"`You know better than that,' she said.
"`Do I?' His empty flask sat on the windowsill, so I swung. It ricocheted into the marble bathroom and exploded into ten thousand slivers of glass.
"`Love keeps no record of wrongs.'
"`Well, I did.'
"`It bears, believes, hopes, and endures-all things.'
"I looked down and felt no pity.
Rex is his own worst punishment now. You can't do anything worse to him than he's already done to himself. He's traveling down the long and slow road of rotting from the inside out. And either fortunately or unfortunately, his genes are strong, so this will take a while.'
"I sidestepped Rex and walked to the window. `Don't tell me you never thought about it,' I said.
"`Child, my sins are as scarlet now, so Lord knows I thought about it. Most every waking minute. I even picked out my own shotgun. But thinking and doing are two different things.'
"`But, Miss Ella, what about me?' There was silence for almost a minute before she spoke again.
"`You be light, child. You be light.'
"Several hours later, the paramedics loaded Rex onto a stretcher and wheeled him into the elevator. After a week, I packed him in my truck and drove him to Clopton, a long and quiet ride. It was more time at one stretch and in one place than I had ever spent with my father. Every telephone pole we passed was one more missed opportunity. I could've sideswiped him into a pole and no one would have ever known. We rode the last half of the trip with Rex's window down. Due to the stroke, he had lost all bowel control and it now flowed as fluidly as his liquor once did.
"Before we left Atlanta, the attending doctor told me Rex needed round-the-clock help. I only knew of one place, so when we pulled into Clopton, I drove directly to Rolling Hills. I paid his deposit, and then two muscular men dressed in blue Dickies pants and brown Carhartt shirts lifted Rex out of the truck, rolled him down to the showers, and hosed him down. After his cleaning, they slipped him into an adult diaper and placed him in a room with a quadriplegic named judge Faulkner. When we walked in, the judge was watching Dr. Phil. `Howdy, son. This your dad?' he asked me. `Used to be,' I said. The Judge nodded, licked his lips, and said, `Mmmm, sounds like you two might have some issues you need to deal with.' `You might say so,' I responded shortly. `And we might if he could talk or even count to ten, but since he can't, looks like I'll just have to maintain a lifetime of issues.' The Judge blew and sucked on his little mouth diaphragm that used differing air pressures to operate various electrical devices. His blowing and sucking, which initially grossed me out, turned off the TV. He licked his lips again, another thing that grossed me out, and he said, `I don't think Dr. Phil is going to be much help here. I'd offer to lift a hand but can't. Haven't since that little squirt stabbed me in the back with the letter opener just as I was about to give him ninety days probation. But that's no excuse for bad manners. Son, I'm Judge Faulkner. You can call me judge.' I looked around at that cesspool and it struck me right there and then. I had found the perfect place for Rex Mason. I stuck out my hand and then quickly withdrew it. `Tucker Rain. This"-I pointed to Rex-"is Rex Mason."'
Katie looked away while I looked deep into the past. "For five years, the judge has talked to Rex. Nonstop." I shook my head. "Rex couldn't stand to be around people who talked incessantly, and the judge does just that. It's fitting justice."
I paused, and a few minutes passed again while Katie looked out the window of Rex's room, trying not to make eye contact with me. "In the weeks that followed, I picked up my camera, Doc started me traveling forty to fifty weeks a year, and I began seeing my name in the photo credits of magazines across the country."
Katie turned and crossed her arms. She looked cold again. I noticed the goose-down hair at the base of her neck. Her Julie Andrews hair had grown and the roots were no longer blond. They were brunette.
She leaned against the window and studied the pasture behind the house. "Have you always felt this way about your dad?"
"What do you mean, `this way'?"
"Hated," she said thoughtfully.
"You don't dodge hard questions, do you?"
She shook her head. I thought about stepping inside the room but decided against it. "Yes," I said and let the sick gravity of that sink in. "I think there must have been a time when"-I looked around the room-"when I was younger that I probably had hopes, but he didn't let me live in that fantasy very long."
