Rain Reign (14 page)

Mrs. Caporale is waiting for Uncle Weldon and Rain and me at the door. She puts her arm across my shoulder. “You're making four people very happy, Rose,” she says. “What you're doing is honorable and brave.”

Everyone calls me brave. Is this what bravery feels like?

“Come into my office,” Mrs. Caporale continues. “The Hendersons are there.”

I look up at my uncle and he offers me a smile. Then he puts his hand on my back and we follow Mrs. Caporale through a doorway.

Sitting on chairs in the small office are a man, a woman, a girl who is about my age, and a boy who is probably the prime number age of seven. They're sitting silently. But when they see Rain they all jump to their feet, and then the girl and boy slide onto their knees and throw their arms around Rain.

“Olivia!” the girl cries.

The boy doesn't say anything. He buries his face in Rain's fur.

The woman starts to cry so I don't look at her anymore.

I watch Rain. She sat quietly at first, but now she's standing up and wiggling. Not shaking, wiggling. Every inch of her. She licks the boy's face and then the girl's face. She leaps up against the man's legs. The woman kneels down and Rain puts her paws on her shoulders. She whines in her happy way and then she jumps down and dances back and forth, sticking her snout in the Hendersons' hands.

This is Happy Rain.

And these are happy people, I think. I remember what their house looked like. I try to think about things from the boy's and the girl's perspectives. I decide that they must have been as sad to lose Rain as I was, and that they must feel as happy now as I did on the day Uncle Weldon and I first came to Happy Tails. I think that they still don't have their home, but now they have their dog back.

When Rain stops dancing around and the room grows quieter, Mrs. Caporale brings out some papers for Mr. and Mrs. Henderson. They sign them and then for a moment everyone stands still looking at one another. I drop my eyes to Rain.

Mrs. Henderson crosses the little room and puts her arms around me. I hold very still, my arms at my sides, while she hugs me.

“Thank you, Rose,” she says.

“Yes, thank you,” says her husband. He looks like maybe he's going to hug me too, but he changes his mind and smiles at me instead.

“Thank you,” say the girl and the boy, whose names, I know now, are Jean and Toby.

I think for a moment and then I say, “You're welcome,” and I stare at each one of the Hendersons.

Uncle Weldon clears his throat. “Well,” he says, “I should get you home, Rose.” He turns to the Hendersons. “Would it be possible for Rose to have a few minutes alone with Rain?”

“Of course,” says Mr. Henderson, and everyone leaves the room except for Rain and me.

Rain is sitting on her haunches in the middle of the floor. She's still very excited, and when I sit down next to her she jumps to her feet and puts her face against mine, breathing hard.

“That's your family,” I say finally. “You're going to go home with them.”

Rain continues to gaze at me.

I wrap (rap) my arms around her and feel her soft fur against my cheek. “I love you,” I tell her.

Rain leans into me and we sit that way until I hear a knock on the door.

“Rose?” calls Uncle Weldon. “We need to leave now. So do the Hendersons. Have you said good-bye?”

“Yes.”

I stand up and lead Rain through the door. She sees the Hendersons and runs to them.

They call good-bye and say thank you to me several more times. I stand at the window in Happy Tails and watch Rain climb into the Hendersons' car. Then I watch the car pull out of the lot and turn onto the drive. I can see Rain's head in the window, her long proud snout, and her pink nose that is the exact color of an eraser. Jean Henderson leans over and whispers in Rain's ear, and Rain cocks her head to the side.

The car turns a corner and Rain disappears.

 

V

The Last Part

 

45

The Quiet House

The bulletin board in our classroom changes to
SPRING IS COMING!

The air grows warmer.

My father finishes the bridge and now he can drive our truck over it.

Sam Diamond takes his car back.

The afternoons at my house are quiet. My father says he is out looking for work.

When I am at home alone I study my list of homonyms. I look through my mother's box.

That is all.

There is an ache inside of me, a pain.

