Hope In Every Raindrop

by Wesley Banks

  The dining room table wasn’t quite big enough for all her scenes, so she’d moved some to the kitchen counter and some to the couch in the living room just a few feet away.

  Katie could feel Kyle’s eyes on her as she walked around each pile, picking through them and then tossing them back, like an old lady at a grocery store trying to find the perfect peach.

  “Here it is,” she said. She walked over to Kyle, who had pulled out a chair at the table and was looking from pile to pile. Most of the pictures were of his dogs. There were Biscuit, Belle, and the pups lying on the porch. Story and Link on their hind legs play fighting, and Olympia and Giza curled up asleep like soft springs.

  Then Katie set another photo down in front of Kyle.

  ***

  A tightening sensation gripped Kyle’s throat. In the photo, Kyle knelt in front of the barn. King was standing on his hind legs, his forepaws resting on Kyle’s shoulders. His mouth was closed and his ears lay flat against his head as he stared down at Kyle.

  Kyle pressed his fingers against the picture as Katie watched. “I asked Doc why you did that once,” Katie said.

  “Did what?” Kyle said, not even looking up from the image in his hands.

  “Doc said you called it ‘hand over heart’?”

  Kyle let out a deep breath. He didn’t want to explain how aggressive King had been towards other dogs—and people—when Kyle raised him; how he had killed a coyote that approached the barn one evening, and had bitten Doc on several occasions.

  “It was the only way I knew to calm the dogs.”

  Katie seemed to consider his answer, pacing several steps around the kitchen. He knew she had more questions—she always did. They rolled off her tongue like a jumble of words that she just had to say or she might forget. “How exactly does it work? In the field that one day, I saw you whisper something to each of the dogs, right?”

  The scraping sound of wood against wood echoed lightly around the dining room as Kyle pushed the chair back from the table and stood. He walked over towards Katie, leaning against the kitchen counter. She straightened nervously as he stood in front of her.

  For the second time that day, his hand reached for hers. Katie took several small steps backward until she bumped into the kitchen counter.

  His eyes moved from her eyes to her hand as he placed her palm on the left side of his chest. He covered her hand with his and pressed it against his chest, holding it there until she could feel the slow rhythm of his heart.

  “Doctors used to check the heart by simply putting an ear on the patient’s chest. They would listen for two distinct sounds, a ‘lub,’ followed by a ‘dub.’”

  Kyle tapped his fingers over Katie’s hand for several beats, her soft skin brushing against his. .

  “That was about as scientific a term as you’d get a couple hundred years ago. But make no mistake, they knew what to listen for. The ‘lub’ is the sound of the first set of heart valves closing. The ‘dub’ is the sound of the second set closing. “

  Kyle pressed slightly on Katie’s hand again. “Most doctors would listen for both beats, or for irregularities in those beats. But it’s not the beat of the heart that is most important. It’s the quiet between the beats.”

  “What if it’s not quiet?” Katie asked.

  “Well, it could mean a lot of things. There could be a heart murmur, which often sounds like a ‘whoosh.’ Or there could be signs of heart failure. Really, any irregularity can indicate a problem.”

  “But you’re not listening to the dog’s heart,” Katie said.

  “You’re right. Doc is the doctor, not me.”

  “I don’t get it, then.”

  “I’m not listening to the heart. I’m looking for a way in. If the eyes are the window to the soul, then the heart is the front door. I’m just reminding the dog that amongst everything, there is a quiet within.”

  Kyle let go of Katie’s hand and walked back over towards the table. Towards the pictures of his dogs. It felt different to see them from her point of view. It was like looking at them from the side instead of head on. But it was a side he was grateful to see.

  Before Katie could step away from the counter, Kyle turned back towards her, closing the space between them again.

  He took off his hat, leaned in, and kissed Katie on the cheek.

  As he pulled away he wanted to say so much. Thank you for being honest. Thank you for helping Belle. Thank you for the pictures, and this moment I will never forget.

  Instead, he just said, “thank you,” and walked away.

  * * *

  The sound of the front door closing pulled Katie from her trance. Why did he have to kiss her like that? His lips had been warm and soft, in direct contrast to the five o’clock shadow that chafed her soft skin as it brushed against her. This wasn’t supposed to be complicated. She was here to write a story. Nothing more.

  She pressed her hand over the spot on her cheek where his lips had been. The longer she stood there, the more she began to realize that she wanted more than a story. She rushed out, ready to jog down the front steps after Kyle, but when she swung the door open there was no reason to run. Kyle stood in front of her, waiting.

  She caught her breath as they stood facing one another. She felt like she needed to say something. Anything. But no words came out. For a moment, she was back on her porch in California staring at a blinking cursor and a blank screen. She was lost.

  Until his lips found hers for the first time.

  Kyle moved slow and sure, as if he had planned out every step he would make to cover the seven feet of space between them. His hand reached her face and slid behind the cusp of her neck and into her hair as he subtly tilted her head back and pressed his lips to hers.

