The Colors of the Rain
Page 11
SHOWER
We sit there for a while, not talking,
just listening to the rain thunder
on cement. Then he says, It doesn’t
have to remind you of the worst day.
You can let it remind you of the
good ones that hide behind that
worst one. He turns to me again.
My uncle told me that.
The words are like
a secret door opening.
I remember the storm
that cracked and roared
and brought my daddy to the room
where me and Charlie couldn’t sleep
and he curled up on the floor
so we wouldn’t have to be alone.
I remember the time I stood by the
water’s edge deep in the woods
and the rain came unexpected like today
and the woods turned night
and my daddy showed up
with a flashlight to lead me back home.
I remember all those days we spent
in his work shed, when he was
sculpting wood while I watched
and the rain tapped the roof
faster than his hammer
could tap in nails.
Come on, Greg says, and he
grabs my arm and pulls me out
into the pouring rain. He stands where
he was when I first saw him today
and stretches his arms out again.
He only looks at me for a second
before he says, The rain can
clear away the worst memories.
My uncle told me that, too,
and then he closes his eyes and
lifts his face back toward the sky.
And I guess it’s worth a try,
so I do the same.
The water runs down my cheeks
and my neck
and my chest and back,
but it doesn’t feel so cold anymore.
It feels warm, like a gentle shower.
So I let it in,
let it wash clean
the worst memory.
It clears away the shadows
hiding all the
good ones.
COOKIE
Greg sits with me
at lunch today.
It’s the first time anyone
has even walked close to
my table, and something
about it makes me want to cry.
Want a cookie? Greg says,
holding out one with so many chips
it’s more chocolate than cookie.
I packed two today.
Thanks, I say.
He shrugs.
We have them all the time, he says.
Mama still likes to bake, even though . . .
He doesn’t finish his thought, just
takes a big bite of his peanut butter
and jam sandwich, probably so he
doesn’t have to talk.
ARMOR
After a few minutes, when it looks
like he’s chewed the whole bite,
I say, What happened to her?
Greg looks at me. I guess
he doesn’t know I know, since he
never saw me those days I saw her.
So it’s my turn to shrug.
I saw you playing
basketball one time, I say.
She was watching from the porch.
He doesn’t answer my question,
but he does say, Me and Daddy
used to play basketball all the time.
He stares at his carrots, cut into rings.
He played in the pros before the war.
I think he wanted me to play, too.
He made me practice all the time.
Do you like basketball? I say.
He shakes his head. I never liked it
as much as he wanted me to, he says.
He turns a red apple over in his hands.
I think that made him sad.
I don’t know what to say,
so I eat the rest of my sandwich
and the potato chips Aunt Bee
bought in bulk last week. We don’t
say anything for the rest of lunch,
just sit there eating while the hum
of all the other voices rises and falls
around us. Then the bell rings and we
throw away our trash and start toward
the double doors where kids are
piling up. On our way through, Greg says,
The doctors don’t really know what’s
wrong with her. The disease took
her legs first. They don’t know
what it will take next.
He’s staring straight ahead,
closed tight where a minute ago
he had opened. And the way he
clamps shut makes me think this is
another way we’re the same,
both of us carrying around
hard shells, armor protecting
all the parts of life we don’t
understand and can’t talk about.
I don’t know what comes over me,
but I squeeze his shoulder like my
daddy used to do when I felt
disappointed or sad or just plain
confused. It’s the first time I’ve
touched him with kind hands.
WINTER 1972-73
PROMISE
I don’t notice that worry
darkens Aunt Bee’s eyes
until we’re all sitting around
a table of take-out pizza.
I look at the two boxes
and I have a feeling we’re not
going to eat it once she says
what she needs to say.
The sky is like one of her paintings
outside the window, so I try to look
at it and not Aunt Bee’s face.
Red and orange and yellow and green
and blue reach through the windows.
Gran once told me that
a promise of protection
was wrapped in a rainbow’s colors.
But this one must be different.
