The Sheltering by Mark Powell

Author:Mark Powell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Published: 2014-08-15T06:00:00+00:00

PART SIX

IT STARTED RAINING JUST SOUTH OF GAINESVILLE and it was the lashing that woke Bobby from a dream of his parents. He was maybe five and they were at the city park on a Sunday afternoon in early fall. Halfway up the sliding board ladder when a swarm of yellow jackets lifted out of the grass and attached to his thin shins and what he remembered now—Donny nudging him Wake up and look at this map for me—what he remembered was the way his father barreled up the rungs to tuck Bobby beneath his big right arm, both of his parents’ faces floating above him as he lay on a picnic table, his mother cradling his head while his father sucked at the wounds.

Neil Young sang through the walls of sleep while Donny pushed something against his face, the map printed off the internet to the address Kristen had given them. They were lost in a gated community of broad streets and overhanging Laurel Oaks, massive Tudor style homes sitting on ten-acre horse pastures. Rain shivered from the trees.

“We’re back in here somewhere.” Donny tapped the paper. “Or at least we were. We might be back in all this mess by now.”

Bobby turned the map to follow the blue line that wriggled from Georgia down to the outskirts of Ocala. Horse people, Donny had repeated when Bobby picked him up. Lot of money down here. Lot of potential energy waiting to go kinetic. Their parents standing on the porch. No way for Bobby not to get out and speak to them when he pulled into the yard. His mother clutching the neck of her ratty housecoat. His father with his big hands in his jeans pockets. You were always such good boys, both of you. It was like they were twelve and ten and headed to camp and not wastrels pushing their mid-thirties. Donny wore his Braves ball cap and carried a new Camelback and an old Camptown High athletic bag. Bobby threw both in the bed and hugged his parents. He loved them but he could no longer bear the weight of their sadness, already his mamma’s lips moving in silent prayer. He’d seen it in the rear-view mirror and knew he would see it the rest of his life: a disappointed woman trying not to show it.

“This ain’t even the right neighborhood,” Donny said, and Bobby drifted back into sleep. When he woke again the truck sat on the road’s muddy shoulder, rain thumping against the glass. Donny had his bag in his lap, stuffed between his chest and the steering wheel.

He stared out at the window at the green haze of vegetation. “You ever talk to old Manny anymore?”

“What?” Bobby said.

“You know why he never calls?”

“What did you pull over for?”

Donny ran one finger down the cool glass. “We’re like bad reminders is why. It’s like football players walking around a hospital. You get that taint on you and know you’ll wind up in there if you don’t stay away.

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