She looked at me and didn't say much. Her eyes studied my face and made me uncomfortable. She was looking for something, and I wasn't sure I wanted to give it to her. I pointed out the window, toward the nursing home. "If he could speak, he'd be cussing me a new lineage for putting him in Rolling Hills. That thought in itself brings me great comfort."
She bit her lower lip and studied my face. "You talk about him as if he's not even a real human being. Like there's no attachment to him at all."
"You miss one baseball game and you're working to support your family. You miss two and maybe you've got a job that takes you away from home more than you'd like. Maybe an overbearing boss. You miss three and maybe you're just working too hard. You miss three hundred and eighty-seven and you're a demon from the pit of hell."
She sat down on the floor and looked at me through quizzical eyes. I walked into the room and stood in the place where I had shoved the barrel down Rex's throat. I looked into that wrinkle in time and could still see him standing there.
Katie looked out the window and wiped her face with her shirtsleeve, trying to stop the flow of mascara across her face. The silence was difficult, so I filled it. "A few years ago, Doc sent me to an oil rig in the Atlantic-to shoot a day in the life of an oil rig. I didn't know it at the time, but I had scratched my best and favorite lens. My 17-35 millimeter. A wide-angle. Looking through the viewfinder, I couldn't see the scratch. It was too fine. But it was there. I should have checked my lenses. I knew better, but I was in a hurry and not thinking. When Doc got the film, he was furious. `Tucker, you should know better!' And he was right, so he sent me back. The scratch didn't just mess up one picture; it messed up every roll of film until I started shooting through a different lens. Ultimately, I had to replace the lens. The imperfection in the glass permeated every shot. There was no way around it. If I was taking pictures through that lens, which I used about 90 percent of the time on that shoot, it was there."
I sat down on the bed and looked at the floor where Miss Ella had lain and tugged on my pant leg. "I think the heart is like that lens, and the soul is like that film." I stood and walked to the window, studying the pasture below. "I think I had some good times growing up, but as hard as I try, I can't remember many of them. They're covered up in blood, harsh words, bad memories, and the smell of bourbon. My Rex-colored glasses. But life's not like photography. I can't just switch lenses."
Katie slid down the wall and crouched beneath the windowsill. She pulled her knees in tight to her chest and rested her head on her arms. Maybe I'd said too much. I turned to leave, and Mutt was staring me in the face, pale as a ghost. I don't know how long he'd been standing there.
Mutt walked to the doorway of Rex's room and hesitated, bracing both hands on either side of the door as if trying to gain his balance. He stepped forward, but his feet looked magnetized to the floor. He walked in, mumbling to himself, and stood in the middle of the room. He walked to Rex's rolltop desk, looked around the room as if gaining his bearings, and pointed. After several minutes, he managed to say, "I ... was here."
I stepped toward the door. "What?"
Mutt pointed to the middle of the room, still lost in his own conversation. "She was here, on her knees, cleaning. She asked me to help her move the desk back against the wall." Mutt's movements were mechanical, almost robotic. "I moved it and Rex walked in. Bad drunk. He had sent Mose to Dothan. He said to her, `You like my boys?' She said, `Mr. Rex, they're the two finest boys I've ever known. I love them like my own sons. I know you're real proud of them.' Without a wor
d, he threw his glass at her. It hit her in the mouth and her teeth came flying out. He picked up a piece of broken glass and swiped it across her face, cutting her eye. I took a step toward him, he pointed his finger at me, and I saw the fire in his eyes." Mutt's breathing was heavy, and his hands were shaking. "He said to me, `You dumb little twit! You're not even supposed to be alive. Why can't you just die? You were nothing but an itch that I satisfied. An exchange of body fluids. That's all! That's all you've ever been. Wasted seed.' He pointed down at her again and said, 'I'll tell you when I'm proud of someone,' and then kicked her in the ribs with the toe of his shoe. I heard the crack .. .
Mutt stood stone still in the center of the room, then turned counterclockwise like a second hand. Mutt looked at me. "The screen door slammed, your cleats sounded on the wood and marble, you ran ... here, and ..." He shuffled his feet to the spot where I had shoved the barrel down Rex's throat. "Your finger . . . pressed hard . . . but not hard enough . . . " Mutt pointed out the window. "You picked her up, carried her out, Rex slept ... and I laid down out there."
