Rain and Revelation Read Online Free Page B

she listened to the message that I left her while I was waiting at the hospital, but she doesn’t ask how Ma is or if she should come over. Not tonight, I reply. She texts that everyone is going out and asks me to change my mind. Maybe she didn’t listen and doesn’t know. I don’t have the energy to call her and can’t explain everything in text messages.
    I walk down the hall toward the bathroom. Standing in the bathroom doorway, I see the blood streaks in the tub and on the floor where I held Ma. My eyes fall upon a bucket tucked under the pedestal sink. Yellow rubber gloves are folded over the bucket’s lip. A bottle of bleach and an assortment of cloths cut from my old flannel pajamas fill the bucket.
    Ma hates messes.
    Putting on the gloves, I begin cleaning while tears stream down my face.

Chapter Six
    My phone rings, jarring me awake. The sun peeks into my bedroom through the half-closed curtains. I’m on top of my still-made bed, dressed in the clothes I wore yesterday. Reaching for my phone on the nightstand, I answer it in a low, gravelly voice without looking to see who is calling.
    “It’s about time you answer your damn phone. I’ve been waiting for those documents,” Granda’s voice booms.
    “Sorry.” I sit up and hold my head in my hands. My thick hair falls into my face. It smells dirty.
    “Do you think that you can bother yourself enough to do that now or should I have Maeve attend to it?” His tone is sharp.
    “No, I’m back now and can do it.”
    “Back?”
    “Ma.” I fall into the mound of pillows. “She’s in the hospital.”
    “What?”
    I gulp, my mouth dry. “She tried to kill herself.”
    “Good lord.” In a lowered voice, he says, “Is she … ”
    “Alive.”
    “Thank God.”
    “They’re transferring her to Dublin. To a psychiatric hospital. They say she needs help so she won’t do this again.”
    “Wait until I tell her mother. St. Patrick himself would throw a fit. Are you okay?”
    I hug my legs. “Yeah.”
    “That’s good.” His voice softens. “I don’t suppose it would help if I came home.” There are clanging and rustling noises in the background, but no voices.
    “I dunno.”
    “Well, keep me posted.” It sounds like he’s rummaging for something. “Now, when you can, could you please be a love and go to my house and fax those documents to me? Your mother had the keys on a ring. The small one is to the fire safe under the bed.”
    Before I can even answer he says, “Oh, and have your father call me. I need to know where we stand in getting the cottages ready for the Americans. I left him several messages.”
    “Right.”
    “Thanks, love. Ring me later when you know more about your mother.”
    I hang up and burrow beneath the down comforter. In the other room I hear the teapot whistling and Da’s heavy boots clomping across the floor. I debate getting up to talk to him but don’t. What is there to say? The front door finally slams shut.
    After a few more minutes of lying there, I swing my legs over the bed and look out the window at a cloudless day. The brightness hurts my eyes. I strip off my clothes and slip into running gear neatly stacked on the chair with other freshly laundered clothes. After pulling my hair back into a ponytail and tucking it under a cap, I sneak a look at the mirror. My face looks splotchy and my eyes are slits sandwiched between swollen lids and puffy bags. There is still a bump on my head from when I fainted.
    The smell of buttered toast lingers in the kitchen, and a sweet peat fire warms the room. On the kitchen table is a plate with two scones still in the bag from the grocer. Da knows these are my favorites. I walk over and break off pieces of the scone, which melt in my mouth and satisfy my rumbling stomach.
    Da’s tackle box—the big one with the stacked containers—is open on the coffee table facing the smoldering fire. A spot on the oversized couch is sunken. There are piles of trout flies sorted