Mrs Henderson crosses the little room and puts her arms around me. I hold very still, my arms at my sides, while she hugs me.
“Thank you, Rose,” she says.
“Yes, thank you,” says her husband. He looks like maybe he’s going to hug me too, but he changes his mind and smiles at me instead.
“Thank you,” say the girl and the boy, whose names, I know now, are Jean and Toby.
I think for a moment and then I say, “You’re welcome,” and I stare at each one of the Hendersons.
Uncle Weldon clears his throat. “Well,” he says, “I should get you home, Rose.” He turns to the Hendersons. “Would it be possible for Rose to have a few minutes alone with Rain?”
“Of course,” says Mr Henderson, and everyone leaves the room except for Rain and me.
Rain is sitting on her haunches in the middle of the floor. She’s still very excited, and when I sit down next to her she jumps to her feet and puts her face against mine, breathing hard.
“That’s your family,” I say finally. “You’re going to go home with them.”
Rain continues to gaze at me.
I wrap (rap) my arms around her and feel her soft fur against my cheek. “I love you,” I tell her.
Rain leans into me and we sit that way until I hear a knock on the door.
“Rose?” calls Uncle Weldon. “We need to leave now. So do the Hendersons. Have you said goodbye?”
“Yes.”
I stand up and lead Rain through the door. She sees the Hendersons and runs to them.
They call goodbye and say thank you to me several more times. I stand at the window in Happy Tails and watch Rain climb into the Hendersons’ car. Then I watch the car pull out of the parking lot and turn onto the drive. I can see Rain’s head in the window, her long proud snout, and her pink nose that is the exact colour of an eraser. Jean Henderson leans over and whispers in Rain’s ear, and Rain cocks her head to the side.
The car turns a corner and Rain disappears.
PART FIVE:
The Last Part
45
The Quiet House
The bulletin board in our classroom changes to spring is coming!
The air grows warmer.
My father finishes the bridge and now he can drive our truck over it.
Sam Diamond takes his car back.
The afternoons at my house are quiet. My father says he is out looking for work.
When I am at home alone I study my list of homonyms.
I look through my mother’s box.
That is all.
There is an ache inside of me, a pain.
Is this what bravery feels like? Or loneliness?
Maybe this is an ache of sadness.
46
My Father Has an Argument with His Brother
On a day when the grass in our yard is more green than brown, and the air is warm and smells sweet, and the branches on the trees are fuzzy with new leaves, Uncle Weldon drives me home from Hatford Elementary. He drives across the finished bridge and parks the truck.
My father is standing at the front of his own truck, tinkering with things under the hood. He hasn’t been back to the J & R Garage since the day Jerry frickin’ fired him. He works on his truck and in the yard now that the bridge is finished. I do not think his job search is going well.
One afternoon last week when Uncle Weldon was driving me home I said, “I guess my father could drive me to school and back now. He still doesn’t have a job.”
Uncle Weldon started shaking his head before I even finished speaking. “Let’s not mention that,” he replied.
That’s what I was hoping he would say. “Okay.”
We rode for a little while longer and then I said, “From my father’s perspective, I don’t think he wants to run into Mrs Kushel or Mrs Leibler. Seeing them once a month is enough for him.”
“I think you’re exactly right.”
Now on this spring day I climb out of the truck. Then Uncle Weldon climbs out of the truck. This is unusual.
“Hey, Wes,” my uncle says.
My father steps away from the hood and straightens up. He wipes his hands on a rag that is hanging out of one pocket. “Hey.”
“Do you have a minute?” asks Uncle Weldon.
“I guess.” My father looks wary.
“Well, I’ve been thinking. Rose here… Rose here should have another dog. Don’t you agree?”
I take a step backwards. “I didn’t say that!” I tell my father.
“Nope,” says Uncle Weldon calmly. “This is all my idea.”
My father snorts. “Rose here didn’t appreciate the dog she had, the one I got her. She gave it back. She gave it back when she could have kept it.”
Rain is a she, not an it. My father is angry.
“Rain wasn’t her dog,” my uncle replies.
“She could have kept it,” my father repeats. “She didn’t have to go looking for the owners.”
Uncle Weldon clenches his jaw.
I take another step backwards.
“I was just trying to do something nice for her,” says my father. “I got her a dog and she gave it back. The one great thing I did. The one great thing.”
“Look, Wesley.”
“Not another word. I mean it. Not another word.”
When my father says “not another word”, he does mean it.
Uncle Weldon retreats to his truck, opens the front door, and slides behind the wheel.
“Just think about it. Rose has so lit—” He catches himself. “It’s lonely for her. I mean, when you aren’t around.”
“Rose is fine. She has all she needs here. She’s just fine.”
“But a dog—”
“You think you know best? You don’t know best.” My father slaps his hands on the side of his truck.
Uncle Weldon sits motionless behind the wheel.
My mind is whirling. I try to send a message to my uncle. Please don’t say another word. Not another word. If my father forbids Uncle Weldon to see me, then I will have nothing left.
My uncle opens his mouth. “Are you sure you know what’s best for Rose?” he asks quietly.
