My rage, the anger that had retreated that summer, slumbering like a junkyard cur in the shadows, came back as hot and piercing as ever, so intense I didn’t trust myself to speak.
She stood behind me, drew my head against her belly, still warm from sleep, and cradled it there. “I know. I know,” she crooned and swayed, rocking my body. After a few minutes, she withdrew and sat beside me. “I’m sorry, Will. I wanted to tell you more about the book before you read it. Prepare you for it.”
I still did not dare speak, swallowed the acridness of anger. Out the window beyond her head, the horizon was showing first light.
She took my silence as a sign to continue. “Some days when I’m writing, I just break down and sob. It is all so unbearably sad.”
Usually so intuitive about me, she misread my rage for grief.
“Strangely,” she said, “the work consoles me. At least when I’m writing. Of course when I’m done nothing has changed. It doesn’t bring her back.”
“Then why do it?” I asked, unable to conceal my bitterness.
“I need to know how is it possible that life has become so expendable, our children’s lives, Will, that we are no longer even shocked when we read or hear of another killing, another child lost. Somehow the value of life has been profoundly cheapened.” Her voice grew stronger. “Do you know how many children are murdered every year? Every day? Eight children and teenagers are murdered every day, Will. Every day. How could we let that happen? How can we make sense of how this is possible?”
A line from her introduction echoed: What kind of people have we become?
“I read somewhere that homicide has become the white noise in our society. We have to face that.”
Her hope, her belief that she could change anything rekindled my anger. “And writing this book will change anything?”
She shook her head. “Perhaps not. But if I don’t? Will that change anything? What was that old catchphrase? If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
“So it makes it more bearable then?”
“No. Not that. Never that. But we have to keep telling this truth, Will: violence begets violence.”
Violence. My companion for so many weeks. All my dark middle-of-the-night thoughts of vengeance and retribution. The gun I had secreted in the shed.
“We must understand that,” she continued. “We must come to grips with that. And there’s something else. Talking to other families has made me more connected and less isolated in the grief.”
I thought of all those months grief had been a chasm that separated us, not a bridge that brought us closer.
“Remember the story of the mustard seed?”
“Vaguely.”
“The man sent in search of a home that has escaped sorrow. You are seeing this too. Think of the people who are posing. The story Leon told you about Louie Johns and the son he lost. Everybody has their share of loss. No one escapes. No protection against loss in this life, Will. It’s what we do with the grief that matters. I think that you and I are each in our own way trying to do something good for Lucy’s sake.”
Lucy.
“I miss her so much,” she said. “I never stop missing her. Not for one day. One hour.” Her cheeks were wet with all the tears I was unable to shed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Rain would rather walk shoeless over ground glass, step barefoot over fire, than face Dr. Mallory.
I think your dog is going to die. Her only prayer was that the shrink had forgotten what she said when she’d left the last time. Old people forgot all the time. And it wasn’t as if Rain didn’t have enough on her mind without dealing with this, because right now Duane the Lame, Duane the Once and Former Saint was at the police station where—as the detective said when he’d phoned their house last night—they were going to get to the bottom of how Lucy’s Yoda ended up in the church chapel so many months after her death. Acting as if it were some important clue or something when it was just a dumb toy. Still, it was epically stupid of Duane to have lied about it. Earlier, at breakfast, he’d said he didn’t want to go to the station. Don’t waste your breath, she could have told him. No one is even listening to you. While Duane pushed his spoon around his cornflakes, their father for once stopped being Mr. Passive and said maybe they should contact an attorney. “Don’t be ridiculous,” their mother snapped. “Why on earth would we drag a lawyer into this? It just makes people look guilty, and Duane hasn’t done anything wrong.” Clueless as usual. Oblivious. Across the table, her brother had stared at his uneaten bowl of cereal and looked as guilty as the liar he was.
“Won’t you tell me what’s bothering you, Rain?”
Still, he was her brother. She concentrated on sending thoughts to him, as if by focusing hard enough her unspoken words could protect him. Stand up straight. Don’t look guilty.
“Rain?”
Maybe her father was right. They should have hired a lawyer.
“Won’t you let me try and help?”
Seriously? Like anyone could help. Especially this little shrink. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her shorts. Shorts. Not a skirt today. Or even capris. Shorts just long enough to cover her scars. One good thing about whatever trouble Duane was in was that their mother was too preoccupied to be the clothes police. Rain could wear a bikini to Mass and her mother probably wouldn’t even notice. Her fingers closed around her Lucky Strike stone, the one Lucy had given her when they had exchanged stones last year and become chosen sisters, members of the Lucky Strike Stone Club. Total membership: two.
“Rain, dear.”
“The police came to our house yesterday.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “They were looking for Duane.”
“Is your brother in trouble?” Dr. Mallory asked, as calmly as if Rain had told her that Duane woke up that morning and brushed his teeth.
Duh. They didn’t show up to give him a medal. “They wanted to talk to him.” Too late, she regretted saying one word about the police and Duane. She should have realized that it would be opening a door best kept shut. Duane was a dweeb, but he was her brother. God, he’d looked so pathetic when they drove off to the police station. The thing was, there was no one to talk to about it. She supposed she could have gone over to see Father Gervase—she knew a priest couldn’t tell anyone what you said to him in private—but she remembered Father Gervase was the one who started this by finding and bringing Lucy’s Yoda to the police. He should have just minded his own beeswax. And now, because she couldn’t keep her mouth closed, Dr. Mallory knew.
“Rain? Is Duane in some kind of trouble?”
“So,” she said. “What I tell you here. It’s . . . What do you call it?” She stared at the copper bowl of mints as if the elusive word could be found there. Confidential. The word popped in place. “It’s confidential, right? I mean you can’t tell anyone what I say, right?”