Bring the Rain

by JoAnn Franklin

  “Poverty makes young men sullen and angry, and I want no part of that,” said Rachel.

  Before I could speak, the woman seated next to Carol Lee said, “I am tired of living with your fear.”

  Rachel looked dumbfounded.

  “Your fear of poverty keeps me a prisoner in my own home. The propaganda that news programs spiel about the poor places the blame with the poor instead of with the culture that accepts that human indignity. We place the blame on everyone else but ourselves. We’ve found the scapegoats, and as Dr. Sommers says, they are our beliefs.”

  She turned from the group to face me. “How can the Busy Bookers participate in The Raindrop Institute initiative, Dr. Sommers?”

  “Keep your discussion groups small.”

  Research indicated small groups were most successful at problem-solving and generating new ideas. Groups like theirs, between five and twelve or fourteen members were large enough to provide insight and small enough to stay focused. The advantage was they were all women. That too was proven by research—that if you have women in brainstorming groups, the groups function better and come up with more cogent ideas.

  “Dig deep to uncover your beliefs about poverty. Confront those beliefs and move them aside.”

  “Mud sticks to those who mess around in it,” said Rachel as she struggled out of her chair.

  “Mud dries to dust, Rachel, and it doesn’t leave an open wound in your heart,” said Carol Lee.

  I liked Carol Lee. She was more than just fancy clothes and a pretty face. When Rachel left, no one else followed her out the door.

  The ladies and I spent an hour talking about poverty and the biases our country held about it, and when I left, promising to return the next month with the e-book that would help guide their discussions of poverty, Carol Lee and her friend, Faye, plus Stacy, saw me to the door.

  We talked about the first step in thinking outside the box: becoming aware of biases and how limiting they were. As they ruefully pointed out, they’d already uncovered some hefty biases that held them captive. And they agreed that by my next visit, they would ferret out more, and that they would be aware of confirmation bias and how powerful that was.

  “I’m sorry about your daughter,” I said to Carol Lee.

  Carol Lee looked out the front door at the beauty surrounding the house. I don’t think she saw that. “I have two other daughters,” she said, “and I want to keep them safe. To do that, we must change the culture in which we live. Faye and I believe that young children shouldn’t go to bed hungry every night, and young men shouldn’t feel empowered to take what doesn’t belong to them because they are angry.”

  “We know we have to go outside the gates, Dr. Sommers,” said Faye. “Our values and work ethic got most of us here. I grew up in poverty. So did Carol Lee,” she nodded toward her friend. “It took us a while, but we got out and we have no intentions of going back. We know that if we can do it, others can as well.”

  “Then we’ll begin next month,” I said. “I’ll put that e-book together between now and then.”

  “Some of our members are afraid,” Carol Lee said.

  “They shouldn’t be, not of what we are trying to do. Your courage will bring the others along. Thinking outside the box is fun, so the fear won’t last.”

  “It’s not that,” said Carol Lee. “It’s the responsibility. What if we do something wrong and someone gets hurt?”

  “Good intentions have paved the way to our current problems. Our social programs have allowed people opportunity to consume products inefficiently. That’s the way humans are wired. We had good intentions, but they haven’t worked. Now costs are soaring, and the money isn’t there to keep providing what was never wanted. If we do nothing, everyone will suffer.”

  I left Anchor’s Pointe with the intention of going to the office and working on that e-book I’d promised them. If this worked out, I’d take Ms. Couture—it was hard to think of her as Carol Lee—and her friend with me to Salzburg.

  Bill’s text brought all those good intentions to a halt. Ellen found. Flying to Mexico to bring her home.

  I was texting him back—Where? Is she okay? How? —when my phone rang. Classy.

  “Is she okay?” I asked before Classy could talk. “Tell me she’s okay.”

  “A hiker found her body, Dart. She’d tumbled into a ravine.”

