Rainn on My Parade

by LoRee Peery

  He drew a shaky breath, attempting to ease the pain in his chest.

  They did an awkward side-stepping dance over to the sofa. She leaned against the armrest. He sank onto the cushion. Geneva swung her leg to shut the door with her foot.

  While she cradled his head against her chest, Rainn tried to pull himself together. “I never had a chance to be honest with Lindsay.”

  Geneva’s fingers smoothed the hair above his ear.

  “I loved her, but I never tried to understand her weakness for drugs.” His chest quivered when he attempted to gain composure. “I only judged. So, I’ll confess in front of you. Since our parents neglected the situation with Lindsay, I went to her rescue all the time. Where Mia’s concerned, I always considered myself a better parental choice than my own sister.”

  A drop of moisture dribbled over his temple. Geneva was crying with him. And here he sat, a supposedly mature Christian; yet he had never empathized with his sister.

  Rainn felt suspended in time. The same oldies song played on and on about not being afraid and standing alone.

  It was a reminder that believers, like lovers turning to one another, were to turn to Jesus in their time of trouble.

  Rainn swiped the tears from his cheeks. He relaxed his arms in order to pull back, but clung to Geneva instead, needing the connection with her. He slid his fingers over her shoulders in a long caress, then down her arms, memorizing the lines of soft curves, and threaded their fingers together.

  Her sharp intake of breath was loud in the office. Even in distress, physical awareness dangled in the air between them.

  He wanted to always be able to share his pain with her. Rainn glanced up from their joined hands to focus on her face.

  Geneva freed one hand from his and smoothed the bothersome hair off his forehead. He wanted to run away, to go somewhere private and do nothing but let her envelope him.

  “Tell me how I can help.”

  Her voice sounded fuzzy, and he blamed it on the emotions that had struck him out of nowhere, like a sudden explosion of fire.

  “You’ve already helped me, Geneva.” He cleared his throat. Rainn drew her hand to his side and squeezed her fingers between his own. “I don’t know what to do with Mia.”

  “You know you can leave her here with us. She can have Moselle’s room at the house.” She gave a nervous little noise. “Rainn, you’re holding me too tight.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “No problem. No reason to be concerned for Mia. You take that long drive to Texas to concentrate on Lindsay.”

  “And to pray about what to do after I know for sure.”

  “Right. For now, can I change the subject here and you can think about answering a question for me?”

  He nodded, wondering what was coming.

  She pulled free and eased up from the sofa. “Why do you have that particular tune on your cell phone?”

  Rain felt the tension leave his body. His despair over Lindsay eased as his heart filled with Geneva. “That’s easy. Doesn’t take any thinking about. Goes back to when I first saw you. I’ve already told you what I said to Eric. If the daughter looks like the mother he’s got a winner.”

  She raised a brow, waiting for him to continue.

  His voice rose as he sang a popular song about love at first sight, and grew stronger with each line. He looked her over and was struck anew by the whole package of Geneva. Her coloring, arched brows and the Hollywood look of the fifties that reminded him of Rita Hayworth.

  Rainn stood, brushing against the hem of her Frivolities apron. He cupped her face, traced her bottom lip with his thumb, and his gut reacted.

  “Your face captivated me then. And now it’s your fault that I’m hooked on these old songs. I listen to sappy songs at night on the oldies station. I pictured your face when I listened to the lyrics, and chose that tune for my cell phone.”

  Her lips parted, but she didn’t interrupt.

  “I’ve been hooked on you since I held you in my arms and carried you out of a tree.”

  She closed her eyes, depriving him of seeing the impact of his confession. He picked up the melody and sang a meaningful line from the song.

  Geneva sucked in a gasp and her eyes popped open at the same time. How he enjoyed watching the frustration he caused.

  He felt like he had wandered into a time of her youth. His heart plunged to his knees. “I never want to go back to before knowing you.”

  Moisture gathered. “Oh, Rainn, whatever am I going to do with you?”