Mutt spun in the center of the room. "I ... he ... he hit her seventeen times before you came in."
Katie hid her face behind her knees, sobbing. Several minutes passed before she stood up and ran out and down the hallway. Her cries descended the stairs and ran out the back door. Mutt stopped spinning and walked slowly to the window. He pressed his face to the glass, cast his gaze somewhere out over the edge of the earth, and inched his toes over the precipice.
Tucker?
Why didn't you tell me? You knew all along and you never told me.
Tucker that precious boy needs to know that it's not his fault, and he needs to hear it from you. Mutt will live or die on what you do next. He's got to know it was never his fault!
But it was! He just said so. He could have stopped it.
Child-I felt her fingers snap my chin toward her face-cut it loose! It's time to push it off the ledge and let it sink to the bottom.
I crawled across the floor to the dark spot where Miss Ella had fallen for the last time, traced the velvet stain with my fingernail, and watched my tears spread through the cracks of the wood like drops of gold rolling gently toward the smelting pot.
Chapter 37
"UNCA TUCK! UNCA TUCK! UNCA TUCK!"
I jolted upright, blinded by the noonday sun. Jase stood in the doorway, breathing fast, sweaty, and pointing toward the quarry. "He's in the water! He's at the bottom! He's not moving. He's at the bottom!"
I rubbed my eyes, trying to bring Jase into focus. "Slow down, buddy. Who's at what bottom? Who's not moving?"
Jase pointed to a picture on the wall. A picture Miss Ella had taken of me, Katie, and Mutt with our arms around each other the day Katie left for Atlanta. Jase pointed at Mutt. "He is."
I flew down the hallway, down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the back door. I jumped through the split rail fence, rolled, hit my feet, and began turning up as much dirt as I could across the pasture. I had my shirt off by the time I reached the pines, and when I hit the ledge of the quarry, I never hesitated. I launched off the rock and dove like a fish hawk, breaking the surface of the water that spread like cold glass from rock to rock, and began pulling toward the still body below.
My pants and shoes were dragging me back, but I pulled down, down against the water, trying to reach Mutt. My ears popped and popped again with the building pressure. The sun was high and the water was bright, but it was cold. He was lying still, his hands spread across the sandy bottom, a few feet from the sunken boat and not moving. Ropes, tied about his feet and waist, led to heavy weights resting on the sandy floor. His hair was floating with the motion of the water, and his wrinkled fingers were slowly waving back and forth in the sand. I reached him, grabbed him by the shirt collar, and flipped him over. His eyes were wide and his mouth was gripped around the end of a green garden hose, but he was very much alive. The sight of Mutt staring back at me, calm as a summer breeze, was not what I expected.
I studied his face, making sure he was alive. He waved with one hand, and in his other he held a flour sifter.
I cussed, shook my head, and pointed up. He untied the weights and we swam to the surface.
I was beginning to shiver, but Mutt looked warm as toast. I pulled up on the flat rock where we had played as kids, gasped for air, and looked disbelievingly at his twisted face. It looked like some sick doctor had sewn his lips on sideways. Beneath his clothes, he was wearing a wet suit. He took the hose out of his mouth and looked at me like I had just asked him to bring me a newspaper on his way back from the store.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Mutt jumped, surprised at my screaming, and looked over his shoulders. I backhanded him firmly across the face. "I said, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
Mutt licked his cracked and chapped lips and pointed down through the water. "Looking for a nickel."
"ARE YOU NUTS? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?"
Mutt scratched the back of his neck, unzipped the top of his wet suit, and nodded. "Yes."
"You've got to be kidding me."
"No." Mutt shook his head. "Gibby said I'm clinically-"
I fell back against the rock. "That's not what I meant." Mutt sat motionless, but his eyes darted about the quarry. He was trying to make sense of me and waiting for the next blow. I dried my face and tried to ask a question he could answer. I knelt next to him and held his cheek firmly but softly in the palm of my hand. "Mutt, what were you doing before I dove in the water?"