  That picture snapped clear and sharp inside my mind . . . Ellen crumpled beside the small trickle of a stream . . . Ellen’s brown eyes staring into nothing . . . a trickle of blood running down her smooth white cheek. None of my imaginings were real. She’d been out in the elements for too long, but beauty subdued chaos, and that’s how the Sentinel chose to cope.

  “How do they know it’s her?”

  “The swami or whoever in the hell he is identified her. She’d spoken to him right before she went for that walk, and he described what she was wearing, her hair, her sunglasses. She still had on her wedding ring. It’s Ellen, Dart. Bill’s friend flew him down. He’ll be bringing her home soon. Sandy went with him.”

  “I should have gone after her.”

  “We should never have let her go,” Classy said and hung up the phone.

  We held Ellen’s funeral at the gravesite because the body was not fit for viewing. She must have hiked a long way that first day and had maybe survived the second as well, going deeper and deeper into the mountain range, but she hadn’t been alive to meet the dawn of the third day, or so the officials speculated. They said that she’d fallen, hit her head, and died. For that small gift, I was grateful.

  The minister from her church finished his brief sermon, and we broke apart, the small group who had come to say goodbye. Lynn and Susan were there, as well as Classy and Sandy and several of Ellen’s friends from the university. Ellen and Bill’s kids stood with Bill. None of the women from her church showed up, and I hoped it was because they were ashamed of themselves.

  None of us wanted to leave, and I was the last to go. After the funeral, when the sun set that night, I remembered Carol Lee’s words and went up to the second-floor balcony of my home to watch the sunset. I never went there because it’s too rickety, and I haven’t had the rotted boards on the deck replaced, but that night I was careful. I stood and watched and remembered Ellen, who had brought so much beauty into my life in the moments we’d had together.

  Then I went back to my computer and worked into the night.

  FIFTEEN

  I ALWAYS GO HOME to Illinois for Christmas; even that first Christmas after my dad died, I was on the road, like I was tonight, heading home. The Raindrops would prefer I fly, but I like driving through the night. After ten o’clock, the traffic dwindles and I have the highway to myself with moonlight leading the way accompanied by the white noise of the tires.

  This was the first time Ash had come with me, and circumstances were a little different. If I’m by myself, I can drive for hours, thinking about nothing as the miles to Illinois flash by. The Sentinel gets me to where I am going without mishap. But when Ash is seated in the passenger seat, he tells me when to brake, to turn, to accelerate, and to watch out. As a result, the Sentinel thinks why do double duty and relies on Ash to guide me.

  After I reached Asheville and escaped the mental ties to Southport and the university, driving with Ash got quieter, and memories of my father and thoughts of Robbie pulled me onward through the mountains and the hills of Tennessee. Ash and I kept driving through the rolling hills of Kentucky, Indiana, and Southern Illinois as darkness, then moonlight, settled over the land.

  “Tell me about Robbie,” Ash said. He was anxious because this would be the first time he’d met my family. Too bad he hadn’t met my dad. My father would have liked Ash.

  “At six he was my father’s shadow,” I said.

  “But your dad didn’t like him, right?”

  “That’s what we thought, but what Dad said and what he did were two different things. He taught Robbie everything he knew.”

&nb
sp; “After David came down with diabetes, I donated my farm rent for five years to help Robbie start farming organically.” Now sixteen—no, he was seventeen—Robbie was the farmer that Dad always wanted David to be. He ran the hundred acres that we organically farmed and made money selling the produce, meat, eggs, and a thousand and one other things that kept the Illinois farm solvent. No, not just solvent, but successful.

  “He and his father live at the farm place now,” Ash said, and something in his voice had me looking over at his profile lit by the ambient light of the dashboard. Strong chin, high cheekbones, and that hair I loved to run my fingers through. I was glad he was with me.

  “That’s right,” I said, turning back to the road and the separated white center line that whizzed by as one continuous thread. “We almost lost David to sepsis a year ago but the treatment worked— that time. Robbie said it won’t work next time.”

