Read Online A Feather in the Rain by Alex Cord - Free Book Online Page B

his arm around her and kissed the top ofher head. Magician-like, an envelope appeared in his hand before her eyes. He watched her smile as she took out the card, somehow sensing it should be opened with care. It contained three golden aspen leaves that looked as if they’d been hammered out of a thin foil of the precious metal. She handled them delicately and said, “All right.” She read the card, “Thanks for being so cool. Thanks for being my friend. With love, The Boss.” She looked up at him with a trace of moisture in her eyes. Then again like magic he produced a black velvet jewelry box and handed it to her. In wonder, she opened it to find a pair of gold earrings shaped as small aspen leaves. “Oh, man…whoa…These aren’t the real things. These are the real things. Jesse, they’re beautiful.” She flung her arms around his neck and pulled him down to kiss him on the lips. “Thank you. I don’t know what to say.”
    â€œSay goodnight and drive carefully.”
    â€œGoodnight and drive carefully.” She was heading back to town for classes in the morning. “And I wanna hear about the trip. Did you meet a movie star?”
    â€œYeah. Lassie.” He watched her walk to the little VW bug and heard her yell back, “Thanks, Boss.” She started the car and led a rising plume of dust down the drive out to the road.
    He leaned on the log railing and inhaled the distinctive aroma of the Texas twilight, dun grading into blue. A high wind soughed out of the west and bore to him the sound of owl-talk from behind the barn. He sat in a rough chair and hung his heels on the rail. Holly Marie, not again. Buckshot, The Futurity. Damien had sat on this porch with him. He’d fallen off hanging by his knees from the rail, long platinum hair swinging from his upside-down face. He was ten years old, sixteen years before he died. One cannot be dead until all the things he changed and touched are gone. As long as there are memories, even the plaintive ones, there is no death. It takes a long, long time for a human being to die.

22
Looking for Light
    H er grandmother’s Victorian bed was piled with white lacetrimmed pillows and a thick burgundy quilt. The sky through the window was moon-bright with a thousand eyes. Naked under the cool sheet, she pressed her hands prayer-like against her chest, her hair spread, pale strands of cold gold, her eyes open. In the flicker of candlelit shadows on the ceiling, she had gone from meditation to tracing a view of her life out of the shattered pieces of a fiery mosaic. Then that lonesome leather cowboy from another planet was grinning at her, giving rise to wonder and speculation. Her hand moved over her belly to the moist warmth between her legs.
    For the first time in her life she lacked direction, goal or purpose other than to discover what lay ahead. She blew out the candle, rolled to her side, shoved a pillow between her pulled-up knees, and closed her eyes. Tomorrow, she thought, I will feel a horse against my thighs.
    She was watching the dawn lighten the sky when she heard Bearstirring and plumbing working. When he came down the stairs with his hair combed wet from the shower and the bottom half of a business suit on, she had the coffee going. She kissed him good morning. She fingered the starched shirt, “I guess you were planning on me feeding, huh?!”
    His big grin, a little sheepish, “Would you? I’ll cook some oatmeal.”
    She looked fourteen, Huck Finn in faded bib overalls and scarred up hiking boots. “Kinda nice to have me around, isn’t it?”
    He put his arms around her with his chin in her hair and tearshine in his eyes. “Yeah,” he whispered.
    She slid open the barn door to the impatient shuffle and snuffle of horses anticipating feed. Bingo the goat sprang from the ground to the top of a fifty-gallon drum and danced a flamenco until Holly poured a portion of