"No problem," he says, taking a swig from his thermos.
"Can I ask you something that might be kind of personal?"
"I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Haven," he says with a small chuckle.
I reposition myself to face him. "If you mow all those lawns, how come you have no money to eat?"
He clears his throat, sounding uncomfortable. "I only mow for a few families right now. Things used to be better, but with the hurricanes we've had over the past two years, it seems like there has been a drop in the economy around here. People are mowing their own lawns now. The only folks who can still afford gardeners are the people in your neighborhood, and they all use the same company. Except for your family, obviously."
"My dad fired that company. They tore up one of Mom's flower beds."
"They move quickly and get the job done, but the quality is lacking," he agrees.
"Where did you get your equipment?" I know I'm prying, but I can't help but wonder.
"You writing a book about me or something?" he asks with a raised brow.
I lay back down and fold my arms beneath my head as he pulls the blanket over me. Rolling onto his side and perching on his elbow, he holds his head up with his hand and smiles sadly at me. "I'm just curious about your story. I'm a reader, not a writer."
"My grandfather was best friends with this guy, Ralph, who owned a fertilizing company. When Granddad died, Ralph felt bad and gave me a mower, some tools, and a beat-up truck he wasn't using anymore. He told me it would be a good job to have—it would teach me the responsibilities of handling money for when I turned eighteen."
I run my hand over Raine's, tracing my finger over the roughness of his knuckles. "Why eighteen?"
Raine inhales sharply through his nose, and his eyelids flutter before closing. "You gotta be eighteen to be considered an adult. I don't know. All I do know is, there was a plan, and it didn't work out the way I thought it would."
"So, who did you live with after your grandfather died?" I press, trying—not so subtly—to figure out more of his story. He said his parents are gone. If there is no one else, that might explain all of this.
"It's kind of a long story," he says.
"That's why you dropped out of school." I'm not asking. I'm confirming.
Raine moves his elbow and lays down with his hand pillowed beneath his cheek. His other hand reaches over for the blanket and wraps himself up in it too and never responds to my last accusation.
He falls asleep much quicker than I do, and I feel a sense of calmness within me as I listen to the rhythm of his breaths mixed with the night sounds of nature. I wrap my arm around him and curl into his side. The feeling I have when I'm next to him offers me a type of comfort I’ve never felt. I'm attracted to him in so many ways it's almost confusing. To me, he defines perfection—the way all his facial features are perfectly symmetrical and his lashes and eyebrows are significantly darker than his skin tone and eyes. His longish hair accents his chiseled jaw, and I love looking at him. I've always loved looking at him. I fell for him after just watching him mow our lawn for six months. However, what I feel for him has reached a whole other level now.
For five years, I haven't let anyone in. Not even my parents know of the thoughts that pass through my mind, aside from my opinion on pretending to be something I’m not when I’m out in public with them. Yet, in such a short time, I feel like Raine gets me—at least a little—despite the lesson he's trying to teach me about wanting to be homeless. And while I know there is way more to his story, there's a broken soul in his body too. I feel it every time he speaks. He deserves more, I deserve less, and somewhere in the middle, we have met in this amazing place.
As I fall into a shallow sleep, Raine's body trembles lightly against mine. Again. I open my eyes to more darkness than there was when I fell asleep, leaving me without a clear image of what's happening. I shake him gently. "Raine," I whisper. "Are you okay?"
He doesn't respond, so I shake him a little harder. "Raine, you're scaring me." He's still shaking or vibrating, I don't know what to call it. I'd think it could be a night terror but this happened earlier too, just not to this degree, and he doesn’t seem to be afraid.
As at least five minutes go by, I still can't wake him up, and I'm beginning to freak out. Neither of us has a phone, and we're at least a mile from his truck, which is on the other side of the pitch-black woods with no real path. I'm not sure I could even find his truck if I tried.
