“All right, I reckon,” and the conversation went on from there.
When Butch was done eating, he rose from the chair and told them he had to go see about some hogs. The rain came down harder after he left, and the wind picked up. The trees bent this way and that, catching Rae Lynn’s eye as she stirred a pot of stewed okra, the steam flushing her face pink. She was checking on the biscuits in the oven when a loud bang and then part of a limb shot through the roof almost over her head, startling her. Water immediately began dripping inside, hitting the hot stove and making it sizzle.
“Warren!”
He was right behind her, and said, “I will be damned. I should a cut some a them branches over this house like I said. I was afraid this might happen one a these days, what with that piece a tin missing up there.”
The hissing grew louder as the water continued to hit the stove. Rae Lynn grabbed a bucket filled with wood near the stove, dumped the wood out, and stuck it under the leak. Warren stared at the ceiling.
He said, “I got to get that limb off the roof, or it’s gonna make it worse.”
“You can’t do nothing in this downpour, Warren. The food’s done, anyway. Come on and eat. Wait till it stops raining at least.”
“I got a canvas piece with some pitch on it; it’ll hold till I can fix it proper. All I gotta do is move the limb and cover the hole.”
“It ain’t no sense in doing it this minute!” Rae Lynn’s temper rose as he ignored her.
He said, “I need you to hold the ladder. Get your coat on. Won’t take long.”
She huffed in frustration, and she decided then and there to put her foot down. To say something.
“No, it’s a bad idea. You might get hurt. Or me.”
He stared at her in surprise. “You ain’t gonna help me?”
She folded her arms. “It can wait, Warren.”
He flapped a hand at her and went outside. She watched as he ran to the small barn behind the house, where they kept their john mule, Dewey. A few minutes later, he came out with a ladder, the pitch bucket covered with a cloth, and the canvas plopped over his head. She went onto the porch, saw him lean the ladder against the side of the house near the midsection where the chimney rose. He climbed one-handed, carrying the pitch bucket and was almost at the top rung when she yelled at him, her voice barely rising above the clap of thunder.
“I wished you’d wait!”
Warren yelled back, “I don’t want the damn house full of water. Do you?”
Rae Lynn fumed at his stubbornness as the storm grew worse. The split rail fencing, pines, and outhouse were shrouded in mist as the temperature dropped from the heat earlier in the day, and Rae Lynn actually shivered. Back inside, she dumped the okra and tomatoes into a bowl, not caring she spilled some. She set the biscuits on the table while listening to Warren thumping about overhead. The limb remained partially through the roof, moving now and then like he was tugging on it. She tried not to envision his attempts to free it while standing on a slick roof.
She forced her attention back to setting the table, placing a crock of butter beside the biscuits. More scraping noises came and she grabbed a rag to mop up the puddle forming on the floorboards where rainwater drizzled in. The limb still poked through.
She was still on her hands and knees dabbing at another puddle when she heard, “Oh hell!” and an ominous skidding noise followed by a heavy thud.
She whispered, “Dear God,” jumped to her feet, and ran outside.
Warren lay facedown, draped over the wooden flower box he’d built for her five summers ago. The ladder was on the ground. Before she could get to him, he rolled over onto his back. It was the way he looked, the sound coming from him that stopped her. Grimacing and clenching his teeth, a guttural sound rose from him, but he cut it short when he saw her. He raised his arm, and she went to his side, dropping to her knees in the mud. She lifted his head onto her lap.
Bent over him, she said, “Where you hurting?”
Warren dug at his left side, below his ribs. He tried moving, his fingers prodding the area, his pain obvious.
Rae Lynn said, “Can’t you get up?”
Another crack of thunder came, followed by a flash of lightning. Warren looked around, appearing disoriented.
She repeated the question, “Warren, can’t you get up?”
He rolled onto his knees and hands, letting out a deep moan as he did so.
“I done got stoved up but good!” he wheezed.
“Let me help you.”
She grabbed his right arm, and between the two of them, he got to his feet. Hunched over, he continued to hold his side as she stumbled along with him through the muck and driving rain, both of them soaked now. When Warren got to the steps, he let go of her arm and grabbed the rail to haul himself up, one step at a time. He staggered through the front door and on to their bedroom. She followed, her hand on the small of his back.
Once there, she said, “Take off them wet clothes and get in the bed.”
He pulled the straps on his overalls off his shoulders and let them drop to the floor in a blue sodden pile around his ankles. He sat, and she pulled his boots off. He kicked the overalls out of the way and twisted around so he could lie on the bed while Rae Lynn raised his undershirt to reveal a bruised, reddish area.
“It’s god-awful,” he gasped.
“You might’ve broken a rib or two.”
“Wrap it good and tight.”
Rae Lynn went into the kitchen for her supply of rags. She took an old bedsheet back to the room and got her scissors from her sewing basket. She began cutting it into long strips, fast as she could. Every time she looked at Warren, his face was contorted with pain.
In between panting, he said, “It hurts. Something fierce.”
She could see the area had already discolored, and Warren had turned pale. She started to speak, but he cut her off, as if reading her mind.
“It’ll heal,” he insisted.
She exhaled sharply. “You ought to let me fetch the doctor.”
Warren was obstinate. “No, just wrap me up like I said, and let me rest.”
Concerned, Rae Lynn did as he wanted, him still panting as she wound the long strips round and round his torso, making them tight as she could. When she was done, she helped prop him against the pillows, and he made a show of acting like he felt better.
He grabbed her hand, kissed the back of it, and said, “Thank you, shug.”
The deep lines in his brow, his face glistening with sweat told her it was as bad as it had been before she’d done the wrapping. She brushed his hair back, and he squeezed her hand.
He tried to sound reassuring when he said, “I’ll be fine.”
She couldn’t think of what else to do, so she went into the kitchen and sat at the table, where the food waited to be eaten, but she’d long since lost her appetite. The sun was back out, the early-summer downpour having already moved off to the east. The irony. If he’d only waited like she said. If only she’d held the ladder for him. She heard the bed squeak, and rose from the chair to check on him. He hung halfway off the side of the bed like he couldn’t hardly stand whatever was wrong inside of him. She frowned, concerned. She didn’t want to be upset with him, not now, and especially not over some foolish argument about how he chose to do things.
He said, “My left shoulder hurts too. Must’ve jammed it somehow.”
She tried again. “You sure you don’t want me to fetch the doctor?”
He fell back onto the bed and said, “No, we ain’t got the money for such.”
Troubled, Rae Lynn watched as he closed his eyes, as if wanting to block her from his view. They had a whole fifteen dollars. More than most. Why couldn’t he spare a dollar to see a doctor?