Читать книгу The Passing Storm - Emily Rennie - Страница 3

The wind pounded against me with the force of a giant ocean wave. Each step was an enormous effort, and I struggled against it as if walking through a hurricane. My heart beat wildly as I tried to figure out where I was. I held one hand in front of my face to shield my eyes from the wind, and with the other tried to feel my way through the darkness. Suddenly a shape loomed before me, first shadowed in darkness, then growing brighter as it bobbed closer. My stomach lurched with anticipation when I realized it was a face. I peered hard into the inky night, trying to see who it was, but I couldn’t make out any features. The face floated in front of me like a low, pale moon rolling out of its orbit. I shrank back in fear and turned to run, but I felt as if I was running in molasses. He was behind me, coming after me. He called to me, his voice full of anger and sadness. He was unknown to me, yet strangely familiar. I turned around, expecting him to be right behind me. But there was no one. No one but the moaning, furious wind.

I jerked awake, gasping sharply in surprise. The white light coming through the tiny airplane window hurt my eyes, a stark contrast to the darkness of my bad dream. Next to me, Gabby looked up from her seat-back tray where she was dressing and accessorizing her dolls.

“It’s okay, Anna,” she consoled in a grown-up voice. “You had a bad dream. But we’re still safe here on the plane heading to Grandma’s house.” She stood one of her dolls on my arm.

“Anna,” she said, disguising her voice to speak as the doll, “do you have any more gummy bears, because Gabby would really like some.”

I took a deep breath and tried to shake off the feeling of dread that lingered from the dream. I reached down under the seat in front of me and pulled the bag of candy out of my backpack.

“Hold out your hand and I’ll give you some,” I instructed.

“Can’t I just have the rest?” Gabby whined, returning to her own voice.

“No, you’ll get too hyper and won’t sit still,” I replied, shaking a little pile of bears into Gabby’s outstretched hand and popping a few into my own mouth. I gazed past Gabby out the window and wished we would land soon. The earth below was brown and empty, crisscrossed here and there with intersecting lines of roads and zigzagging rivers. Crop fields looked like odd-shaped pancakes in the middle of a giant flat griddle. I wondered who lived down there; who drove on those straight, lonely roads that stretched on and on into the horizon.

“Anna, are we over Texas yet?” Gabby asked, leaning forward to look out the window, blocking my view.

“Probably, but geez, quit hogging the window,” I replied. Gabby and I were spending a month with Grandma in Crisper, Texas, our mom’s hometown. Mom thought we were old enough to make the trip from California alone, and it gave her and our stepfather Alex a chance to do some major renovations on our house, and also have some time alone since they never really had a honeymoon.

“Anna, when we get to Texas, will everyone sound like Grandma?”

I was getting tired of Gabby’s questions, but I knew there was no stopping her. I couldn’t wait to get to Grandma’s, because I knew Grandma wouldn’t get tired of Gabby’s questions. At least she would never show it like I did. “What do you mean?”

“Will they say ‘How y’all do-in’?” Gabby drawled, imitating Grandma’s slow Texas accent.

“Yeah, a lot of them probably will,” I answered.

“Will we see Uncle Gil?” Gabby dropped her voice to a whisper.

“Probably not,” I replied, and added sternly, “And don’t ask Grandma about him either. You know it’s not polite.”

Gabby turned back to the window, twisting a lock of her curly, dark blonde hair. I started to remember the last time I’d seen Grandma’s brother, the mysterious Uncle Gil, but my thoughts were interrupted by a bump in the leg from the passing drink cart.

I pulled my book out of the seat pocket in front of me. As I did, I caught a glimpse of a dark-haired, older gentleman several rows ahead of me. It jogged the memory of the dream I’d had, and the horrible fear of being chased by a crazy man came rushing back to me. I remembered the ghostly face and shivered as a feeling of apprehension washed over me. I turned back to my book to get my mind off it and waited to land.

“Grandma!” Gabby spotted her before I did and ran ahead, breaking the grip of the flight attendant who had led us off the plane, and struggling to hold the straps of her pink backpack bouncing wildly behind her. I saw Grandma then, and smiled. I felt too old to run, though. There was a big difference between being six and being twelve.