Is this what bravery feels like? Or loneliness?

Maybe this is an ache of sadness.

 

46

My Father Has an Argument with His Brother

On a day when the grass in our yard is more green than brown, and the air is warm and smells sweet, and the branches on the trees are fuzzy with new leaves, Uncle Weldon drives me home from Hatford Elementary. He drives across the finished bridge and parks the truck.

My father is standing at the front of his own truck, tinkering with things under the hood. He hasn't been back to the J & R Garage since the day Jerry frickin' fired him. He works on his truck and in the yard now that the bridge is finished. I do not think his job search is going well.

One afternoon last week when Uncle Weldon was driving me home I said, “I guess my father could drive me to school and back now. He still doesn't have a job.”

Uncle Weldon started shaking his head before I even finished speaking. “Let's not mention that,” he replied.

That's what I was hoping he would say. “Okay.”

We rode for a little while longer and then I said, “From my father's perspective, I don't think he wants to run into Mrs. Kushel or Mrs. Leibler. Seeing them once a month is enough for him.”

“I think you're exactly right.”

Now on this spring day I climb out of the truck. Then Uncle Weldon climbs out of the truck. This is unusual.

“Hey, Wes,” my uncle says.

My father steps away from the hood and straightens up. He wipes his hands on a rag that is hanging out of one pocket. “Hey.”

“Do you have a minute?” asks Uncle Weldon.

“I guess.” My father looks wary.

“Well, I've been thinking. Rose here … Rose here should have another dog. Don't you agree?”

I take a step backward. “I didn't say that!” I tell my father.

“Nope,” says Uncle Weldon calmly. “This is all my idea.”

My father snorts. “
Rose here
didn't appreciate the dog she had, the one I got her. She gave it back. She gave it back when she could have kept it.”

Rain is a she, not an it. My father is angry.

“Rain wasn't her dog,” my uncle replies.

“She could have kept it,” my father repeats. “She didn't have to go looking for the owners.”

Uncle Weldon clenches his jaw.

I take another step backward.

“I was just trying to do something nice for her,” says my father. “I got her a dog and she gave it back. The one great thing I did. The one great thing.”

“Look, Wesley.”

“Not another word. I mean it. Not another word.”

When my father says “not another word,” he does mean it.

Uncle Weldon retreats to his truck, opens the front door, and slides behind the wheel.

“Just think about it. Rose has so lit—” He catches himself. “It's lonely for her. I mean, when you aren't around.”

“Rose is fine. She has all she needs here. She's just fine.”

“But a dog—”

“You think you know best? You don't know best.” My father slaps his hands on the side of his truck.

Uncle Weldon sits motionless behind the wheel.

My mind is whirling. I try to send a message to my uncle.
Please don't say another word. Not another word.
If my father forbids Uncle Weldon to see me, then I will have nothing left.

My uncle opens his mouth. “Are you sure
you
know what's best for Rose?” he asks quietly.

My father pulls a wrench out of his pocket. He aims it at the windshield of Uncle Weldon's truck, but then he lowers his arm to his side. He puts the wrench back in his pocket, shakes his head once, and gets to work under the hood again. His hands are trembling.

Uncle Weldon puts his truck in reverse and begins to turn around. He waves to me through the window, and I give him a small wave back.

Then I run to my bedroom and close the door.

 

47

In the Middle of the Night

On nights when I have trouble falling asleep, I lie very still on my back and pick a number. The more awake I am, the higher the number I choose. Then I silently count backwards by three.

One warm night when rain is dripping softly off the roof of the house, I have been lying in bed for nearly an hour and a half and I am still not at all sleepy. I think about school. I think about Rain. I think about Parvani, who now tells me every time she finds new homonyms. I think about Rain some more.

Sleep will not come.

Four hundred ninety-five, 492, 489, 486, 483. I am in the 350s when I start to make mistakes. Finally I feel floaty and drift to sleep.

BANG!
The door to my room flies open and in the doorway I see the shape of my father silhouetted by light from the living room.

