The worst of the smells emanated from Mary.
But her mother was still alive. Mary’s cancer had brought Kateri’s father and delivered Kateri into hell, yet it had not killed Mary. That knowledge had been what kept Kateri moving across country, facing hardship, attempted rape, hungry days and cold nights. Cancer had not killed Mary, and Kateri could be with her again. Leaning close, Kateri hugged the limp body. “Mama, I’m home.”
Mary struggled a little, moaning slightly; Kateri felt as if she hugged a skeleton held together by thin, fragile, old skin.
Mary was only thirty-two.
“Mama?”
Rainbow’s quiet voice spoke from the sagging easy chair against the opposite wall. “Her remission is over. She’s dying.”
Kateri turned to face the shadowy form. “She’s … drunk.”
“Yes. She said she didn’t have enough money for food and drink, and she’d rather drink.”
“You let her?”
Rainbow chuckled, a dry, pained sound. “Let her? Kateri Kwinault, you have been gone five years. Do you remember your mother? Did anyone ever change her mind about anything? We warned her about your father, but she would have him, and he broke her heart. We told her to take you away, to take the money the government offered and get an education and make a life for herself and you. She would not leave Virtue Falls. She set her mind to this death; she will die from cancer and starvation, and she will die drunk. Hopefully the liquor will at least dull the pain.”
Wet seeped into the knees of Kateri’s jeans; she didn’t want to know what it was. “But I’m home.”
“I know, dear.” Rainbow’s voice was gentle. “She’s not dead yet. She’ll wake in the morning, and she’ll be happy to see you.” She sighed and stood, hauling her big-boned form out of the broken easy chair. “Since you’re here, I’ll take the night off and sleep. I’m tired, Kateri. Tired of watching and weeping alone.”
“Did she get my letters?”
“She did. She loves those letters. She reads and rereads them. She quotes them. She says you’re funny. She says you’re smart. She knows that you love her, and she talks about how she loves you.”
Hostility rose in Kateri, unwelcome and unconfessed. “If she loves me so much, why didn’t she ever write me back?”
Rainbow walked over to Kateri, cupped her cheeks in her hands and kissed her forehead. “She loves you. She cries for you every day. In the difficult times ahead, never doubt that.”
Now Kateri was dying, again, in the depths while a pair of large, black, glassy eyes watched her …
She had to get rid of this weight. She had to … in an instant, she offloaded it all: the hatred of her father, the hatred of her mother …
No. No. No! She didn’t hate her mother. She had never hated her mother. It was her father’s fault Mary became an alcoholic, unable to care for her only daughter, riffling through garbage cans, singing loudly at the night, falling down, making her body available to any man who would buy her a drink.
The humiliation. The mocking laughter. The fights Kateri had fought defending her mother’s honor, an honor Mary had not cared about … the pain, physical and mental. Knowing that her mother didn’t love Kateri enough to leave the liquor behind and make a decent life for them both.
There in the deep places of the ocean, Kateri cried salt tears for herself; for her mother; for her father; for the secret, shamed relief she had felt when he came and took her from Mary and into his home, into a place that was clean and normal.
It wasn’t her father she hated. Or even her mother.
It was herself for an unwilling betrayal and condemnation of loving, weak-willed Mary.
Fine. Kateri had faced her reflection and seen the truth. If that was what the frog god wanted, he could have all that.
She was here for a different reason. She was here for Rainbow. Reaching out to the frog god, she silently implored, Allow me to save Rainbow.
The large, black, glassy eyes blinked out.
The wave blasted her onto the shore, scraping her cheek on the sand, then pulled away, leaving her gasping and sputtering.
“Hey, lady, didn’t anybody ever tell you not to swim alone?” Someone put his hand under her elbow and pulled her to her feet.
She blinked into the face of a teenage boy. He looked both disgusted and concerned. “You okay?”
She stared around the beach.
Early morning sunlight shone on the sand. A few beachcombers strolled down the way, buckets in hand, picking up shells, driftwood, glass floats, anything the waves tossed up. A fire smoldered in a fire pit while all around it, people slept in bags or stood and stretched, or poured water into a pot for coffee. Had they spent the night?
“What day is this?” The empty bottle of port rolled up beside her.
“You must have been on quite a bender. It’s Friday.” The kid pulled a big strand of deep green, sticky seaweed off Kateri’s back and clarified, “Morning.”
So she’d spent the night in the depths being sloshed around like laundry in a washer. “Thanks. Now I’ve got to get going!” She had to see Rainbow while the magic was fresh.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
In the still hospital room, Kateri stood over Rainbow and stroked her forehead. Leaning close, she breathed in Rainbow’s faint exhalation, then blew her own breath into Rainbow’s space. “Rainbow,” she whispered. “Listen to me. I went to see the frog god. He made me leave my baggage with him. In exchange for that, my breath is pure. Rainbow, this is your chance to find life again.” Again Kateri breathed in Rainbow’s breath, then breathed out toward Rainbow’s face. “I’ve been hurt in great ways, and sometimes the pain of recovery is unbearable. But Rainbow, to see the dawn break across the mountains, to smell the pines, to feel alone as if no man has ever stood on this place. I don’t know why the frog god cared enough to demand my baggage…”
Rainbow’s rough, long-unused voice whispered, “Maybe the first time when the frog god consumed you, he didn’t like the taste of bitter.”
Kateri sighed with relief and at the same laughed out loud. She said, “Maybe not, Rainbow. Maybe not.”
Rainbow opened her eyes and smiled weakly at Kateri. “Your sister was here.”
That made Kateri stagger back from the bed. “That bitch! When?”
“I don’t know when. She asked about the box.”
“You could hear her?”
“Heard everything.” Rainbow took a long breath. “Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Wouldn’t have told her anyway. But the box … is with Margaret.”
“Of course!” Kateri felt like slapping her own forehead. Who else would Rainbow trust with the box? Only Margaret Smith, Garik’s stepmother and the woman who had run Virtue Falls Resort for more than eighty years.
Rainbow nodded. “You’re welcome.” She fell asleep with a sigh.
Kateri reached for the call button.
Before she could push it, the door burst open. Peggy hustled in and headed for her patient. She checked the machines, took Rainbow’s pulse, lifted her eyelid.
Rainbow opened both eyes. “Do you mind? I’m trying to sleep here.”