“Gabrielle! Anna!” Grandma said happily as we reached her. She let go of Gabby’s embrace with one arm and extended it toward me. I hugged Grandma tight and inhaled her warm, familiar scent—a mixture of the countless number of face creams, lotions, perfumes, and soaps that covered her bathroom counter. Grandma seemed smaller than I remembered. I felt as if I could get more of my arms around her this time. It was probably because I’d grown since she’d visited us last Christmas, and I was pretty tall for my age. Grandma’s face and hair though, were just the same. Her skin was soft and smooth, and her signature bright red lipstick stood out against her pale face and cornflower blue eyes. Her hair—once a deep, vibrant red—was grey and highlighted by white around her temple.

“Oh, Anna,” Grandma said, “I can’t believe how tall you’re getting!” I smiled awkwardly. I still hadn’t gotten used to being so tall. I’d already passed most of the boys in my class, and was embarrassed when people pointed it out. Mom told me I’d get used to it and would start to appreciate it soon.

Grandma touched my hair lightly. “You look more like her every time I see you.”

“Like who, Grandma?”

“My sister, Ginny,” she said softly, smiling.

“Oh,” I said, unsure what to say. I knew that her sister Ginny had died when she was quite young, although Grandma seldom mentioned her and never seemed to want to talk about her. We only knew about her from what Mom told us, and from old family photographs.

“Well, girls,” Grandma said, gently breaking free from our hugs and standing up. “Let me give this young man the paper to claim you so we can head home.” Grandma handed a slip of paper to the flight attendant standing next to her.

“Okay, Anna and Gabrielle Olsen, meeting Nora McCarthy. Looks good, Mrs. McCarthy,” he smiled, looking up from the paperwork. “I can tell these girls certainly are glad to see their grandmother.”

“And their grandma is even happier to see them!” Grandma winked. “Let’s go get your suitcases, girls, we have quite a drive ahead of us.”

As soon as we walked outside I knew we were in Texas. The heat struck us like a blast from an enormous furnace. The air was thick, heavy, and humid.

“Ooh-wee!” Grandma said, echoing my thoughts and fanning her face with her hand. “Let’s hurry to the car so we can get the AC going.”

Grandma’s house was about two hours from the Dallas airport. It was a straight shot, but the scenery was the same for the entire drive, so once we left the skyscrapers behind I felt like we were driving in circles. The highway stretched on for miles between towns, flanked by green and brown fields and dotted occasionally by low wood fences and brick ranch homes. When we did slice through a town, all that we could usually see of it from the freeway was the giant water tower painted with the name of the town, along with a Conoco station and perhaps a McDonalds or Dairy Queen.

Without any hills to obscure it the sky was enormous, bright blue and filled with clouds puffed out like giant cotton balls floating across the sky. I scanned the horizon on all sides, and with the scenery the same everywhere I couldn’t get a sense of which direction we were heading. At home I always knew where the ocean was and could orient myself. Here I felt lost.

My eyes began to grow heavy from the monotonous scenery, and the next thing I knew Gabby was shaking me to wake up—we were finally in Crisper.

I blinked against the brightness of the sun. We’d gotten off the highway and were rolling along the main street that led from the town to the outlying areas. Many of the stores looked new, and I noticed that there were a lot of chain stores—something I didn’t remember Crisper having too many of. As if she’d read my mind, Grandma piped up and explained that Crisper had been enjoying a little economic boom the last few years, which had spurred a lot of new houses and businesses.

The distance between the shopping centers grew larger the farther we drove out of town, until we were only occasionally catching a glimpse of the homes that sat nestled within ranches and farms, like Grandma’s. With a surge of excitement brought on by memories of childhood visits to Crisper, I started to recognize the homes that we passed.

Grandma slowed down and turned onto the dirt road that led to her house. As many times as I’d seen it, I was still struck by the red color of the dirt in north Texas. Not only was it so different than the dark, moist dirt we had in our coastal town, but with so much more undeveloped land in Grandma’s part of the state there was just so much more of it. As we passed the first house on the road, a man pushing his lawnmower tipped his straw hat to Grandma and she smiled and waved.

“That old Charlie Booker’s going to need some help with his lawn this year. That man sure is getting old!” We giggled at Grandma’s comment. It was funny to hear someone Grandma’s age calling someone else old.

We passed several driveways and I knew we were getting close. Grandma turned into her long gravel driveway and Gabby started squealing with excitement as soon as we saw the familiar house. It was strange—the house, with its white stucco walls and the long, shaded porch with stone columns that wrapped around three sides of the house, seemed so familiar, yet not exactly as I remembered it.