  Rainn on My Parade

  9

  At Mia’s bedtime, Geneva’s thoughts were again in turmoil.

  You’re being taken advantage of. No doubt, the adversary of the Lord whispered the nagging words.

  She wouldn’t listen. She was an older business woman who’d run out of energy, that’s all. So the enemy tried to bother her, mixing up her feelings for Rainn.

  “Tell me a story,” Mia pleaded.

  Her heart went out to this potentially motherless child. “Here’s one I used to tell Moselle.”

  Mia snuggled against Geneva’s side, and smoothed the blanket under her armpits before placing her arms outside the covers.

  Geneva leaned her chin against soft curls and laid her arm across Mia’s.

  “A long time ago, way, way back,” Geneva waved her arm in a wide circle, “only God was in the world. Well, Jesus was there, too. God was moving along above the waters one day and He must have chosen to bring light into the darkness, just for the fun of it. Who knows why, but God can do anything.”

  “God can make anything too, ’cause He made me and you and Uncle Rainn and Moselle and Eric.” Mia sucked in a big breath. “Well, God made everybody in the whole ginormous world! And Eric’s puppy, named Dear.”

  “That He did, but you’re getting ahead of my story. He made the moon, and sun, and night, and day. He was tired of the dark. Then He created the rest of the earth: heaven above, ground below, trees, and fruit to eat.” Geneva paused and tapped Mia on the nose. “He made fish, and birds, and animals. And, do you know what He made next?”

  “Adam?”

  “Smart girl. Yes, God was lonely, so he created Adam in His own image. That means that Adam kind of looks like Jesus, but God is a spirit so it’s really hard to say because none of us have seen Him.”

  “Then God put Adam to sleep and made Eve.”

  “You got that right, big girl. Adam and Eve are daddy and mommy to the whole world.”

  “Geneva has Eve in her name.”

  “Wow, you are indeed a smart girl.”

  “Uncle Rainn told me that.”

  Geneva studied Mia’s face and imagined the brain cells working as she paused.

  “Most kids have a daddy and a mommy. I would like Uncle Rainn to be my daddy.”

  Who wouldn’t want Rainn to be family?

  “That’s a really good thought, and whether he’s your real daddy or not, Uncle Rainn loves you, no matter what.” Geneva fought the thickness in her throat.

  She tucked the blankets around Mia’s shoulders and sides. Geneva’s heart filled with longings for this sweet girl.

  Oh, Lord, please protect her. Keep her safe and free from some depraved nut who could take advantage of her.

  “For now, it is bedtime, so you think about happily ever after, which means heaven for all of us who believe in Jesus.” One last blanket tuck at Mia’s waist, along with a little tickle. “There you are…”

  “Snug as a bug in a rug.” They spoke at the same time and giggled. Geneva kissed Mia on the forehead.

  At the door, her heart took a nose dive. Geneva was falling for this child as much as she had fallen for the girl’s uncle.

  “I love you, Mia Grace Harris.”

  “OK.”

  ****

  One thing for sure, at least for a little while, Geneva had taken his mind off Lindsay and the situation at hand. Now the miles flew. Rainn found himself in Oklahoma, wondering what had ha
ppened to Kansas. He’d paid at the pump without noticing gas prices, and had no recollection of what small talk he’d made at the various stops.

  Memories of growing up with Lindsay, followed by her various problems, consumed his thoughts. The Lord sustained him. His focus always circled back to that fact—Lindsay believed. Even with her weakness, her addiction, she knew the Lord. Rainn clung to the hope of seeing her in eternity. He had no idea why she hadn’t been able to rise above her chosen lifestyle.

  He put those memories and negative thoughts aside so he could concentrate on driving. He found himself at Lindsay’s apartment in Fort Worth after dark. Penny Shake had obviously not returned from Corpus Christi, since her part of the house was dark and empty when he arrived.

  He let himself inside with the key Penny had given him. He looked around Lindsay’s apartment, and pictured Geneva. At the thought of her lovely face, he punched her number into his cell.

  “Sorry it’s so late.”

