Father of the Rain by Lily King Read Free Book Online Page A

has risen up with his arms and I can see the pale skin on his skinny lower back and a patch of dark hair at the bottom of his spine. His bum is flat like my father’s, the jeans covering it nearly black with dirt. I can tell he isn’t sleeping; his breathing is loud but uneven, as if there are words attached that I can’t hear. He looked at me when he came in, but now I’m not sure if he saw me. Then he flips over and fixes his restless eyes directly on mine, breathes another lungy loud breath, and says, “Please, Daley, whatever you do, don’t let any guy touch you. Ever. Not until you’re thirty. Or forty.”
    I think of Neal, how I will see him in less than two weeks, how he never wrote.
    “Please. Please listen to me. They will only fuck you up. Don’t fall in love. Don’t let ‘em close until you know exactly who you are and where you are going.”
    “All right,” I say quietly so he’ll take his eyes off me.
    He does, and then he looks up at the ceiling and starts to cry. I’ve never seen my brother cry before and he’s bad at it, spastic, his mouth contorted and his hands flailing around his face like they don’t know where to go. I don’t really recognize him as my brother anymore and I put my fingers on the inside of his arm to reassure myself it’s still him. He seizes me, pulls me into a hard, tight hug. My head bobs on his chest as he sobs. Just as suddenly it’s over and he says fuck and shoves me off him and leaves the room.
    In Heidi’s room their voices start off quiet again but soon my brother is screaming at her. And she’s screaming back but then she’s doing something that’s not screaming. There are no words anymore; it’s like the horrible yelp I heard earlier but it doesn’t stop; it’s a long deep pitted howl that goes on and on and I feel in my own stomachthat need to howl, and for a few seconds I get scared that I am actually the one howling, so hollow and jangly is my stomach.
    After that it is silent and I lie all the way down on the bed and fall asleep. When I open my eyes again, the sun is gone and the night outside is a pale green haze. I hear voices in the living room and follow them. My brother and Heidi are facing each other on the couch, eating noodles from blue bowls.
    He says something and she giggles and then they both look at me.
    “Grab some chow on the stove,” Garvey says.
    “Let me see if we have any milk left.”
    “Milk? She doesn’t drink milk with dinner. She’s not four.”
    “Kids need milk, for their bones.”
    “Yes, little mama.”
    “We don’t have any,” Heidi says, shutting the fridge hard, her voice suddenly flat. When she comes back to the couch with her bowl, she doesn’t sit as close to my brother.
    “Sorry,” I hear him whisper behind me as I get my food. “I’m such an idiot.”
    I sit on a foam chair.
    “So Heidi went with me last weekend.”
    “To Dad’s?”
    “She got the full monty. ‘Patrick, where’s that puppy?’” My brother can do the most amazing impressions of my father, making his voice just as rough and cracked and pissed off. “‘Goddammit, did he run off again? You kids have got to keep an eye on him!’”
    “‘Did he pee in the pool?’” Heidi says, but her imitation is rotten.
    “‘No, I think he shat on my tennis whites! Goddammit, that’s a golf ball coming out of his ass!’”
    Heidi breaks into peals of high-pitched laughing. I can tell they’ve been doing this all week.
    “Mom has a new name,” Garvey says.
    “What do you mean?”
    “She’s not Mom or Meredith. She’s Your Fucking Mother. You better get used to it. ‘Do you know what Your Fucking Mother did?’” It’s amazing how he can just switch into my father’s body. “‘She literally stole the family jewels!’ Did you know that, by the way?”
    I don’t know what he’s talking about.
    “I think I’m going to lie down,” Heidi says.
    “I’ll come,” my brother says, taking her bowl and putting it by the