My father pulls a wrench out of his pocket. He aims it at the windscreen of Uncle Weldon’s truck, but then he lowers his arm to his side. He puts the wrench back in his pocket, shakes his head once, and gets to work under the hood again. His hands are trembling.
Uncle Weldon puts his truck in reverse and begins to turn around. He waves to me through the window, and I give him a small wave back.
Then I run to my bedroom and close the door.
47
In the Middle of the Night
On nights when I have trouble falling asleep, I lie very still on my back and pick a number. The more awake I am, the higher the number I choose. Then I silently count backwards by three.
One warm night when rain is dripping softly off the roof of the house, I have been lying in bed for nearly an hour and a half and I am still not at all sleepy. I think about school. I think about Rain. I think about Parvani, who now tells me every time she finds new homonyms. I think about Rain some more.
Sleep will not come.
495, 492, 489, 486, 483. I am in the 350s when I start to make mistakes. Finally I feel floaty and drift to sleep.
BANG! The door to my room flies open and in the doorway I see the shape of my father silhouetted by light from the living room.
I look at my clock. I have been asleep for less than twenty minutes.
My father flicks on my light. “I’m taking you to Weldon’s,” he announces. “Right now.”
I raise myself up on my elbows. The time on my clock is 12.02. Why is my father up and dressed at this hour? He hasn’t been to The Luck of the Irish tonight.
“What?” I say, but my father is already crossing the living room. I hear the front door open.
I think about what he just said. “I’m taking you to Weldon’s.” Not “We’re going to Weldon’s”, but ?
??I’m taking you to Weldon’s”. This sounds like I’m the only one going to my uncle’s house. It sounds like I might stay there for a while.
I hurry into the kitchen and grab a garbage bag from under the sink. I hear banging noises outside, as if objects are being thrown into the back of the truck. I whisk the bag into my room and stuff clothes into it, as many as I can grab quickly. I set my backpack next to the garbage bag. I make sure my homonyms list is in the backpack. I’m sliding my mother’s box off the shelf in the coat closet when I hear my father shout, “Rose! Get out here right now.”
I scramble into the truck with the garbage bag, the backpack, and my mother’s box. My father is hurtling down the driveway before I have even closed my door. I’m still fastening my seat belt as we fly across the bridge and start down Hud Road. In the back of the truck things slide from side to side, bags, a suitcase, a cardboard box.
“Why are we going to Uncle Weldon’s?” I ask.
My father doesn’t answer. He’s peering ahead through the windscreen at the rain, which is falling harder now. His face is like stone, not soft and slack like when he’s been drinking. He doesn’t turn to look at me. He drives straight and sure and carefully.
“Why are we going to Uncle Weldon’s?” I ask again.
Once in music class, our teacher showed us a tuning fork. He struck it on the edge of a desk and let us take turns putting our hands on it to feel the vibrations. The air in the truck now is like the tuning fork, vibrating. It continues to vibrate after I ask my question the second time and still get no answer.
We ride in silence in the charged atmosphere, through the dark streets of Hatford, our headlights shining on the falling rain, the slick trees, and once, the eyes of a raccoon hesitating at the side of the road.
“Does Uncle Weldon know I’m coming?” I ask as we turn into his driveway.
My father brings the truck to a halt, but doesn’t turn the engine off. He reaches across me and opens my door. “Go now,” he says. Then he does something he hasn’t done in a long time. He gives me a hug, a quick hug.
When his cheek rests against mine I can feel wetness. He turns and faces front, his jaw working.
I climb out of the truck and pull my things after me. I run through the rain to Uncle Weldon’s front porch. By the time I turn around, the tail lights of the truck are disappearing down the drive.
I ring my uncle’s bell. I ring it again and again. The porch light comes on and I see Uncle Weldon’s face in the window by the door. One second later the door is flung wide open.
“Rose!” he exclaims. “What on earth?”
I step towards him. “My father is gone,” I say.
48
What Happened to My Mother
Uncle Weldon and I sit on his front porch on a day that seems too hot for early June. There are still two more weeks of school, and every morning Mrs Kushel opens the windows in our classroom wide, even though bees and flies come in and hum around our heads all day long.
I jiggle my feet up and down and watch a hummingbird hover by a geranium plant.
It’s Saturday morning. Uncle Weldon has just said, “Let’s put on our thinking caps.”
I glance at him. “Why?”
“We need to figure out what to bring to your school party.”
We are going to have a party in Mrs Kushel’s room to celebrate the last day of school.
“Cookies?” I suggest. “Chocolate chip cookies?”
Uncle Weldon smiles. “Good idea. We’ll go to the store next week and buy the ingredients.”
We fall silent again. Sometimes Uncle Weldon and I just sit quietly for long periods of time. We like that. Sitting and thinking.
Every evening we make dinner together and every morning we talk about homonyms. On the weekends we go for rides in his truck – to the state park, to the museum in Ashford, to an outdoor music festival. When we were at the festival, we spread a blanket on the ground and lay on our backs, listening to an orchestra.