UNFOLD
Aunt Bee waits until we
fill our plates with pizza before
she says, I got something
from your mama today.
She holds up two
folded pieces of paper.
Letters, she says.
She hands one to me
and one to Charlie.
I forget all about my pizza.
I take my letter and run out the front door,
to the shadows and the cold
where they can’t see me while I read it.
I glance back at the house.
Charlie and Aunt Bee stand on the porch.
Charlie’s hands are on her face.
Charlie must have read her letter.
I unfold mine and stare at Mama’s words
that start shaking before I’m even
done.
STAY
Dear Paulie, Mama writes.
I know you kids don’t understand
why I left like I did.
If I told you it was because I needed
to get better, you’d ask
better from what,
and that’s all too much
to explain in a letter. But I do
want you to know I’m better.
I’m ready to be the mama
you need again.
She says she wants to take
me and Charlie away so we can
make a new life together. She says
there’s someone she wants us to meet,
someone who loves her and loves us already,
someone who will make us a family again.
She says she loves me, and then she
signs her name instead of Mama.
&n
bsp; Probably just habit.
There’s a P.S. at the bottom of the letter,
scribbled in a different color pen,
like maybe it was added later.
Be sure and tell Bee thank you, it says.
For watching over both of you
while I was gone.
I fold the letter again
and put it in my pocket.
I stand and stare at the
biggest house I’ve ever lived in
for the happiest time of my life
with one of the best people
I’ve ever known.
I don’t want to leave.
I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.
I hope Mama changes her mind.
I hope she lets us stay.
I hope she goes away
and never comes back.
I see Aunt Bee move.
Charlie falls into her arms.
I sink to the street, alone.
The whole world blurs.
KILLERS
When I finally went inside last night,
it was all over the news,
how the police
found my daddy’s killers.
The news reporters called it
just another casualty of the race war,
and Aunt Bee cursed at the screen
before she saw me and tried to
switch the channel real quick.
But I saw my daddy’s killers,
looking ugly and mean.
Some policemen shoved them
into cars and drove them away.
I didn’t say anything
on the way to my room.
CHOOSE
Today I’m back in Mrs. Walsh’s office.
I heard you got a letter,
Mrs. Walsh says, closing
the door behind me.
I try to feel as excited
about Mama’s letter as
Mrs. Walsh seems to feel,
but so much hangs
around my neck that I don’t
even know if I can smile.
Yeah, I say.
She sits behind her desk
and leans forward. Tell me, Paulie,
she says. How do you feel about it?
Getting a letter from your mama, I mean.
I don’t say anything. I can’t.
Mrs. Walsh looks at me
for a long time, and then she says,
Maybe you’re afraid and
a little shocked. Maybe even mad.
She twists her hands together
and sets them on top of her calendar,
open to this week’s pages. It was all
so sudden and unexpected. I know
it’s scary not knowing what’s next.
She’s walking around in my head,
and I don’t know how she got there,
being as I haven’t opened the door.
I just want you to know that
you have a choice, Mrs. Walsh says.
You can choose to stay or you can
choose to go.
My stomach knots tighter.
Does she think it feels better
knowing this? Now, no matter what
I choose, I’m disappointing someone.
PICTURE
Mrs. Walsh leans forward again
so she can pat my hand. You don’t
have to make a decision today or
tomorrow or even next week, she says.
You can take as long as you need.
She turns toward her bag.
In the meantime, look at this.
She pulls out a picture of water,
surrounded by trees. It’s the place
where me and my daddy used to fish.
How does she know about our place?
When I look at her, she shrugs.
I live on the other side, she says.
I heard it was a special place for you.
It was special before my daddy left.
We would talk about art
and dreams and music.
I loved my daddy most in that place,
even more than I loved him in his shed
making furniture or under the tree
sitting beside me.
I take the picture and
stare at it for a long time.
Mrs. Walsh clears her throat.
When you feel confused, just
pull out the picture, she says.