I pound on his chest with my fists and shout his name much louder than I had the last two times. The tremors finally stop. His eyes flutter open, and he looks confused. "What—are you okay?" he asks me. "What's going on?"
Am I okay? "You were just convulsing for almost five minutes, and I couldn't wake you up. What's happening? Has this happened before?" I'm kneeling over him, pleading for an answer—understanding.
"I'm okay," he says, sounding as if he’s trying to brush me off. "I am."
"No, you're not," I spit back with anger.
"I have seizures sometimes; it's not a big deal."
"That is a big deal, Raine." I know nothing about seizures, though. I don't know what causes them or how to stop them.
"I've had them my whole life, and I'm still here, aren't I?" The slight hint of anger is warning me of embarrassment. I know enough about him now to see what he gets like when he has to expose another part of himself.
"Are you on medication?"
He laughs in response. "I eat food from a shelter, Haven. Come on now, you're a smart girl."
Ignoring the insult, I lay back down. "Does it happen every day?" I ask.
"I don't know," he shouts. "What is with the interrogation? Can we stop this, please? I'm fine. Just go back to sleep."
"I'm sorry," I mutter through a whisper.
He lies back down and wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me back into his chest. "Please, don't worry about me. I don't want that kind of pain in my life."
Which is why I'm afraid the only thing I will do now, is worry about you.
12
Raine
"Listen to me, Grandson. There's going to come a time in your life when I'm not around, and I need to know you're going to be okay without me." Granddad holds one palm on my chest and the other on my back. "Breathe." I look him in his grayish eyes and do as he says.
"I'm scared," I tell him. "Why does this keep happening?" The nervous feeling beating through every muscle in my body fades away as I focus on Granddad's face—the worry he always tries to hide with bravery.
"Raine," he says with a heavy sigh. "People make mistakes in life, and sometimes there are incredible consequences that come along with those mistakes. There are also times when others have to pay for mistakes they didn't make."
Breathing a little deeper, I lean back into the sofa I had been sprawled out on before the shakes started. "But, what does that have to do with me? Are you talking about my parents again?"
"Here we go," Lenore says, rushing into the room. "Take this, sweetie." She hands me a glass of water and sits down on the other side of me. "Did you take your medicine this morning? I left it in a dish beside your breakfast plate."
"I think so," I tell her. I take those stupid pills every morning, and I choke almost every time I try to swallow them. Sometimes when I choke, the pill flies out of my mouth, and I don't go looking for it.
"It's been a good while this time. I wonder what triggered it?" Lenore asks Granddad. He's too busy staring at me with sad eyes, though. I don't like when he looks at me this way. I stand up from the couch and make my way toward the kitchen for a snack. Whenever I get the shakes, it makes me hungry, like it's taken all of my energy away or something. As I'm leaving the room, I hear Lenore continue talking. "How could a mother do this to her child? Didn't that woman know how lucky she was to have a baby in the first place? For goodness sake, some women who were put on this earth to be mothers can't have babies, and instead those precious gifts go to people like her.”
I'm around the corner for most of the conversation, but I continue to listen, curious to hear what else she's going to say. I poke my head out just enough to peek back into the room, and I watch Granddad place his hand on her shoulder as he shakes his head. "I don't know what my son saw in that woman, Lenore. She made a monster out of him too." A monster? Were my parents both monsters? Is that why they're gone? I don't understand much of this. "I gave my son everything, and now he's in prison. My only hope in life is that Raine doesn't follow in their footsteps."
"I know you won't let that happen," Lenore tells Granddad. "Raine is lucky to have you."
Granddad has that look on his face like he’s messed up or had a bad day. He blames himself for everything, but I’m old enough to know none of the things he takes the blame for are his fault. “I never thought I could allow it to happen to my own son either, but it did," Granddad says.
"Raine is a good boy," Lenore says. "He's only going to do good things with his life."
"Thank you for saying that," Granddad tells her.
