Come Rain or Come Shine (19 page)

Violet Flower took the hanging clothes off the rod and folded them over her arm. Dooley was neat, which was a good thing. Counting the box of Jack Tyler's new clothes, and his ragged jeans and T-shirt, which were now washed and folded, she could do this in three trips.

It had taken four trips for Lace's pile. It would all go in
the big master bedroom closet, which Father Tim and Cynthia just about emptied last night and loaded in their car. Boy, if this wadn't musical chairs.

She liked deciding how to hang clothes. She did not do the military-type routine of all blue together, all green together, whatever. That was anal. She just did a basic all shirts, all jackets, all pants together for men, and all dresses, all skirts, all pants and blouses together for women. What wadn't hangin', she would fold and put on the shelf—Lace on th' left, Dooley on th' right.

She checked her watch: ten-fifteen on the dot. She needed to get this project done by eleven, when breakfast would wrap up and the house would be crawling with people. She knew what to leave behind for Dooley and Lace and Jack Tyler getting dressed for the Big Knot. During the dancing, she would haul the leftover stuff to their rooms, where it would all be ready for their new life. She would not charge her time for this; it would be her present to the bride and groom.

She made her way up the back stairs. It would be easy doin' Jack Tyler's little room, which was right next door to Lace and Dooley's. She would cut off the tags and hang up the clothes from the big box, and that would be the end of it for now, bless his heart. He was a serious young'un an' cute as a bug's ear, she could eat him with a spoon.

The whole house smelled like ham and roast beef and cookies and cheese wafers and breakfast casserole. Her mama
did not care for food odors, she would be pumpin' that can of Lavender Field Supreme till she got corporal tunnel.

She liked the look of Dooley's good denim jacket and jeans next to Lace's red-print dress with th' ruffled hem. Totally romantic. Hangin' smack in the center of th' rod, which would be th' dividin' line, the dress and jeans outfit looked like a couple dancin'.

She remembered starting a new life with her sweetie. Before she could hang one scrap of Lloyd Goodnight's pitiful wardrobe in her closet, she had to wash it, starch it, iron it, sew on buttons, whatever. He was a brick mason, for heaven's sake; he did not have clean, sporty clothes.

She remembered hanging his good plaid shirt and dress pants next to her best cowgirl outfit, which she wore for singing at parties. ‘What a good-lookin' couple!' she had said of the duo that looked almost as sexy as the real thing.

In the library, Sammy Barlowe was doing a demo, something like the stuff he did on cable TV. He was totally in the big time, but not the
big
big time. Not yet. He was working on it twenty-four/seven and found that he really liked teaching other people how to do it, though he was not teaching any of his private tricks, they would stay private.

It was best to start young, he thought, which was the way a lot of great shooters started. He'd made his first shot at
the age of nine—or was it eight?—in the ball hall in Holding. He had heard the crack of cue tip against resin a million times, but when his own tip smacked the ball, he got a feeling he'd never forget and couldn't explain but which he kept looking to have again. ‘It's like your first time with a girl,' a shooter in Illinois had said. ‘You ain't ever goin' that way again.'

He had swept out the place in Holding and emptied ashtrays and hauled out the stinking garbage in return for his table fees. He had been tall for his age but still too short to get good leverage, so he dragged a Cheerwine crate around the table and stood on it and had taken a lot of crap for doing it. But the crate got the job done, and eventually he totally hammered the goons who messed with him.

This little squeak, Jack Tyler, was smart. He had him kneeling in a kitchen chair and handling the smallest stick in the house, while Doc Owen worked the biggest stick in the house, given hands the size of a baseball mitt. He wished he had his Frank Paradise cue to show everybody, but no way did he ever travel with that; it was a museum piece and how he came to own it was like a miracle, if there was such a thing. He was reminded that Father Tim and Father Brad said miracles happen all the time.

Father Brad would be here today. He'd like seeing the guy who made him hang off the side of a cliff looking down two thousand feet with a nosebleed and climb a mountain that seemed like freaking Everest and sleep in a snow tent. No way would he ever do that stuff again, even though he had
loved it and still talked about it a lot. It was the snow tent that did it. He didn't just think he was going to freeze and die, he knew freaking well he was going to freeze and die. And then the thing with God happened . . .

He was at home around a pool table. Anchored. He could be coming apart, but let him walk into a room with a great table and he would, like, exhale, and breathe again. Not once since he got here had he wanted to be like Dooley or felt jealous of what Dooley had. That old stuff was over. Dooley was Dooley, he was Sammy. Being Sammy was enough. Sometimes it was too much. Like, Hey, God, can you drive, I am runnin' this thing in th' ditch.