  That’s why I wanted to be there for Christmas Day, surrounded by all the farm experiences that had given me the stamina to make my way in the world. My father waited up for me. There’d been sleepy inquiries as to the drive and the night, and then he’d gone to bed knowing I was safe.

  I couldn’t expect Robbie to wait up, but David had told me they’d leave the front door open.

  “Is he always right?” Ash asked.

  “Who? Robbie? Mmmm . . . Almost always right about water. He’s a water witch, a dowser, and to see that willow rod bend in his hands, it’s amazing. He says the water pulls at his wrists and even if he wanted to, he couldn’t hold that rod steady.”

  I smiled, remembering the water witches of my youth. They were mystical, mysterious people. Only one of them hit good clean water every time and plenty of it, and he made a decent living at his hobby. Robbie was ten times as good as that guy.

  “And what about when people are going to die?” Ash turned his head and I felt that steady gaze upon me as firm as the steering wheel in my hands. “Is he right about that?”

  “David doesn’t have long. This time the doctors and Robbie are in agreement.”

  In the moonlight and my headlights, I saw the first large flakes of snow start to fall.

  “We might have a white Christmas, Ash.”

  “Been a while,” he said, considering the weather. “I’d forgotten how beautiful falling snow can be.”

  “Let’s hope we can make it home before it gets too deep,” I said, speeding up. My Volvo had new tires, but as the snow fell, the highway turned slick, then blurred into a white path instead of a two-lane highway that led up to Hawthorne. As the temperature fell, the car’s interior grew colder, despite the heater.

  Thoughts of the farmhouse warmed me. My old bed would have lots of quilts and comforters, and with Ash there beside me, I’d be warm. There might be some hot water in the kettle on the wood-burning stove. Dad used to keep that kettle full and Robbie did as well, for the humidity kept the house comfortable. We could have a hot toddy and let the snow fall into drifts.

  When the snowflakes accumulated to several inches, I clenched the wheel a little tighter.

  “Want me to drive?” Ash asked, but I shook my head, afraid that if I stopped, we wouldn’t be able to continue. All-wheel drive kept me more or less on the road, and with snow crunching under my tires, I pulled up the short incline to the house on the hill that overlooked the valley my father loved. Trembling with fatigue and adrenaline, I switched the engine off and slumped in the seat. Ash relaxed too and took in the winter land before us.

  “They won’t be up,” I said as I looked at the house. There was a light on in the living room though and another in the kitchen.

  Home, I was home after more than sixteen hours on the road. Maybe I should just wrap my coat around me and sleep in the car, except I couldn’t stop shivering. But that’s what I was thinking of doing when Robbie, swathed in coat, hat, gloves and boots, opened the door to the house. The warm light fell on the falling snow and the path that would lead me to the warmth inside. He came out into the cold, opened the car door, and without anything other than, “Glad you’re here, Uncle Dart,” he scooped me into his arms and carried me into the house, settling me into the big chair by the fireplace.

  Ash followed with our luggage.

  “You weren’t this tall two years ago.” I sipped the hot water, honey, and lemon that Robbie had fixed for me and stared up at him. He’d shrugged off the coat and the gloves. Where had the slender little boy gone? I’d been used to looking down and now I looked up. This giant was over six feet, and he had the shoulders and the muscle to match that escalated height.

  He smiled and ducked his head. “All my teachers want me to go out for basketball.” He kept glancing at Ash.

  And I realized I hadn’t introduced them. “He’s a friend, Robbie.”

  “He’s more than that, Uncle Dart,” he said and reached out and shook Ash’s hand with a gesture that was almost grateful.

  “Why do you call her Uncle Dart?” Ash asked.

  “Calling me Uncle Dart was Robbie’s way of making me feel welcome in a family that valued boys.” Something about that handshake between Ash and Robbie troubled me. What was it?

  “I’m glad you’re a girl,” Ash said to me with a smile.

