Another Kind Of Hurricane Part 26

Zavion liked hearing that. Yes. The word yes coming out of Papas mouth. He watched Papa wipe up some more of the spilled paint. Papas face was turned toward the floor, but Zavion knew those eyes on the top of his head were looking right at Jake.

"Youre a painter. A good one." Jake gestured to the freshly painted wall. "Im not. Annie and I need our house painted. Were in need of a change." He paused. "And heres the other thing. I need to repay you."

"I dont understand." Papa looked up.

Jake spoke quietly. "You let me not be there. You might not even know it, and I dont even know if I can explain it. But for a little while, you let me be here. For that I will always be grateful."

Papa stood up. He walked over to Zavion, who silently handed him the marble.

"Let me let you not be here. Let me let you be there for a little while," said Jake.

Papa closed his hand around the marble. He climbed the ladder. He held the marble up to the wall, like it was the moon, or a planet. He was silent for a moment before he spoke.

"You think from way up there, high in the sky, the hurricane seemed so vicious? Seems like from that perspective it could have looked like a gray sky, a big wind or two, and a few heavy drops of rain, nothing much else." He took a deep breath. "Being right inside it, though-sweet Jesus-it made me believe in G.o.ds, or monsters. I keep seeing the walls of the house breaking apart around us"-he looked at Zavion-"me jumping and watching you jump behind me. I keep seeing you falling off the door. I keep feeling my hand slip, trying to find you in that water. Trying to get you onto the door." He tossed the marble into the air and caught it again. "Those roof shingles-" He opened his hand, the marble balanced in the center of his palm. "I cant seem to step any farther away than right smack in the middle of that d.a.m.n hurricane." He turned to Jake. Even through his own sticky eyes, Zavion could see tears welling up in Papas. "I owe you an apology for what I said before."

"No need," said Jake.

"Well, I am sorry," said Papa. "And maybe youre right."

Zavion opened his mouth but then promptly closed it again. The best he could do was be quiet.

But quiet was not Ms. Cyns idea of best.

"Sounds like a good offer, Ben," she said as she knitted. "You need the work. I know you do."

"Jakes right too," said Henry. "About being a bad painter? Believe him. He isnt good at it." He turned to Jake. "Remember trying to help Wayne and me with that tree house? You painted more leaves onto the walls than were on the tree." He turned back to Papa. "Jake needs you. For the good of his house, you need to come."

Zavion held his breath. Papa was silent and still for a moment. Then he looked at Zavion and slowly nodded. "Okay," he said, tossing the marble to Jake. "Okay, well come."

Yes, thought Zavion.

marble journey part V

JAKE.

As Jake drove the truck up Highway 10, he thought about faith.

Faith.

At Jakes suggestion, Annie had contacted Margarita and was already learning Spanish. She told Jake that when she confessed to Margarita that she was afraid she might be too old to learn anything new, Margarita had said no one was too old to learn. She had said, Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.

Only she had said it in Spanish.

La fe es el pjaro que siente la luz cuando el amanecer todava est oscuro.

Fe.

Faith.

Fe.

Jake couldnt get the word out of his head.

It sounded like a musical note.

Sometimes a word could ring in the air like a bell.

Like a warning.

Like a celebration.

Like the marking of time.

The minutes ticked by as they drove up the highway. Henry sat by the window, his forehead pressed against the gla.s.s. Zavion sat next to Jake, asleep on his shoulder. Ben lay in the bed in the back of the cab.

The smell of cinnamon, peanut b.u.t.ter, and chocolate wafted through the cab of the truck, four slices of Coras cake carefully wrapped for their journey. Jake couldnt believe their luck, not that he believed in luck.

Meeting all these people.

Making all these friends.

Henry finding the marble.

Maybe it wasnt luck.

Maybe it was faith.

A word like that reverberated. It didnt care if there was a fence or a wall or sixteen hundred miles of sadness between one pair of ears and another, it slipped inside any old way it could.

And so the word became a bridge.

A place to meet.

A place to connect.

Kind of like pa.s.sing a marble back and forth, Jake thought.

He patted his shirt pocket, where the marble sat just outside his heart.

chapter 62.

HENRY.

Henry watched Jake hold the marble like it was the very world itself. Then Jake closed his hand around it and held it to his chest.

"I knew you took this from Waynes casket."

"You did?"

"Yup. I cant explain why. But I just knew. Couldnt blame you."

"Im-"

"Nah. Dont apologize. I mean it. No reason for one more thing to be buried in the ground."

"Jake, I dont know why I took it. I just-I wanted-"

Jake held up his hand. "No need, Henry." He held the marble against his heart for a moment and then opened up his hand. "You want it?"

Henry pulled his shoulders up to his ears and then dropped them.

He didnt know if he wanted the marble or not.

chapter 63.

ZAVION.

Zavion woke up in North Carolina and kept his eyes open all the way to New York. The highway up north looked almost the same as the Louisiana highway, especially at night. It stretched out in front of the truck for miles, gray and black and hard. But there were hills on either side of it, and in the faint dusky light, they looked like little countries to Zavion, one after the other rising up out of the earth, and the occasional tall tree looming high above the hills like a flag.

Zavion imagined he was trekking up and over each of the hills, leaving one country and entering another.

chapter 64.

HENRY.

It was cleaner along the edge of the highway here. Henry noticed that as he watched the yellow line whiz by. In Louisiana, there had been a steady stream of garbage. Here, he saw one lone black plastic bag, ripped, its insides spilling out along the shoulder of the road. And a dead racc.o.o.n. Henry wondered if the racc.o.o.n had broken open the bag.

The yellow line rushed by. Mile markers came and went. Each of the eighteen wheels of the truck turned like a marble. Over and over and over as Jake drove north.

Henry felt like an elastic band had been fully stretched, and it was now snapping him back home.

chapter 65.

ZAVION.

Right before they left, Ms. Cyn had given him a gift.

- Zavion untied the string on the wrapping. A scarf. Zavion unfolded it. The scarf. He looked at all the pieces Ms. Cyn had added to it. One for each person he had come to know in this house. Tavius, Enzo, Skeet, and Osprey. There was even a piece of Coras potholder, Pierres cap, and the logo from Lunas grocery bag.