“Try to pick out the sounds each instrument makes,” Uncle Weldon said. “Listen for the violin, listen for the trombone, listen for the clarinet.”
The notes soared into the sky, up to the stars.
On this hot June morning, the hummingbird darting from one flower to another, I suddenly say, “Uncle Weldon, from my mother’s perspective, when she went away, why do you think she left her memories behind?”
Uncle Weldon cocks his head at me the way Rain used to do. “What do you mean?” he asks.
I tell him about the box. “She left all her Rose things behind. Why didn’t she take them with her? Didn’t she want to remember me?”
Now my uncle frowns. “Rose,” he says, “do you think your mother walked away from you and your dad? Is that what your father told you?”
“Yes. Yes,” I say, since my uncle has asked me two questions in a row.
Uncle Weldon’s face is soft and gentle. He reaches a hand towards me, touches my knee, pulls his hand back.
“Your mother didn’t leave,” he says. “She died. When you were very young.”
“She’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“How did she die?”
“She had an aneurysm in her heart. She died very quickly.”
“Why did my father tell me she left us?”
Uncle Weldon shakes his head. He sips his coffee.
“Maybe he was trying to shield you. Maybe he thought you would be too sad if you knew she had died.”
“But he let me think she left us. I thought she left because of me.”
Uncle Weldon touches my knee again, which is all right. It’s just a little touch. “Your father didn’t always make smart choices,” he says, “but he did try to do right by you.”
“Is that why he left?”
My uncle looks at the hummingbird. He shakes his head again. “I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it, your father and I, but I think he thought you’d be better off with me.”
“Was it hard for him to leave?”
“Yes, I think it was.”
So my father and I have something else in common.
We are both brave.
49
Hud Road
That summer is one of the hottest anyone can remember. Uncle Weldon buys a big wooden swing that we paint green before hanging it on the front porch. We sit on it every evening while we wait for the air to cool, Uncle Weldon rocking us lazily back and forth, back and forth, his foot pushing off from the geranium pot. We sit on the swing most mornings too, even weekday mornings before we leave for Uncle Weldon’s day at work and my day at a programme called Summertime Academy, where I meet other kids with the official diagnosis of high-functioning autism.
One Sunday morning we’re on the swing and I’m looking across a dusty golden field and through some trees to a road that, if you followed it for 2.3 miles, would lead to Hud. Uncle Weldon and I visited my old house several days ago. We looked through the windows at the empty rooms. Uncle Weldon ran his hand thoughtfully over the foreclosure notice tacked to the front door. We haven’t heard from my father since the night he left me with Uncle Weldon, so we were the ones who cleared the house out last month. I didn’t want to keep anything except Rain’s belongings – her leash and bowl and toys. I put them in a bag under my bed.
We are just swinging quietly on this Sunday when Uncle Weldon says to me, “When should we visit Happy Tails again?”
I glance at him. “Well…”
“Don’t you think it’s time for another visit? There are probably some new dogs up for adoption.”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on.” Uncle Weldon smiles at me. “Just another look? A little peek? Wouldn’t it be nice to sit out here with a dog between us?”
“A dog on a swing?” Now I smile. “Maybe we could go next weekend.”
Uncle Weldon holds out his hand and I shake it.
We have made a deal.
“I thought of a new homonym last night,” I sa
y. “It’s a good one: ‘weighed’ and ‘wade’.”
“That is a good one,” my uncle agrees. “Was there room on your list?”
“Yes. You know who else has a homonyms list now?”
“No. Who?”
“Parvani. I’m going to call her and tell her about ‘weighed’ and ‘wade’.”
Uncle Weldon brings the swing to a stop and we cross our fingers and touch our hearts.
I look across the field again and then up to the sky, which is a vast pale blue. I remember the music festival, and the notes that soared above our heads. I think about the homonyms soared and sword. They’re an interesting pair, because soared is a very nice word, especially when you imagine musical notes swooshing through the evening air, but sword indicates weaponry, so that isn’t a nice word at all. That’s one of the many things I like about homonyms. Most of them seem unrelated, some seem to be opposites, like soared and sword, but a few make lovely connections if you’re open to changing your perspective when you think about them.
I stand up, then squint my eyes shut for (fore/four) a moment, remembering the night (knight) with Uncle Weldon when the music soared (sword) through (threw) the air (heir), and the notes and the sky and our (hour) hearts were one (won).
Author’s Note
The tale of Rose and Rain began in 2011 after Hurricane Irene swept up the East Coast of the United States and made an unexpected inland turn. After the storm I walked along my road in upstate New York, day after day, watching as downed trees were cleared from yards, roofs were reshingled, and washed-out bridges and stone walls were rebuilt. My dog, Sadie, was at my side and I thought about pets who had become separated from their owners during the storm. I began to spin a tale about a lost dog.
At the same time, Rose began to make her presence known to me. She was a young girl on the autism spectrum; a girl who’s verbal and bright and whose dog is the centre of her baffling and sometimes unpleasant world. Slowly the elements of the story – Rose, Rain and the storm – came together.