And then imagine who you’d
want to stand there next to you now.
She opens the door and I’m out
and Greg’s in before I can even
find my voice to say thank you.
I put the picture in my back pocket
and feel it there all the way
to class.
ROSE
I follow Greg home
from school today.
I think Aunt Bee is happy
I have something to do
on the days me and
Mr. Langley don’t paint,
but I think she’s mostly happy
I have a friend.
If I’m being honest,
I’m happy I have
a friend, too.
Greg doesn’t bring up Mama
on the way, even though
he knows about the letter
and the choice I’ll
have to make soon.
For a long time,
the only sound between us
is the wind shaking the trees
and our feet clapping the sidewalk.
What would you do? I finally say
when we’re halfway to his house.
He seems to know
what I’m talking about,
since he says, You mean
if I was you?
I nod and wait.
He stares out at the houses we pass,
and then he says, Hang on.
I watch him run up the driveway of one,
stop at a bush exploding with bright pink roses,
and race back to me with one stem
and a bud in his hand.
They’ll never miss one, he says,
and he pushes the rose to his nose.
Mama loves roses. Daddy used to
bring her great big piles of them
every week. His voice is sad
and full of memories and maybe a
streak of anger, too.
HERE
Greg doesn’t take long to find
his way back to my question.
On the one hand, he says, you have
a good home now. Mrs. Adams loves you.
You eat good food you don’t have to cook.
You have a friend.
Greg kicks a rock
that’s out of place on our path.
He doesn’t look at me, just stares
at the black driveway we’re crossing
and keeps talking. On the other hand,
she’s your mama.
I don’t know what to do, I say,
and my eyes turn blurry.
Greg stops and puts his hand
on my shoulder. You don’t want to
disappoint either of them, he says.
It’s not a question. He says it like
he knows and understands.
Then he tells me about the time
after his daddy died, when his mama
started dropping things and tripping
and spending whole days in bed on account of
her legs being so numb. His uncle wanted
to take him for a while, until they could
figure things out, and he had to make
a decision like mine.
I want to ask him how he made his choice,
except before I can, he drops
the rose in his hand and races up
the stairs of the porch. The only words
he says are, She’s not here.
BRAVE
I follow Greg inside,
panic filling my mouth
for reasons I don’t understand.
I call his name, but someone
else is calling him, too, and he
doesn’t hear me.
Mama! he screams, tearing through the rooms.
She’s on the white floor of a bathroom.
Her face is twisted and looks
like dead ashes after a fire,
but she smiles when she sees him.
I’m okay, she says. I fell on my way out.
She looks at me, her eyes seeing
something beyond me. Sorry your
new friend has to see me like this.
I watch Greg try to lift her up,
his feet nearly stumbling, and I move
to her other side so I can help, too.
Greg clicks on the brakes of her chair
and we set his mama gently in the seat.
And it’s then that I understand.
Greg picked her.
He picked this.
He chose a life taking care
of someone else over a life
where someone took care of him.
I wish I could be
so brave.
LOST
We don’t talk much during the
rest of my stay. We just watch the
small television in a family room
that is almost bare except for a
battered brown couch and
a couple of bookshelves.
His mama offers us cookies.
I take two, but Greg
waves them away.
When she smiles into my eyes,
I see only deep holes of sadness.
My fingers on the side of the couch
tap out all the questions
I want to ask Greg but can’t.
How often does she fall?
Does he regret his decision?
Would he make a different one if he
could have seen today and all the
other days like it?
Greg keeps a hand over his mouth,
like he wants me to know this isn’t
open for discussion.
And then it’s time to leave,
and he’s walking me to the door,
saying, Just don’t tell,
and I’m nodding okay.
The last thing I see,
after I’ve waved to them
both on the porch, is the
bright pink rose, dropped
in the middle of their driveway,
its petals scattered like all the pieces
of Greg’s life he lost
so he could choose his mama.
SINGING
Aunt Bee is out tending flowers,
even though it’s dark.