Raising Rain by Debbie Fuller Thomas Read Free Book Online

set.”
    Karen held up her Chinette plate. “Good for you, Mom,” she said. “Make it easy.”
    â€œThey’re not fancy,” she answered, “but it’s too hot for you girls to wash so many dishes.”
    Rain saw Bebe and Karen exchange a look.
    Everyone sat around a long table on the patio in the shade, their iced tea glasses sweating rings on the checkered tablecloth as the hot breeze swirled around them. Rain listened to the conversation and watched Neil with the boys, looking for clues that he’d left his indelible mark on their lives. Scott and Dylan were polite toward others, but together they engaged in playful and competitive banter that she’d never experienced with a sibling. Beneath their rough-and-tumble relationship she also saw compassionate young men, like the summer day when she’d stopped by the clinic to see Bebe. Scott and Dylan were working part-time there, cleaning out the cages of the boarded animals, playing with the kittens and puppies and mopping up their messes. She actually heard baby talk from Scott as he rubbed the potbelly of a beagle mix and let him chew his finger. The boys had been reliable and pleasant at the office, but argued with each other all the way out the door to Scott’s car. Occasionally, when she stopped by the house to see Bebe and happened to find the boys watching the Giants with Neil, she would see an easy interaction between the three of them, as though they spoke some abbreviated language she didn’t understand.
    Rain watched the other men and their sons, including Bebe’s dad.Was it so important to have a father? She’d never had one. Neil had been the closest thing to a dad that she’d known. You couldn’t really call William a father, joining them like he did when Rain was twelve. Jude had made it very clear that he had no business interfering with her raising of Rain and he never challenged her. Sometimes he seemed more like an older brother than a parent figure.
    Here, she saw the guys naturally drawn to each other, in where they chose to sit, in their body language, and their topics of conversation. Even Neil joined them as though some division had occurred when they’d parked out front.
    Neil and Bebe’s dad got up from the table when they were finished eating. Rain noticed that Neil threw his trash away and Bebe’s dad left his plate where he sat. They headed toward the barn, and she saw Bebe watching them go, looking almost sullen, but her expression quickly changed when she turned back to the conversation at the table.
    When it was time to clear the table, Bebe said something to Scott and Dylan, and they dragged a trash can over to the table and began tossing trash into it. Their grandmother protested, but the boys insisted that they didn’t mind helping. When the table was cleared, Bebe’s brother Bobby started taking down the tables and Bebe slipped inside, repelling each other like the north poles of a magnet. Rain made several trips to the kitchen with dirty tableware and serving dishes, where she noticed that Bebe and Karen had taken their places again at the sink. Karen’s arms were deep in suds and Bebe had a dish towel slung over her shoulder rinsing dishes.
    Rain felt oddly out of place. She could have offered to help, but even though she’d spent many holidays with the family, today there seemed to be a strange undercurrent. She made some excuses, said her thanks and good-byes, and left. She had research to do.

    Bebe could see Scott and Dylan out the window talking with Bobby and a few other cousins headed toward the vineyard. Neilwasn’t there like he’d promised he would be to monitor and diffuse any military talk. What was Bobby telling them, she wondered? Tales from Nam, probably. With Scott joining the military, this was his perfect opportunity for payback. She prayed that Scotty would know her well enough to realize this and not believe everything