gator woke up and slithered away.

"That's what I figured."

"I've got to get them to talk. I need their support. I need ammunition against Glen, not just dusty adoption papers."

"He's headed back to Florida in a little Piper Cub he flies, meaning he'll fly into a little airport north of Fountain Springs then be on the ranch doorstep in just a couple of hours."

"I will not let him terrorize, bully and separate Mac and Lily!"

"Then get them out ofthere before he finds `em. Take `em somewhere. Anywhere. Wherever you can hide `em for a day or two. We'll figure out the legal stuff later."

"Yes."

"Awright, baby. I can't get there to help you. I know you can handle this, alone, but-"

"Why did you strike Glen?"

"It needed doin'."

cc ?"

"He wants Mac's barrel race winnings sent straight to him. I said no."

"Is that all?"

"Aw"

"Ben. Just tell me."

"He thinks you're out to get the winnings. He thinks Karen Johnson is a greedy con artist. Nothing new."

"But this time you hit him. On my account?"

"Yeah. See, I know this Karen Johnson. I've been watchin' her take care of Mac and Lily, sacrifice for `em, suffer to make `em happy, all summer.

"I said something ugly to Karen Johnson about her views on ... family matters, something stupid that came out of a part of me that's like the shy, fat little girl she used to be. Sometimes I go back to a day when I was a boy, the day I stood by Joey's crib the first time, and I looked at him and I was ashamed to be his brother. I thought of him by a hateful name.

"That boy comes out in me sometimes, lookin' for the same mean weakness in others that he had inside himself. But he had no right to accuse anybody else. Because Karen Johnson has proved that family means more to her than money."

By the time he said that, I was crying. "Ben. I love them. I do. And I love you."

"Say it again."

"I love you."

"I was afraid you'd never say that."

"I was afraid you'd never say it again."

"I love you, Karen. And Kara. I love Kara, too. I just need to get to know her better."

"You will."

"Now get Mac and Lily out of there, and call me when you can."

"I will."

I clasped the closed phone to my heart. Miriam sat down limply in a rocking chair. "I knew it," she said in a low voice. "I said from the first day you look like Lily. I told Lula. She said I shouldn't drink so much tequila."

"Let's round up Mac and Lily as discreetly as possible, so as not to upset everyone else."

"Where you gonna hide `em?"

"I'm going to hide them in the last place Glen thinks I'd dare to take them. The only place where I may be able to get answers from them about my birth."

Her eyes widened. "Oh. My. Gawd."

Chapter 31

Kara

Tolbert. The family.

Tolbert, Florida. Their namesake town.

My people. My birthplace.

I was going home, to my family, to my father's wealthy people and to the memory of my mother's poor people. Home, to the truth, whatever it might be.

The route from Ben's ranch to Tolbert, Florida, followed back roads and obscure state highways, meandering through pine and cabbage palm thickets, orange groves and swamps and pastures and vegetable fields. I drove Ben's truck with calm and steady deliberation. I did not want to alarm Mac and Lily by appearing harried. To my shame, I'd lied to them about the trip. I was afraid they'd panic, otherwise.

"Are you sure Joey said he wants ice cream from The Pink Cow Parlor in Tolbert?" Lily asked again. She sat in the front passenger seat, her hands wound together tightly in the lap of her daisy-denim jumper. "I love the Pink Cow. I like pink almost as much as I like daisies."

"I know. So aren't you happy to make this trip?"

"The Pink Cow's not as good as the Cold N'Creamy. You're sure Joey wants vanilla ice cream with pecan-caramel topping from the Pink Cow?"

"Hmmm uh. We'll have it packed in a special freezer container and send it to Atlanta by overnight delivery."

From the truck's backseat, Mac said solemnly, "Well, if that's what Joey wants, okay! B- but ... couldn't you just c-call the Pink Cow and say what he wants? The 1-lady who owns it will always h-hop to for a friend of a T-Tolbert. That's what Glen says. Everybody in Tolbert hops to for Glen."

"Interesting. I want to see this hopping town."

"N-no, you don't," Lily said sadly. "Me and Mac don't like to visit there."

"But it's where you both grew up."

"It's too close to River Bluff, the big farm where Glen lives. You know, Glen will probably come see us at the ranch one day soon. About the money you and Estrela won. Glen always comes to visit about money."

My throat tightened. "We'll be sure not to tell him we were nearby today, all right?"

She and Mac trusted me. They squared their shoulders and nodded.

" ... and we'll have ice cream at the Pink Cow," Lily was saying, "and I'll show you the river park, Alvin P. Tolbert Park. Albert was Mac's daddy's uncle, he was somebody important, then he stepped on a nail and died back before we were born ... "

"Of the 1-lockjaw," Mac put in from the front seat, beside me. "It was like r-rabies in a dog. They said he d-drooled."

"Here we are," I said without much pleasure.

Welcome to Tolbert, Florida said an elegantly carved sign on coquinastone pillars as we crossed the broad St. John's River on the William C. Tolbert Memorial Bridge, a pretty two-lane with carved stonework and red-tiled turrets in the middle, where a drawbridge opened five times a day to let large yachts and tall sailboats through.

We made it across, into that other world.

"Don't go down that street," Lily said.

"It's not a g-good one," Mac agreed. We had been meandering around the downtown district for at least an hour by then. I'd tried to coax them to talk about the past, to no avail.

Now I brought the truck to an idle at an intersection, pretending to watch tourists at a sidewalk cafe. My nerves were on fire. I glanced as casually as I could down the street in question. "Not a good one? Why, I see some lovely little shops, and some pretty little houses. It looks like a nice street to me. What's wrong with it?"

Lily shook her head and fidgeted with the daisies on her jumper's skirt. She pointed in the opposite direction, smiling far too hopefully. "Let's go down that street over there."

"We can drive along the r-river," Mac added. "See all the pretty boats."

"All right, but let's go down this other street, first. Just for a minute."

Their smiles faded. I felt cruel, but I had to know what they were hiding. I turned down the mysterious lane. It was deserted except for a few strolling shoppers on the handsome brick sidewalks. Once we passed the shopping area, the sidewalks turned to older stonework. Small clapboard houses, painted in Florida pastels and sporting air conditioners that made their aged charm livable in the hundred-degree heat, began to dot the street. A lovely umbrella of live oaks closed over us.

Lily sank lower in the passenger seat, her eyes downcast, her hands clutched in her lap. In the rearview mirror I glimpsed Mac ducking his head shyly. The nice houses began to dwindle. At the edges of town they sank into ruin, separated by vacant lots overgrown with vines. The forest crowded up to the pavement, and the sidewalks vanished into weeds.

I slowed the car. "Lily," I asked in a low voice. "Please tell me what this street means to you and Mac."

She refused to lift her eyes. Her lips trembled. "I don't want you to see where I grew up."

"It wasn't your fault, Lily," Mac said, crying.

I reached over and squeezed her arm. "Please, look at me." She dragged her tearful gaze to mine. "Lily, you and Mac don't have to be ashamed of anything. Not around me."

"Yes, we do. I don't want you to hate me. Or to hate Mac."

I stared at her. "Hate you and Mac? How could I ... Lily, what are you talking about?"

"Can't we just leave this street? Let's go to the Pink Cow. I don't like it here."

"Me, n-neither," Mac said.

"I promise you both: Nothing you tell me will make me hate you. Please. I want to know why this street upsets you so much. Please. Trust me."

She didn't move, didn't speak. I looked from her to Mac steadily, but neither would meet my eyes. Our past and future hinged on that moment. "Lily. Mac. I ... know you had a baby. Ben and I know about the baby."