  Then, he pulled back for a moment as he leaned his forehead against hers.

  Katie opened her eyes and looked up towards Kyle. She knew he was thinking out the situation, trying to plan out every detail. But she also knew this was not something he could have planned for. It was nothing more than a simple choice—yes, or no.

  She watched his eyes, and for a moment she thought he might back away. Her heart sank at the thought of him leaving her again. Then she felt his hand tighten slightly on her neck as he pulled her closer.

  The Katie who had first come here wouldn’t have been able to hold back the questions filling every corner of her mind. She would have been consumed by the not knowing.

  His hands moved to her waist and then lower. She sighed into his mouth as he lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around him as he backed her against the front door. The warmth of his lips felt good against hers.

  Kyle pushed the door open and as he stepped through the threshold she realized the Katie who had first come here was gone.

  She realized he’d chosen yes.

  Chapter 35

  Kyle woke to a cool gust of late-autumn wind that swept through the open bedroom window, causing the sheer curtains to rise and fall like a quiet tide. He turned his head on the pillow to find Katie curled up next to him. The lower half of her body was pressed up against him, their feet tangled together like two people who had succumbed to the comfort of sleep but weren’t willing to part.

  He pulled the sheets back quietly, revealing the subtle outline of her body. He loved the way his hands felt around the soft skin where the small of her back ran into her waist. She was slender, yet strong and graceful.

  When he slid out of bed he realized his body felt more relaxed than it had in a long time. He locked his hands together behind his back and stretched his shoulders, then twisted from side to side. It took a few seconds for his mind to catch up to his eyes, but as he walked over to shut the window he saw nothing but darkness and the white light of the same stars from this morning. They’d been in the cottage—barely leaving this bedroom—for an entire afternoon, and late into the night.

  Another breeze entered through an open window in the kitchen and lifted several pieces of paper off the table and onto the
floor. Kyle left Katie to sleep and walked over to pick them up. They were more pictures.

  He sat down at the table and stacked the pictures neatly in front of him. His fingers found the corners of each photo, pushing them around slightly until he couldn’t tell it was a stack of three photos, but appeared to be just one. The picture on top wasn’t of any of the dogs, but rather him. He was kneeling below the angel oak at Old Man’s Crossing. The picture was taken from behind him, looking out towards an oncoming storm. Kyle remembered the day well—it was the day he’d taken Katie to watch King run. He couldn’t see King in the distance, but he knew he was out there. Somewhere.

  Kyle stood up and walked towards the darkness that lingered just outside the window. It was a beautiful night. The moon hung in a low crescent as the stars played catch with a ball of light. One twinkling, and then another.

  From where he stood, the window reflected an image of the room behind him—the same stacks of paper and pictures that he had seen earlier this morning.

  He walked over to the table in front of the couch and picked up a stack of hand written pages. He paused for a moment, thinking that reading the words might be some type of intrusion of Katie’s world. She had shown him the pictures earlier with no reservation, though. So, he held the paper in front of him and read.

  You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

  For they have their own thoughts.

  You may house their bodies but not their souls,

  For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

  which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

  You may strive to be like them,

  but seek not to make them like you.

  For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

  These weren’t Katie’s words at all. They were from a famous poem called “The Prophet.” Another reading assignment Doc had given him when he was younger.

  There were several empty lines below the poem, then more words were written. This time, they were Katie’s.

  Hope is a very strange thing. To always be fleeting and yet to always be near. To be grasped for a moment, but to fade away as if it never existed. Khalil Gibran once wrote, "you can give them your love, but not your thoughts.” But more accurately, you can give someone love, but you cannot give them hope. As I watch Kyle with the dogs, I see so much hope in him. The dogs seem to complete him, but still there is something missing.

  Now I sit before Kyle as he sleeps, and I’m worried about what will come when he wakes. In life it is difficult to lose your best friend. But when Kyle wakes to find King gone, will he have lost his only friend? I cannot give him my hope. And my deepest fear is that he will find none.

  Kyle set the page down in front of him and looked back towards the room where Katie was sleeping.

  I cannot give him my hope.

  Was that what she thought he was doing here? Was that why… He stopped, anger and resentment tightening in his chest.

  Kyle looked down at the page again. Then, he turned and left.

  Chapter 36

  Katie woke to the gentle groans of the windowpanes expanding under the heat of the morning sun. She smiled before she even opened her eyes, thinking of the day before with Kyle. But as she rolled over and stretched out her arms, she realized he wasn’t in bed.

  Katie thought of Kyle’s morning ritual of walking the fences with King—a ritual she’d only learned of the morning of the fire. Would he be out there now? Alone? It hurt her heart a little to think about it, but she knew this time could also heal him. Maybe he’d even take another of the dogs with him, or even one of the puppies.

  She shook off her thoughts as she slipped out of bed, using the rubber band on her wrist to pull back her hair. Her plan for the morning was to write and shower. If she kept the writing to just a couple of hours, then the eggs and bacon that Doc usually made may still be warm by the time she got there. Maybe he’d even make some of his biscuits with peach jam. Katie had learned that even though Georgia might be known as the Peach State, it was South Carolina that had the best peaches.

