The Value Of Rain Read online

  And it did, finally.

  Chapter Nineteen

  February 1991

  Charlotte laughed with a cruel sharp edge. “He can’t let it go. Look at him; he’s still crying over a fag twenty years dead.”

  She cackled merrily as Jarrel grabbed me from behind and kept me from her throat a second time.

  Breece moved in front of me, blocking my view and calling my name until I was calm enough to register his presence. “Can you control yourself now?” he asked me.

  I shrugged Jarrel off. “Fuck you.”

  He looked at me, a challenge in his eyes. “You said you know the cause, what is it?”

  “She’s a nigger, and she hates it!” I proclaimed as I stepped around him and looked her in the eye.

  She rolled her eyes at me.

  “It’s true and you know it.” I turned and told the rest of the family what I had learned in New Orleans.

  “And you think you can hurt me with this, faggot?” she asked me. “You’re about twenty years too late,” she sneered. She looked around the room at the rest of the family. “You can’t defeat me, any of you. I shaped this family. I made it into what it is. And not one of you had the balls to lead it anywhere else. Pathetic,” she seethed at us. “You’re all so goddamned pathetic.”

  “Not strong like you, are we Charlotte?” Breece said, moving closer to the bed.

  “Not by half.”

  “Your mother was a strong woman too, wasn’t she? You learned about strength from her,” Breece continued.

  “My mother was the best. There was no one better than her. She had the backbone of twenty men.”

  “And when Francois killed her, what happened then?” he asked her quietly.

  There was a collective gasp in the room. “What?” I asked.

  But he didn’t look at me. He went straight to Charlotte, like a cat intent on its prey. My eyes went from him to Charlotte, who was staring off into space, her eyes glazed with the past misdeeds of my grandfather. “He killed her,” she mumbled.

  “Marie made him feel small, didn’t she?” Breece asked. “A small pathetic little man. He didn’t mean to kill her, but he wasn’t exactly sorry about it either, was he?”

  Her hand came up as if to shield her eyes from his scaring words. She shook her head.

  Breece stopped and looked at her pitifully before he turned to the rest of us. “He was drunk the night he killed her. He was always drunk. Marie drove him to his drinking, and then browbeat him because of it. But he was a drunk none the less.”

  He looked back at Charlotte. “They argued that night because he found out the truth about her just like you did, Charles. She had plagued him about her aristocracy and now he found out just the opposite. So it became his turn to taunt her for a change. Drunk and reveling, he drove up and down the street chanting nigger at the top of his lungs. Somehow Marie ended up in the street and Francois ran her down.”

  “How do you know all this?” Sylvia asked.

  “Debra Massey, Robert’s mother,” he added as he inclined his head towards me. “They were the best of friends until that day. Debra was the one that found Charlotte in the street screaming at her father in the French that Marie had taught her.”

  “She said Charlotte changed completely after that day, from an open, honest girl into a bitter resentful rival. She couldn’t be blamed, but Debra felt that somehow Charlotte became jealous; like it should have been her mother instead.”

  Charlotte didn’t confirm or deny anything, she just lay there staring up at the ceiling.

  “So she was a nigger and her mother couldn’t handle it either, so what!” I said.

  Breece turned his gaze on me slowly. “It wasn’t that simple, Charles. Her whole life was built on the lies Marie filled her with, and she revered Marie like you revered Francois. It crushed her.

  “She could never let Francois forget,” Breece added.

  “Even if it meant destroying everyone around her,” Sylvia said, as she looked up at her husband.

  “Yes, even then,” Breece said.

  Manuel, who had stood in the corner silent and repulsed by the crone in the bed, stepped forward and took my hand. “Come back with me, now.”

  “I…” I looked deep into the soft earnestness in his face, remembering the gentle smile he’d had for me; the soft touch.

  “She’s dead,” Penny said. “Finally.”

  Chapter Twenty

  February 1991

  “No.” It came out as a whisper, my disbelief and rage propelling me to the edge of the bed, the air around me alive with the hunger of my defeat. My mind raced with what I had endured; the locks clicking shut; the invasion of property and person; the measure of insanity driven into my brain; my utter lack of value to her, even now.

  I looked at Charlotte’s calm serenity; the final thrust of her cheekbones. “Fucking bitch.”

  “It’s over,” Sylvia said. “Come on,” she prodded Jarrel. “They can bury her.”

  Penny and I stood over her as their footsteps receded. We did not look at each other, only at her; the sea that separated we two very distinct continents.

  “There’s nothing else left here, Charles. Your hate is just wasted,” Breece said.

  “She took that too,” I said. “Goddamn your soul to hell, Charlotte.”

  I turned to leave and saw Manuel still waiting for me. “Go home,” I told him.

  “But I want you to come with me. I’ve waited all these years…”

  I took a deep breath; the dream of it was beautiful, idyllic, but the reality was… tragically wrong. “I can’t, Manuel. This, this …” I motioned at the house, my family, who knew what the fuck else. “You’d crush me, Manuel. Not meaning to, but you’d crush me just the same.”

  I looked at him for a long moment. “Goodbye,” I whispered as I drew closer, offering the farewell I had denied him years before.

  Chapter Twenty One

  I stood over Robert’s grave this morning, the sun creating a blue tint as it reflected off the snow. There were three paper roses in my hand, one for him, one for Bruce, and one for Snow. There was a poem in each rose; the same poem because they were all equally a part of me. As I put the roses on the still snow I saw another face in my mind; a face I had seen only once, but one that had not left me.

  That face had brought me here, to this alley, knowing that there would never be a time in my life that my love for these men would not be on the cusp of my thoughts.

  He came into the alley backwards and out of breath, his neck stretched around the corner looking at something I couldn’t see. When he turned he had a smile that disappeared the moment he saw me leaning against the building.

  “Been waiting for you.” I told him.

  He bolted, but I was quicker, snatching him off his feet and pushing him into the brick wall just enough to daze him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I told him. “Brought you something.”

  I reached into my jacket and pulled out a paper daisy, placing it in a young hand that unfolded before he could refuse.

  I pushed the hair from his eyes, cupping his head in my hand. “I have a garden full of them, if you’re interested.”

  “Cost you,” he said, his eyes calculating.

  I chuckled. “No. Cost you.

  His eyes narrowed

  “Just a little rain,” I told him.

  Author’s Note:

  Contact me at http://brandonshire.com , and if you enjoyed this story please consider rating/reviewing it on Amazon or GoodReads:

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  Half the proceeds of this book are donated to LGBT Youth Nonprofit Organizations

 

 

 
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