  “I waited, hoping you’d give us a call.”

  “Mia doing all right?”

  “She’s been an angel. As long as Moselle and I remember to get her attention and talk to her before we do something. With no surprises, we get along just fine.”

  “I owe you big time for this.”

  “Nonsense.”

  Her soft response warmed a sudden chill, caused by the shock of the unknown facing him on the morrow.

  “She’s a bright light in the house. Lanae is going through her sleeping mode from the treatments, right now, so I enjoy Mia’s company.”

  “Did you do anything special?”

  “Not really. But after dinner Mia spent an hour in the porch glider.”

  “I’m sure she needed that.” A deep yawn hit, and he realized sudden fatigue. “If it is Lindsay on a cold slab downtown, one of the things I need to do for Mia is put up a swing.”

  “Rainn, we can deal with all that later. You sound like you need a good night’s sleep.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” He yawned again. “Geneva, I…”

  He didn’t speak for several seconds, his heart too full of the circumstances to find words. His world was changing and he could only think of a good night’s sleep.

  “What, Rainn?” she asked finally.

  “You’re right. I am beat. We’ll talk later.”

  “Lord be with you. Goodnight.”

  He didn’t fill the silence.

  She didn’t hang up. Just when he sucked in a breath to speak, he heard the familiar dead air that meant she had disconnected.

  Rainn brushed his teeth. So weary that he only unbuttoned his shorts and kicked off his sandals before diving onto Lindsay’s bed. The downy bed cover welcomed him as though it remembered he’d slept there on his earlier trip.

  He wanted to think it was all a mistake, these Texas road trips, as though Lindsay had come home to her apartment and been there in his absence.

  The next morning, Rainn speed-dialed Geneva at home while waiting in the police parking lot way too early for Detective Massey to be in. Since four-thirty am, he’d gone through a pot of coffee. Lindsay’s small pot probably equaled one of Geneva’s large servings from her pet espresso machine.

  “Hi, are my girls bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?” Simply hearing her hello made the early hour look a little brighter, and had taken the edge off what he soon had to face.

  “Getting there. Where are you, Rainn?”

  “I’m in the Police Department parking lot, waiting for the appointed time. So, you and Mia had an agreeable night?”

  “You know she’s a peach.”

  Rainn loved the sound of this woman’s voice. “I know she can be a pill. And I hear her in the background, so I’ll check in later.”

  They signed off. He took another quick glance at the time, and stretched his legs as best he could in the SUV. Then he opened his Bible and read until ten minutes past eight.

  Once he entered the building, daylight merged into segments of action and bits of conversation.

  Detective Benjamin Massey, the one who had called Rainn, was in the field.

  The officer at the front desk directed him to the Investigative Clerk, for details of the examination at the morgue.

  The surroundings and his circumstances slammed into Rainn. He wanted Geneva by his side.

  He felt sick to his stomach, sick at the idea that Lindsay’s body was considered a “case” and she was in the morgue. He imagined her body discussed and handled like an object: processed, numbered, examined, photographed—all the nitty-gritty dirty technicalities that he’d watched in movies and on TV.

  But this was real. He didn’t even consider going there, picturing an autopsy, and what all had been done to his sister’s body.

  “Oh, Lord, please fill everyone who handles Lindsay with respect for her,” Rainn whispered at one point.

  Their shoes sounded extra loud in the empty corridor.

  “The M.E. opted to perform an autopsy, since death was due to trauma. The exact cause remains undetermined. It’s been longer than twenty-four hours since the body was found, and that’s the usual time it takes to complete an examination.”

  Rainn knew deep in his gut the body in question was Lindsay.

  “We can’t release an unidentified body until a positive ID has been made. Most of the time, visual identification by a next-of-kin is all it takes.”

  Rainn concentrated on the black ring surrounding the irises of the clerk’s blue eyes as the man spoke without inflection. Words floated in and out of cognition.

  “If it was your sister, she’d be taken to the County Medical Examiner’s Office.”

