Let the Tornado Come: A Memoir by Rita Zoey Chin Read Free Book Online Page B

gives in to the pressure, into the relief, into the new space Sal has made for him.
    Watching this feels like a holy event. It’s not just because the snow beginning to fall is the fat white dot snow of Christmas movies on TV—walls of it cascading straight down into the windless silver-blue night—or because in these next couple of hours we’ll all be leaning together, with our collective hopes and disappointments and reflections and resolutions, into a new year. It’s because what is unfolding here is the sacred purity of trust. Claret weighs fourteen hundred pounds, and if he wanted to, he could hurt, or even kill, one of us. But instead, despite what Claret has known in the past, despite the hands that have hurt him, he’s choosing now to trust these hands; he’s choosing to trustthe pain. And to watch him come to the other side of it—to watch the release shine in his eyes—is a privilege of the highest order.
    “Can I feel?” I ask. “I want to feel what you feel.”
    Sal takes my hand and presses into Claret’s back. “Do you feel here how it kind of gives when you press it?”
    “Yes.” I nod. “It’s kind of spongy.”
    “That’s how it should be. Now keep going down his back and tell me where it’s tight.”
    I’ve removed my gloves, and Claret’s body is warm against my hands as I massage along the left side of his spine. “Here,” I say. “Right here it won’t yield.”
    Sal checks the spot below my hand. “See,” he says. “You can feel it. Now make it yield.”
    Unsure of exactly how to do this, I press my fingers into Claret’s tight spot and slowly begin to knead, using the weight of my body for strength. Claret arches his head around and presses his muzzle into my back, moving his lips firmly as I move my hands.
    “He’s reciprocating,” Sal says. “That means you’re doing it right.”
    S ome people believe that snowflakes are magnets for words, that every word spoken in a snowstorm lands on a snowflake and is carried to rest, on a rooftop or mitten or field, as if on a magic carpet. Therefore, they believe, people must speak carefully in the snow, choosing every word as a child might choose crayons, one at a time.
    I lean into the great dark head nuzzling my back. “Thank you,” I say, while time inches closer to midnight.

SEVEN

    I didn’t see the glass when I ran through it. I saw my sister’s face.
    She was sitting at the kitchen table, drawing. I was outside on the patio, watching a distant uncle try to light coals on a barbecue grill. We rarely ever visited extended family, so it was an exciting day. Drizzling gently, the patting of rain against the trees sounded like a fire crackling. Someone had left the sliding glass door open, and I could see the women inside talking in the kitchen, waving their hands about. I was nine and thought it was more fun to hang around the adults than to do any of the kid activities my aunt had arranged on the table for us. And when the matches were spent and the grill still wasn’t lit, I wanted to help. “I’ll go get more matches!” I exclaimed, turning to run inside. I could see Joanne then, engrossed in her crayons. I ran toward her. But I hadn’t seen someone close the door. And I didn’t see the glass, either, before I shattered it.
    For a second, no one moved. I spoke evenly: “I think I’m bleeding.” Then everything exploded. Someone was shouting, “Oh my God, oh my God!” I couldn’t really see. My mother pulled me toward the kitchen sink and started to throw handfuls of water at my face. “I’ve gotta see if it’s her eyes,” she was saying.
    “Someone call a doctor!” my grandmother yelled.
    “Call a fucking ambulance!” my mother screamed, wiping at my eyes with paper towels. “Now!”
    As they leaned me back into a chair, my head felt dizzy. My mother propped my leg up on another chair, and I caught a glimpse of a gash across my knee. I quickly turned my head away and saw the floor, so much of it