As I scanned the yard, taking in the changes and feeling of nostalgia, I noticed the little house across the yard where Grandma’s brother Gil lived. It was the house they’d grown up in. It wasn’t until years later Grandma and Grandpa had built the bigger house that Mom grew up in and Grandma lived in now. Like Grandma’s house, Gil’s was almost as I remembered it, but not quite. Sand-colored brick covered the base; beige concrete topped off the upper half. I wondered if we’d see Gil on this trip, but before I could think any more about it, I got an odd feeling, like there was someone watching us arrive. I looked at the curtained windows, which seemed to peer back at me like dark, secretive eyes. I reasoned that I, too, would probably peek out my window if someone was pulling into my yard, but for some reason I didn’t think it was Gil who was watching us. I dismissed the feeling as fatigue and imagination, and thankfully Grandma snapped me out of the eerie reverie.

“We’re home!” she announced, guiding her car into the cool, dark garage. “Let’s get inside and call your mother to let her know you’re here safe.”

That night after I’d finished unpacking, I looked around the room that Gabby and I would share for the visit. It had once been our mother’s room, but several years after Mom and her sister Sally had moved out, Grandma moved the twin bed from Aunt Sally’s room into mom’s room, and converted Aunt Sally’s room into her sewing and crafts room.

As I did every time we visited, I picked up the photos that decorated the dresser and studied them. There was one of Mom and Aunt Sally when they were toddlers. Mom was holding a doll and Aunt Sally was holding a ball. I thought that was fitting, since Aunt Sally had gone on to become a college basketball star and was now a famous women’s basketball coach in Kentucky. Another photo showed teenaged Mom and Sally with Grandma and Grandpa. I grew a little sad looking at pictures of Grandpa. He had died before I was born, but somehow I felt like I knew him. One of the largest photos was of Grandpa in his army uniform just before he went to Korea. He looked so sharp and confident I could see how Grandma must have loved him a lot.

The last photo I picked up was a black and white snapshot of Grandma at about my age in a large group of teenagers and kids taken at a church function, according to the inscription taped to the back of the frame. Grandma’s hair was piled high on her head in the style of the day, and black pointy-rimmed glasses framed her beautiful, young face. Her sister Ginny stood next to her. Of the little I knew about Ginny, I knew that she had gone missing during a tornado storm when she was fifteen. I also knew that there was something mysterious about her death, because they never found her body. In the photo, Ginny and Grandma were standing close, leaning their heads together and laughing carelessly. I felt sad knowing that not long after the photo was taken Grandma’s family was devastated by that loss.

On the other side of Grandma was her brother Gil. It was hard to imagine that someone so young and vibrant, with his wide smile and dancing eyes and his hair slicked back perfectly, now lived the life of a hermit in the small house behind Grandma’s. I leaned over to peer out the window at the house in back. All the curtains were drawn.

Great Uncle Gil was a recluse who’d been hiding in his house for the past ten years. He’d been especially close to Ginny, and was crushed by her disappearance. As soon as he graduated high school he left town for college and law school, eventually becoming a powerful lawyer in Dallas representing the cattle barons. When he suffered a heart attack, he surprised Grandma and the rest of the family by coming back to Crisper to live in the house in Grandma’s backyard. The only person he really talked to was Grandma, who brought food over several times a day and made sure he was all right.

We’d never officially met Gil, but I’d secretly seen him. When I was six, soon after Dad died, we came to stay with Grandma for a while. One night I awoke from a nightmare. I called out for Mom, but she had gone to a late dinner with an old school friend. Grandma hadn’t heard me, so rather than wake baby Gabby in the crib next to me, I decided to go in the family room and ask Grandma for a glass of water. As I slid off the bed, I heard a strange voice coming from another room. It was low and soft; a heavy drawl. I thought it was the TV, because it sounded like the newscaster Grandma liked to watch. I shuffled down the hall, and as I drew closer to the family room, I realized the voice belonged to a real person. Not sure if I should make myself known, I hunkered down against the wall and listened.

“I’ll come get you at nine,” Grandma had said.

“I’m fine,” the man protested with a raspy voice.