Lenore stands from the sofa and smooths out the wrinkles in her apron before heading in my direction.
With quick steps, I pull back away from the corner but continue to listen as Granddad stops her. "Oh, Lenore, I have guests coming over on Friday night to discuss a possible donation I may be making to the town. Are you able to stick around for a few extra hours and put together a dinner? I'll pay you double time. I know Friday nights you go to the center for parents’ night with Lauren, and I hate to interrupt, but you know how helpless I am in the kitchen, and it's such late notice to find a caterer."
I can hear the smile in Lenore’s warm voice as she answers the way she always does. "Of course, I’ll be here, but would it be okay if I brought Lauren here to help me?" Lenore asks him.
"Lenore, any time you want her here, you know I'm happy to have her."
Lenore's daughter, Lauren, always looks at me strangely, like I have two heads, but she's very friendly and gives a lot of tight hugs. She doesn't say much, but when she does, I have a hard time understanding her, which is weird since she's a lot older than I am. When I asked Granddad why she didn't talk like we do, he said it was because God made her special, giving her an extra big smile and special-looking eyes that are shaped like almonds. I think that was his way of saying there's something different about her. I always wonder if she's sick like me, but in a different kind of way, and maybe that's the reason she's always giving me hugs.
"Goodness!" Lenore shouts as she almost runs into me. "Have you been standing here this whole time, Raine?" Busted.
"No, I was looking for the bag of chips I opened yesterday, but I couldn't find them. I thought maybe you'd know, so I was—do you know where they are?"
She places her hand on my back and guides me back into the kitchen. "Well, if you didn't already hear, Lauren is coming over on Friday night. She'll be so excited to see you." Lenore squeezes her arm around my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. "You feeling okay now, honey?"
"Yeah, I'm okay." I want to ask her why I have the shakes because of my mom, but then she'd know for sure I was listening the whole time.
The sun is rising later each day closer we come to fall, but I seem to wake up at the same time every morning, no matter where the sun is. There's only one thing I enjoy about sleeping outdoors, and that's watching the sun rise. Subconsciously, I must never want to miss it.
Gently, I lift my arm from Haven and pull myself up while feeling a slight ache from last night's tremors. When the seizure died out so quickly at Haven's house, I had a feeling I'd be in for a rude awakening later in the day, and sure enough it happened last night.
With the trees settled the way they are, the sky looks like two gallons of paint—orange and pink—are pouring over the treetops and spilling into the water. I glance over at Haven, wishing she didn't have to miss this, but she's still sleeping. Placing my hand on her back, I run my fingertips up and down her spine a few times until her eyelashes flutter, exposing her beautiful eyes. "Good morning," I tell her. Within a minute of coming to her senses, she squints against the brightness of the colors blinding us from the reflection of the water. "I thought you might like to watch the sunrise. It's not too bad today."
She yawns and stretches her arms out to the side while clutching the blanket up to her chest. "Do you always watch the sunrise? You seem to talk about it a lot." I can tell she’s trying to sound alert for just waking up, but the grogginess in her voice is a tell-all.
"When I sleep outside, yeah. Sometimes, it's the only beautiful part of the day." A lazy smile creeps along Haven’s lips as she places her hand heavily on my knee. "You know, my Granddad used to wake me up early every morning before school just to watch the sun peek above the tree line." A memory of his face and the happiness he had at such an early hour in the day makes my heart hurt a bit. God, I miss him. "Yeah…he'd tell me, 'No man would ever need a cup of joe if he just sat outside and watched the sunrise. It is the world's way of waking our lazy bones up and filling us with enough energy to get us through the day.'"
"I love that," she says, smiling up at the sun. "Your Granddad sounds like a smart man." Haven sits up beside me, itching at the arm that was clearly not tucked under the blanket. It's covered in mosquito bites, just as I warned her. I have a feeling she won't mention it, though. It would be admitting I was right, and from what I know about her, I don’t think that will be happening anytime soon. "It's really breathtaking." She’s still looking up into the sky, now with her hand cupped over her eyes. "It's so bright, it's almost hard to look at it."
