Page 98 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
But she heard the sound of Rainbow’s voice in her head saying what she had said so many times before:Your baggage is weighing you down. Forgive him. Forgive your whole family. You think they care what you feel? You’re carrying around a grudge all the time and they’re out dancing at a party. Let it go.
The grudge against her father had been a part of Kateri for so long. Like a bad habit, she was used to it. It was ingrained in her, with tentacles in every dark crevasse of her soul, and to dig it out would take concentration and effort.
She sighed. She sat down and shut her eyes.
Why not? If she was on a beach created of rubble from the frog god’s imagination, watching for him would do her no good. Probably never had.
She tried to find her hatred to rip it out. She couldn’t quite grasp it. Something about it was slippery, slimy, like a well-told lie. In her mind, she caught a glimpse of the frog god, implacable, impatient, disdainful. “Look,” she said, “I’m doing the best I can, and if this isn’t what you wanted, I don’t know what it is.”
The disdain flared brighter.
She opened her eyes.
A wall of water reared itself off the sand in front of her and, before she could move, slammed down on her.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Kateri rolled, over and over, clawing at the sand, unable to tell up from down, salt in her mouth, water in her throat. She choked, cried. The water grew frothy; she reached up a hand into the air—and irrevocably, the wave sucked her toward the ocean, tumbling her like a rock that needed polishing. She fought, maddened with fear, afraid to go to the depths again, to see the frog god gloating over her return.
She had to get out. She had to go up. She needed to breathe, to be human, to be alive and part of the earth. Yet the current pulled her along the pale moonlit path and she kept sinking, sinking, into waters black and thick as memory.
Fourteen-year-old Kateri walked down the narrow wooded dirt lane. She had hitchhiked and hopped trains and walked and worked and rode buses from Baltimore to Virtue Falls. Now… she was almost home. Home. To her mother. Home. Where someone loved her. Home… In the twilight, she spotted the trailer house, the white metal siding dented by hail, the sloped roof covered in moss. She broke into a run, leaped up the listing porch steps. She grabbed the loose doorknob, jiggled it frantically until the metal door opened, raced into the living room and dropped her backpack. “Mama, I’m home!”
Faded flowered sheets covered the windows, letting in only the feeblest of light. Yet Kateri could find her way in the dark. This was the place where she belonged. Nothing had changed. Nothing… the stench hit her first. She remembered the smells. Mildew. Sweat. Spilled beer. Vomit. Rancid bacon. “Mama?”
A faint moan came from the couch.
Kateri turned, hurried toward the sound, knelt beside the short, skinny, half-clothed body resting on the sagging cushions. Kateri ran her hand over Mary’s feverish forehead, felt the skeletal shape of her shoulders.
The worst of the smells emanated from Mary.
But her mother was still alive. Mary’s cancer had brought Kateri’s father and delivered Kateri into hell, yet it had not killed Mary. That knowledge had been what kept Kateri moving across country, facing hardship, attempted rape, hungry days and cold nights. Cancer had not killed Mary, and Kateri could be with her again. Leaning close, Kateri hugged the limp body. “Mama, I’m home.”
Mary struggled a little, moaning slightly; Kateri felt as if she hugged a skeleton held together by thin, fragile, old skin.
Mary was only thirty-two.
“Mama?”
Rainbow’s quiet voice spoke from the sagging easy chair against the opposite wall. “Her remission is over. She’s dying.”
Kateri turned to face the shadowy form. “She’s… drunk.”
“Yes. She said she didn’t have enough money for food and drink, and she’d rather drink.”
“You let her?”
Rainbow chuckled, a dry, pained sound. “Let her? Kateri Kwinault, you have been gone five years. Do you remember your mother? Did anyone ever change her mind about anything? We warned her about your father, but she would have him, and he broke her heart. We told her to take you away, to take the money the government offered and get an education and make a life for herself and you. She would not leave Virtue Falls. She set her mind to this death; she will die from cancer and starvation, and she will die drunk. Hopefully the liquor will at least dull the pain.”
Wet seeped into the knees of Kateri’s jeans; she didn’t want to know what it was. “But I’m home.”
“I know, dear.” Rainbow’s voice was gentle. “She’s not dead yet. She’ll wake in the morning, and she’ll be happy to see you.” She sighed and stood, hauling her big-boned form out of the broken easy chair. “Since you’re here, I’ll take the night off and sleep. I’m tired, Kateri. Tired of watching and weeping alone.”
“Did she get my letters?”
“She did. She loves those letters. She reads and rereads them. She quotes them. She says you’re funny. She says you’re smart. She knows that you love her, and she talks about how she loves you.”
Hostility rose in Kateri, unwelcome and unconfessed. “If she loves me so much, why didn’t she ever write me back?”