I look at my clock. I have been asleep for less than twenty minutes.

My father flicks on my light. “I'm taking you to Weldon's,” he announces. “Right now.”

I raise myself up on my elbows. The time on my clock is 12:02. Why is my father up and dressed at this hour? He hasn't been to The Luck of the Irish tonight.

“What?” I say, but my father is already crossing the living room. I hear the front door open.

I think about what he just said. “I'm taking you to Weldon's.” Not “We're going to Weldon's,” but “I'm taking you to Weldon's.” This sounds like I'm the only one going to my uncle's house. It sounds like I might stay there for a while.

I hurry into the kitchen and grab a garbage bag from under the sink. I hear banging noises outside, as if objects are being thrown into the back of the truck. I whisk the bag into my room and stuff clothes into it, as many as I can grab quickly. I set my backpack next to the garbage bag. I make sure my homonyms list is in the backpack. I'm sliding my mother's box off the shelf in the coat closet when I hear my father shout, “Rose! Get out here right now.”

I scramble into the truck with the garbage bag, the backpack, and my mother's box. My father is hurtling down the driveway before I have even closed my door. I'm still fastening my seat belt as we fly across the bridge and start down Hud Road. In the back of the truck things slide from side to side, bags, a suitcase, a cardboard box.

“Why are we going to Uncle Weldon's?” I ask.

My father doesn't answer. He's peering ahead through the windshield at the rain, which is falling harder now. His face is like stone, not soft and slack like when he's been drinking. He doesn't turn to look at me. He drives straight and sure and carefully.

“Why are we going to Uncle Weldon's?” I ask again.

Once in music class, our teacher showed us a tuning fork. He struck it on the edge of a desk and let us take turns putting our hands on it to feel the vibrations. The air in the truck now is like the tuning fork, vibrating. It continues to vibrate after I ask my question the second time and still get no answer.

We ride in silence in the charged atmosphere, through the dark streets of Hatford, our headlights shining on the falling rain, the slick trees, and once, the eyes of a raccoon hesitating at the side of the road.

“Does Uncle Weldon know I'm coming?” I ask as we turn into his driveway.

My father brings the truck to a halt, but doesn't turn the engine off. He reaches across me and opens my door. “Go now,” he says. Then he does something he hasn't done in a long time. He gives me a hug, a quick hug. When his cheek rests against mine I can feel wetness. He turns and faces front, his jaw working.

I climb out of the truck and pull my things after me. I run through the rain to Uncle Weldon's front porch. By the time I turn around, the taillights of the truck are disappearing down the drive.

I ring my uncle's bell. I ring it again and again. The porch light comes on and I see Uncle Weldon's face in the window by the door. One second later the door is flung wide-open.

“Rose!” he exclaims. “What on earth?”

I step toward him. “My father is gone,” I say.

 

48

What Happened to My Mother

Uncle Weldon and I sit on his front porch on a day that seems too hot for early June. There are still two more weeks of school, and every morning Mrs. Kushel opens the windows in our classroom wide, even though bees and flies come in and hum around our heads all day long.

I jiggle my feet up and down and watch a hummingbird hover by a geranium plant.

It's Saturday morning. Uncle Weldon has just said, “Let's put on our thinking caps.”

I glance at him. “Why?”

“We need to figure out what to bring to your school party.”

We are going to have a party in Mrs. Kushel's room to celebrate the last day of school.

“Cookies?” I suggest. “Chocolate chip cookies?”

Uncle Weldon smiles. “Good idea. We'll go to the store next week and buy the ingredients.”

We fall silent again. Sometimes Uncle Weldon and I just sit quietly for long periods of time. We like that. Sitting and thinking.

Every evening we make dinner together and every morning we talk about homonyms. On the weekends we go for rides in his truck—to the state park, to the museum in Ashford, to an outdoor music festival. When we were at the festival, we spread a blanket on the ground and lay on our backs, listening to an orchestra.