  She tried to focus, though all she could think about now were peaches. She moved from one pile of papers to the next, trying to find some point of inspiration that would set her off in a journey of words. But every pile was another delicious peach. Peach cobbler, peach jam, peach tea, peach pie, peach dump cake. Her stomach growled. She was famished. And as she got up from the table, she realized she was more excited to see Kyle than anything.

  * * *

  Whenever driving a nail into a hard wood like laurel oak, it’s important to take care to prevent the wood from splitting. Kyle knew that some people spent time lubricating the nails with beeswax, but blunting the nail by simply tapping the point with a hammer worked just fine. Avoiding the grain of the wood as a starting point for the nail also helped.

  As Kyle nailed the hog wire to the post for the new dog pens that morning, however, he didn’t care about any of that. He didn’t hold the hammer firmly near the middle like he was shaking hands. He didn’t tap the nail lightly until it sank into the wood enough to stand on its own. He hit it once as hard as he could and then a second time to finish it, leaving an imprint of the hammer head in the post.

  He was angry. Angry at this stupid piece of hog wire that wouldn’t stay taut. Angry at himself for getting involved with a girl from California who was clearly here for nothing more than a story. Even angry at King for dying.

  Kyle threw the hammer at the ground. The flat claw end stuck in the dirt like a hatchet. He picked up the shovel and moved to the next post. He should have dug all the post holes first, placed the posts, and then set the wire. But he wasn’t thinking clearly. He had no plan—he just worked as he went.

  * * *

  Katie didn’t find Kyle in the house, not that she expected him to be there. To her dismay, she didn’t find eggs and bacon, either. But she did find a plate of biscuits and a jar of peach jam with a note that made her laugh.

  Don’t eat all the biscuits!

  Doc

  She must have just missed him, because the biscuits were still warm when she cut into them. Three biscuits later, she was full.

  Katie walked outside and sat down in one of the rocking chairs on the porch. The sun had been up for a little over an hour and typically Kyle was back by now, so she figured he’d be walking up any minute. Normally, she would have been content to just sit on the porch and enjoy the slow cadence of rocking, but the view was no longer the same.

  In place of the faded red barn with several oaks and flowered bushes crowding each side, were ash-covered ground and portions of timber walls that stood precariously on edge. So, instead of letting her mind wander to several nights before, she decided she would walk around back. Thanks to the fire, Kyle had been forced to use the runs before they were completed, and she had yet to really look at them.

  Katie walked down the porch and along the side of the house. It sat on a cluster of cinderblocks about every ten feet, and halfway in she saw a familiar black and white tail alongside one. She knelt down by Biscuit, who was napping in the crawl space under the house. The dog’s tail began to wag and she stood to greet Katie.

  “Hey, girl,” Katie said as she ran her hand through Biscuit’s fur. “Whatcha doin’ today?”

  Biscuit parted her lips and started panting, which looked like a smile to Katie.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know where Kyle is, would you?” Biscuit’s ears perked at the sound of Kyle’s name. Katie stood, still looking down at the black and white dog. Her eyebrows were accented with tan markings that gave her a very inquisitive look. “Well, I’m going to walk around back for a bit if you want to come.” Sure enough, Biscuit followed Katie as she walked, the dog trotting several paces behind and to the side of her.

  A few seconds later, Katie heard a faint sound.

  Shhnnnk.

  Then she heard it again.

  Shhnnkk.

  When she made it past the farth
est corner of the house, she saw the nearly finished runs. There were a total of seven. Each run was approximately twenty feet wide and a hundred feet long. The posts were eight feet on center and hog wire enclosed each of them, making them more like large pens than anything else. They were all adjacent to one another in neat rows. Two gates, one about ten feet from the end of each run, connected one to the other.

  Pine trees, bales of hay, and even old farm equipment had been left untouched. Katie couldn’t discern how Doc had split up the dogs after the fire, but she was sure that Kyle had already moved them around. He was very particular about how the dogs interacted. Some were more dominant, while others were more submissive, and grouping them could mean the difference between two dogs curled up together or two dogs biting at each other.

  Katie heard the sound again before she saw Kyle.

  Shhnnk.

  She looked towards the far end of the last run, opposite where she stood. There, she saw Kyle slam a post-hole digger into the ground and pull out a clump of dirt. And then again. And again.

  He didn’t look up once as Katie walked towards him. She didn’t mind, as it gave her the opportunity to watch him work. His thighs strained beneath tight blue jeans, and the muscles in his upper arm flexed into a small horseshoe as he pushed the shovel into the ground. It was easy for Katie to admit now that the moment she’d first seen him she’d been attracted. As she watched him, she just wanted him to wrap his arms around her. To pull her close to him like the day before. But even when Katie was only a few feet away, Kyle didn’t make any motion to turn around and greet her. It was as if she wasn’t even there.