He liked that a little crowd was buzzing around. His old buddy Harley was standing by with a big grin and Doc Harper with his Nikon was shooting everything that moved and there was ol' Pooh with his mouth still hanging open from the last shot and Jessie stuck over in the corner—he didn't have a clue about the nose rings—and people he didn't know, like a woman with long gray hair who kept staring at him. They were all kind of quiet and respectful of the demo instead of blabbing the whole time.

The musicians were tuning up out there, the sound pumped in through the open window. Banjo, he liked th' banjo, and a harmonica . . .

He thought the kid was cooler than Doc Owen, who was laughing and joking around and not being serious about it, but Jack Tyler was dead serious and wanted to learn whatever was going down.

‘Like this,' said Sammy, hunkering over the table with his cue.

He saw that his brother was traveling like the pros—with a rolling one-suiter, now parked in the hall.

Henry removed an envelope from a zippered side pocket. ‘Mama sent you something.'

Peggy. The one he'd run to with his skint knee, cut jaw, bashed nose, and broken heart—a second mother. Peggy had disappeared from the Kavanagh household when he was ten. Vanished. Somewhere in his soul he had searched for her for decades. And then he had found her—and Henry.

He opened the envelope and withdrew a sallow piece of paper, folded twice and hard-worn.

It was me

Who ate your pie.

I am sorry.

Timothy

Age 7

‘When Mama left, she carried that with her, it meant a lot. You had gone in her little house while she was working and ate her last piece of pie.'

‘Pumpkin!' he said. Back it came from the vortex of memory that would scarcely disclose what he had for breakfast.

‘Your mother made you write it.' Henry was smiling, a light in his eyes. ‘Mama said you were left-handed when you wrote it. They started training you to your right soon after, she said. That's what they did back then.'

Words he'd written seven decades ago had come home. He shook his head, full of wonder: ‘Will the circle be unbroken?'

Henry smiled. ‘By an' by. But not yet. Not yet.'

The woman with long gray hair was among the last to leave the library.

‘I enjoyed watching you work,' she said.

He thought she seemed sort of nervous. ‘Thanks. You shoot pool?'

‘No,' she said, ‘but my son does.'

‘Is he any good?'

‘The best.'

‘Great. It's a good game. Winston Churchill shot pool.' He was always trying to get people to understand that pool wasn't all about loafing and drinking and gambling and spitting. Important people did it and he wouldn't mind being important but mostly he hoped one day to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. That was his dream.

‘And Martin Luther King and Babe Ruth,' said the woman.

‘Yes, ma'am!' He laid his stick in the case Father Tim gave him a few years ago, and snapped it shut.

‘I saw a video of Mr. Orbach playing a nine ball with Ms. Laurance,' she said. ‘On TV.'

He thought the woman was very cool to know about Ewa Laurance and Jerry Orbach.

Beth emerged from a shower in the minuscule bathroom, her wet hair wrapped in a towel. ‘So tell me about the way he walks,' said Beth.

‘Who?'

‘Tommy. I was worried about doing the wedding song with a harmonica—I mean, really! But he promised it would work and it actually does; it gave me chills with that great sound system he just bought. He's an amazing musician.'

‘So his leg got pretty broken up from the knee down,' said Lace, ‘when he and Dooley were—maybe twelve? Miss Sadie's Hope House was under construction. The man running the job is now Dooley's stepdad. He told Dooley to never go on the job site after hours. It was pretty well known that the job site was taboo. But Dooley wanted to go and asked Tommy to go with him and they were fooling around on a big pile of lumber. Dooley had a chance to jump off the pile before it came apart, but Tommy didn't.

‘It took a long time for his bones to heal. Now he sort of walks like a cowboy, somebody said. Dooley really struggled with this for years, he blamed himself, but Tommy said he was totally up for doing it, that Dooley was not responsible at
all. You know Dooley had to take care of his little brothers and sister for days at a time. He had to grow up fast, and when something went wrong, he blamed himself. He still does that.'

Beth turned the blow-dryer on high, combing her short blond hair with her fingers. ‘He is really, really cute.'

‘I know. I'm so lucky.'

Beth laughed. ‘I was talking about Tommy.' She sat on the side of the bed. ‘And his voice. I don't know much about country music, but don't you think he's sort of special?'