“You are not fine. You’ve got a nasty bug and you’re going to Dr. Hutchinson’s. Hang on a minute and I’ll pour you some orange juice to take back.”

Tentatively, I poked my head around the corner. Grandma moved around the kitchen, still talking to the man whose back was turned to me. He was only slightly taller than Grandma. His gray hair was greasy, and in need of a trim. One hand rested on his hip, as if he planned to defy Grandma’s plans for the morning.

It’s Gil! I thought with panic. I had heard enough about him to guess that’s who the man was. I quickly ran back down the hall to my room. Grandma must have heard something, because she appeared in the doorway only seconds after I’d gotten back in bed. I was afraid I’d seen and heard something I shouldn’t, so I pretended to be asleep. Grandma kissed me on the forehead and straightened the covers before heading back to the family room. After another few minutes I heard the back door shut. I knew Gil must be going back to his house, but I was too scared to peek out the window to find out.

I shook myself from the memory and turned back to the picture I still had in my hand. I didn’t know who the rest of the people in the photo were, but I noticed that a tall, handsome athletic-looking man behind Ginny was resting his hand on her shoulder. I wondered if he’d been her boyfriend, but the way Ginny was standing so close to Grandma it didn’t appear she was even aware of his gesture. Next to him was another young man, and when I looked at him I felt uneasy. At first glance he looked like a normal guy with dark blond or light brown hair. He was shorter than the tall man behind Ginny, but the rolled-up sleeves of his checkered button-up revealed tan, muscled arms. His mouth twisted in a slight grin, but his eyes were hard, blank, and unfeeling. It’s his eyes. I felt as if he were staring straight at me, daring me to find out who he was—daring me to find out his secrets. I was reminded of the bad dream I’d had on the plane. With a shiver I put the photo down and looked behind me, suddenly afraid someone else was in the room.

I could hear Grandma herding Gabby down the hall to bed. I began to brush my hair to look busy. For some reason I felt guilty looking at that photo, even though I knew Grandma loved for us to look at her photos.

I climbed into my bed as Gabby climbed into hers right across from me. I wasn’t too sleepy—especially since my body was still two hours behind on California time. I figured I’d read some more of my book while Gabby fell asleep. Grandma tucked us in and kissed us goodnight. “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite,” she sang, shutting the door behind her.

I opened my book to where I’d left off, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Gabby was restlessly moving around in her bed and peeking under the covers. After a few seconds, she whispered, “Anna, there aren’t really bed bugs in here, are there?”

I laughed out loud. “No, of course not. Did you think Grandma meant it literally?”

“What does ‘literally’ mean?” she asked.

“Nothing, never mind. Just go to bed. Grandma’s sheets are bug-free.”

I read for a while, drawn into the eerie world of Jane Eyre. Mom had given it to me for the trip. I was fascinated by the description of the English moors. I wondered if Crisper, Texas felt like that in the winter—flat, lonely, and damp. After a while I began to grow sleepy. I put my book down and turned out the light. The sheets were soft and cool. I could hear the rattle of the air conditioner outside under our window, and the distant humming and revving of the cars at the demolition derby racetrack at the edge of town. Above it all I could hear the crickets chirping an insect symphony in the warm, dark night. Jetlagged and unable to sleep, I got on my knees in the bed so I could peek through the blinds. I could see the old house in which great Uncle Gil lived. No lights were on, but I could see the flicker of faint blue light from a TV through the curtains.

“Anna,” Gabby whispered. “Is Uncle Gil out there?”

“I thought you were asleep!” I whispered back.

“I was, but I woke up. Is he out there?”

“No, he’s in his house safe and sound, just like us.”

“Will he ever come out? Will we ever see him?” she asked.

“No, remember, he’s sick. He doesn’t like to leave his place. Everything’s fine, just go to sleep.”

“Okay,” she agreed, satisfied with my explanation. I didn’t know if I was, though. I wondered myself if we’d ever see Gil.

As I thought about the people from Grandma’s past I contemplated whether Grandpa’s spirit still roamed around the house. Or Grandma’s sister Ginny—cut off in the prime of her life. I knew that I was scaring myself so I snuggled back down under the covers and tried to think happy, benign thoughts to make me feel better. I could hear the TV from the living room, and Grandma’s hearty laugh as she watched a late night comedy show. The sound of her voice made me feel better, and suddenly the long day of traveling overcame me and I fell fast asleep.