His eyes darted from corner to corner while his head remained still. "I was swimming around the bottom, tied to a hundred and forty pounds of weights and breathing through that hose while sifting the sand with this flour sifter."
"Okay." I paused. "But what was going on in your head? Why had you gone to all this trouble?"
"I was trying to find a nickel I lost here."
"When did you lose it?"
Mutt scratched his head. "The day we sunk the jolly Roger."
"And you thought you could find it down there?"
Mutt looked around as if the answer was obvious and I was the crazy one. "Um ... yes. See, the day we sunk the Jolly Roger, I had a buffalo nickel in my pocket. And I think it must have come out down there because I've looked everyplace else." He pointed beneath the surface. "It was down there somewhere."
I reached in my pocket and pulled out a quarter. "If you need money, all you've got to do is say so."
Mutt shook his head. "No, I was looking for a particular one."
"Why is that particular nickel so all-fired important to you?"
"Because"-Mutt looked at me like it all made perfect sense-"if I found it, if I could put it back in my pocket, then maybe that day never ended. Maybe I could go back there and start again. Pick up where I left off. Maybe ..."
Katie stood on the ledge above us, her arm wrapped around Jase. Mutt looked at me with no inkling that he had just taken ten years off my life and brought me two seconds from coronary arrest. I climbed out of the quarry, squished back to the house, and stood under the hot shower until the water ran cool.
The time to call Gibby had come, and I knew it. I had found the root, but no amount of digging would ever uproot it, because the taproot had already split the rock.
Chapter 38
KATIE CREPT DOWN THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE INTO THE basement and shook my shoulder at 3:00 a.m., but she didn't need to wake me. I wasn't asleep. "Tucker," she whispered. "Tuck, I need to talk to you, to tell you something." Her lips were close; I felt her breath on my face, and the smell of lavender wrapped its arms around me. The basement was cold and dark, and she was barefoot. She held a single candle in her hand and was wearing silk pajamas that did little to conceal the fact that she was cold. "I haven't been entirely truthful. There's more to the story." She slipped her hand beneath mine, pressed it firmly to her stomach, and clenched it tightly as if she was afraid I'd escape. "When Ave went to Colorado .. . Trevor and I ... we tried to start over. I'm not sure"-t
ears welled in the corners of her eyes-"but I think ... I'm pregnant." She stood and turned to go. "I'm sorry." Katie walked out as silently as she had walked in, the sound of sliding silk climbing the stairs and silently fading away.
Tucker?
What could you possibly want right now?
To bring something to your attention.
I think I've had enough brought to my attention in the last twenty four hours. You ever heard of not piling on?
Child, I just want you to remember one thing.
Yes ma'am?
I spent half my life taking care of two bastard children.
Chapter 39
I CLIMBED THE STEPS TO THE GUN CLOSET, GRABBED THE same field-grade Greener, and broke open a box of shells. I slid two number fives in the chamber and brought the rest of the box with me just in case. I went to Rex's room first and took aim at his portrait above the mantel. I squeezed, blew his head off the canvas, and then turned on his bed where he slept. The steel shot landed in the center of the bed and sent feathers floating about the room. Next I aimed at the desk and blew the roll top completely off. Finally, I turned on his dresser, where he emptied his pockets and set down his glass.
Having killed Rex's room, I threw the Greener on the bed and climbed back down the stairs to the kitchen, where Katie ran in, white as a sheet. She saw me, stepped aside, and I climbed downstairs, studying the wine cellar. At the perfectly good, perfectly expensive, perfectly useless wine cellar. I picked my thirty-four-inch Louisville Slugger off the wall and cocked it in the slot above my shoulder. Placing Rex in my mind, I swung. Wine, dust, balsam wood, and glass exploded, painting the walls in six different decades of grape red. I reloaded, stepped to the side, and swung again. I swung until every inch of the walls dripped red. I had reduced the balsam frame to toothpicks, and wine trickled down the drain in the floor and echoed through the pipes. I sat down, sticky with wine and covered in glass shards, and felt the spasm climb down my leg.