  And I was glad he was here with me. Maybe Ash and I could make this work. But something odd about that handshake still troubled me. Robbie didn’t like to touch people, but then I’d been on the road and was tired—maybe this was nothing more than polite courtesy. We’d raised the boy to be polite.

  No, something else than politeness. More than good manners. Then I knew—by his gesture, I knew what I’d come home to learn. My hand clenched on the coffee cup. I must have held out some foolish hope or convinced myself with all the wrong data to feel as devastated as this. But maybe I’d read the situation wrong, maybe Robbie was wrong. He couldn’t know. I hadn’t told any of my family about my episodes.

  The firelight warmed the knotty pine of my old home and my cold bones, and part of me expected Dad to wander into the living room from his study just down the hall. I glanced that way and Robbie said, “I work there now.” I nodded. It seemed right that he would step into his grandfather’s pattern. But I had a feeling Robbie would walk farther and faster toward success than my father had.

  The firelight played on his handsome face. He had my mother’s black hair. He’d inherited the waves and tousled curls, but on him they didn’t look at all feminine. The boy I loved was as tall and broad-shouldered as a man, but he was still there, that little boy who’d been quiet and reserved and who didn’t care at all for people. Yet he’d picked me up and carried me inside. And when I told him that he was getting better, he did not understand. I could tell by the way his shoulders tightened and that brief frown.

  “You didn’t like to be touched when you were little.”

  He relaxed. “Have to touch the animals. They don’t understand if you don’t.”

  “I’m different.”

  “Had to bring you in.”

  “All the animals bedded down?”

  “I saw to it when the storm first hit.”

  “It’ll be a white Christmas then.” And a beautiful one and maybe I could talk him into considering college.

  And as if he could read my thoughts, Robbie nodded.

  “You’ll go to college?” I couldn’t believe it.

  “Maybe.” He looked into the fire. “Grandpa wants me to.”

  “He always wanted you to go to college? Don’t you mean your father?” Ash’s question hung in the long silence.

  “No, I mean Grandpa. He, his ghost, visits, but doesn’t stay long. He knows I want to stay here on the farm.”

  Ash didn’t look convinced.

  “He’s interested in you,” Robbie told him. “Grandpa thinks you’re good for Uncle Dart.”

  I almost felt he’d said that to Ash so that I would listen.

  Ash nodded his head and grinned. “So do I. Maybe between the three of us, we can convince her I have her b
est interests at heart.”

  “A college education is a good thing to have,” I told Robbie. “Grandpa’s right about that.”

  “I’ll work something out,” he said, before he yawned and said he was for bed.

  Halfway across the living room, he turned and said, “I put in a bathroom next to the downstairs guest room. You might want to use that rather than your old room upstairs. We don’t heat the upstairs anymore.”

  I let my head loll back against the comfortable chair. That drive had been a long one, and I was exhausted. But the pattern in the flames had me thinking of a former student. Dannie was a math savant, but he couldn’t tie his shoes, wouldn’t remember to eat, and had to have a caretaker to help him dress, bathe, and get to class. Yet he could do complex math inside his head. When I met Dannie, he was almost done with his PhD. The university had put together a math curriculum for him. He couldn’t find the building, but he could do the work. When IQ operates in the tails of the Bell curve, as it did with Robbie and Dannie, certainties tumble aside.

  When Robbie picked me up from the chair, a few hours later, the fire had burned low. He carried me and Brown Bear to bed, Ash not far behind us, for he’d fallen asleep as well. And when I woke up in the morning, warm underneath the covers that retained Ash’s body heat and my own, I remembered what my nephew had whispered when he put me to bed: “Okay, Uncle Dart. You win. I’ll try college if you’ll hang on.”

  He’d known I was sick. That’s why he’d put the bathroom in, so I’d not be afraid of what was to come because I wouldn’t have to face whatever this was alone. Now he’d made this bargain with me. He knew, if I could, I’d keep myself stable so Robbie had his chance at college.

  And somehow that gave me the courage I needed. I would go see Dr. McCloud when I returned home.