  Two addresses were mentioned—Weatherford Street and something that Rainn didn’t catch. But that was all right, because he’d be escorted.

  “Why is the Medical Examiner involved?”

  “Texas Law,” the man’s clipped reply went on, “regarding suspicious or wrongful death.”

  He heard stainless steel clanking while he walked through a labyrinth of hallways, doorways, and cubicles. Thank God, he didn’t have to go anywhere cold and smelly. He went into a small, cubicle-like space and looked at a computer monitor.

  Rainn’s gut clenched and churned.

  His sister’s face filled the screen. Eyes closed, brown hair tangled and messy, face blanched of color.

  Surreal. No. Real.

  It was Lindsay.

  He blocked out the investigative clerk’s name. A disembodied voice announcing snippets of sentences came to him through a fog. “Blunt force trauma…” “High concentration of a cocktail of drugs…” The phrases wove in and out of his mind.

  But to Lindsay’s credit, the needle had gone in at a place she couldn’t inject herself, so the ME ruled her death a homicide.

  “Now what happens?” Rainn managed, his voice ragged to his own ears.

  “Choose a funeral home. Tell the director we’re handling the death. Then sign a release form at the funeral home authorizing the Medical Examiner to release the body to them.”

  Rainn felt caught in the grips of a nightmare, or suspended in time, longing to wake up and go on with his life.

  He was expected to make decisions required of his parents. Since they were wandering around in the wilds of Alaska, he had to act as next of kin.

  Right or wrong, he settled on cremation.

  He wanted it done.

  Mia would have to trust his decision later, when she was older, for protecting her from the trauma of a graveside service. He’d bring her back to visit Texas later, or whenever she would be ready.

  How would he find his parents?

  He left a message for Detective Massey to contact the proper authorities in Alaska, forest rangers, or state troopers.

  Back in Lindsay’s apartment, Rainn wrote Penny Shake a letter, and included a rent check for what he figured Lindsay owed.

  He searched for, found, and stuffed large trash bag liners with the meager items from Mia’s room and a few personal thin
gs Lindsay would no doubt want her daughter to have someday. Lost, beautiful Lindsay, whose life was summed up in a few bags of belongings. His only comfort came from the assurance that they would meet again someday in heaven.

  He would get on with his own life with Mia…and he prayed that life would include Geneva.

  He headed home.

  Home to Mia.

  Home to Geneva.

  Home. He sighed, chasing away the picture of Lindsay, and filling his head with the loved ones who waited in Platteville.

  Rainn on My Parade

  10

  Mia slept soundly in Moselle’s old room. Unsettled, Geneva had been in and out of bed twice.

  She now swished back and forth in the porch glider. The night was humid, but the temperature was not high enough for air conditioning. The motion gave the false sense that air moved around her.

  She felt a little crazy, the way an eager young Moselle had waited for Eric to show. Those two had shared countless kisses on this porch. The idea of kisses brought to mind another young man. Correction, younger man. Rainn. What a name.

  The door creaked open.

  “Can’t sleep, Sis? I peeked in on Mia and she’s still all snuggled in. I think Moselle was about the same age when she stayed with us on the ranch.” Lanae joined Geneva in the glider.

  “Thanks for checking on Mia. It was stuffy in my room. I haven’t heard from Rainn since morning.”

  “That man really cares for you, you know.”

  They swayed in and out of the shadows without speaking.

  “You don’t think he’s only treating me well so he has someone to care for Mia?” Geneva finally asked.

  “Not in this lifetime. He wants you for you. He wants the best for Mia and he sees you as the best. I also think you should give him the chance to show you some romance.” Lanae broke up laughing. “Chance. Romance. Just listen to me. I’m a poet.”

  Geneva’s dream for Frivolities had been her main focus. Was she throwing away a precious gift? The once-in-a-lifetime gift of Rainn’s love?

  But loving Rainn included Mia, another potential daughter.

  Geneva reminded herself again: she’d raised her daughter. At this point in her life she wanted to concentrate on Frivolities rather than the ramifications of rearing a child like Mia.