Missing May by Cynthia Rylant

Author:Cynthia Rylant [Rylant, Cynthia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

“Is that all you’re taking?”

I looked at the grocery bag in Cletus’s left hand and the famous suitcase in his right.

“Well, I would’ve packed my Cadillac, but I couldn’t fit it in the bag,” he said.

“You two stop that jawing and get on in the car,” Ob said cheerfully as he slammed the trunk. “We got us an appointment in the next world.”

Ob and I climbed in the front seat of the Valiant (I wasn’t about to let Cletus take my front seat) and Cletus settled himself into the back, where right off he started unloading some magazines from his suitcase.

I turned around to glance over the titles and gave him a weird enough look that he had to say something.

“This old fellow up in Creasy’s Hollow … he gave me these. They’ve been sitting in his outhouse for a good ten years or more.”

Just as I was about to puke, Ob spoke up.

“Best reading I ever done was in my daddy’s old johnnyhouse. And I don’t mean dirty stuff, neither. He kept him some books on auto mechanics, fishing, Civil War — you name it. I used to love to get the diarrhea.”

And with that our trip to Putnam County was launched.

You would have thought with two big talkers like Cletus and Ob in the car, we’d have been a noisy bunch all the way down the road.

But as soon as we got out of Deep Water and onto the main highway, a quiet spell settled over the three of us, and the only sound was the rattle of something loose in Ob’s radio. There was a feeling in that car, and it was almost sadness, but it wasn’t. It was sweeter than sadness. I knew Ob’s silence was connected to May. Probably he was praying to her all the way to Putnam County, praying to her to come back to him and tell him what to do now without her. For all his pep, I knew Ob was scared.

And Cletus. Well, a couple of times I looked back and saw him staring up at the tops of the mountains, staring like he was looking at angels flying up there, and his face was so clear and open that he seemed like a tiny child to me. What was it he was thinking, looking up like that?

My own quietness, I think it came from peace. Nothing needed doing in that car. Ob was beside me and safe. Cletus behind us content. I knew that for a good three hours we were going to be like this, no surprises, nothing gone wrong. I could look out at the mountains and the tiny little houses people had squeezed onto them. I could see the muddy old toys in the yards and the melting-away snowmen. The smoke from chimneys keeping people warm and happy. Dogs chained to their houses, asleep in soggy yards. I didn’t need to take care of anything or anybody, and the silence was as blessed to me as the deepest kind of sleep could have been.

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