That's kind of how I felt about you the first time we came here.
Minutes go by, and I catch quick glimpses of Haven running her fingers through her dew-ridden damp hair as she examines other parts of her body that must have gotten bitten by mosquitos last night. They don't bother me so much anymore, but it's worse around water, so I try to avoid sleeping close to mosquito pits like a lake, this time of year. "I feel gross," she says. "And my stomach kind of hurts." Hunger pains, I'm guessing.
"Can I take you home now?" I honestly didn't think she'd make it through a night sleeping outdoors with no equipment or sustenance beyond a cheese sandwich and a couple of wafers, but she proved me wrong.
"I suppose I should avoid the search Dad will most likely send after me." She looks defeated, and I can understand. I would too. Shelter and food are important, and until they’re gone, you don't know how much you need them. I can't bear to watch her live the way I have to. "My feelings on the matter haven't changed, though."
"I didn't doubt that, Haven, but I was hoping you'd realize this homeless kind of living isn't a life you want."
There's sadness and guilt in her eyes, and it kills me to think she may be doing this or acting this way because she feels sorry for me. "I don't want you to have to sleep outside anymore," she says under her breath.
"I know." It’s all I can say.
An idea sparks through her eyes, and I'm afraid of what it might be, but she appears to be in a rush to accommodate whatever notion is filling her head. Rolling up the blanket, she leans over and grabs my backpack. "Come on. Let's go." She's up and tugging me to my feet, using strength that surprises me for a girl her size. "Hurry!"
We make it back to the truck within a few minutes, and she directs me to drive her home, but I don't know what's happening after that. I can't be caught dropping her off in front of her house after being missing all night. That man would come after me in a heartbeat.
"Drop me right here," she says as we pull around the corner of her street. "Give me an hour and come back. Okay?"
"Uh, are you sure that's a good idea?" I ask her.
"Just do it." She jumps out of the truck and jogs down the street until she reaches her driveway. Once I see she's gotten inside safely, I make a U-turn and peel out of the neighborhood before anyone sees me. God only knows, these perfectly groomed hedges lining the street probably have eyes.
I walk across the kitchen to where she's stirring a colossal-sized pot of oatmeal, and squeeze her into a hug. "Hi," I say.
She grabs me by the chin and yanks me in closer. "Where in the world were you sleeping last night? A mosquito pit?"
I gently pull my face from her grip. "Yeah, bad move."
"I thought you were staying with a friend?" she asks as pain fills her eyes. "Raine, don’t tell me—"
"I was, but, that didn't work out so well. I had to move out a couple months ago." She reaches across the serving area and grabs a glass bowl, filling it with the oatmeal she had been stirring. "For goodness sake, Raine, why haven't you said a word to me? I've seen you every day here for weeks now. I just knew something wasn't right, but I try not to pry."
"I didn't want to worry you, that's all." Lenore's chin trembles as she pinches her lips together. Her eyes squeeze tightly, and she locks her gaze on the clumps in the oatmeal. "I promised your granddad it wouldn't be like this." Her words are so soft, yet they hurt like a punch to the gut. "Do you need a place to stay?"
"I'll be okay," I lie.
"That's bull, Raine, and you know it," she says, anger lacing her sad words.
"You hardly have space for you and Lauren. I couldn't impose like that." I take the bowl of oatmeal from her hands, feeling a load of guilt for trying not to hurt her, while at the same time obviously causing her pain. Granddad took good care of Lenore while she worked for him, but since he died, she's been serving food here, living off a small stipend the town gives her to serve the homeless every day. I guess there weren't too many housekeeping jobs available in the area—at least not ones with the flexibility she needs to have so she can care for Lauren.
Raine's Haven Page 10
