Raising Rain by Debbie Fuller Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

collecting empty plates and forks and took them to the kitchen. Bebe gathered the dishes near her, and followed.
    â€œYou have more kittens at the barn, I see. Do you want me to take them to the rescue clinic?”
    â€œNo, they make good mousers. They’ll be gone soon enough.”
    â€œThe coyotes will get them, Mom.”
    â€œI know. That’s a shame.”
    Bebe lowered her voice and asked, “How’s Dad feeling? He looks tired.”
    â€œOh, he’s fine. Doctor says he needs to slow down, but you know your father.”
    â€œI thought Paul was running the farm now.”
    â€œRetirement has been hard on Poppa. He worries, you know. He can’t seem to let it go.”
    Bebe stacked the dishes in the sink and glanced sidelong at her mother. “Scott’s graduation ceremony is in October. It would be nice if you could go with us. Paul could handle everything at the vineyard. We could do some sightseeing in San Diego.”
    â€œWe’ll have to see.” Even though it was over 100 degrees outside, her mother was putting on a pot of coffee. “It depends on the harvest.”
    Bebe didn’t press it. She had avoided bringing up the subject of Scott’s military enlistment, but now that the door was open, she plunged through.
    â€œBobby looks good.”
    Her mother nodded while she concentrated on pouring the water from the carafe into the coffeemaker. When she was done and switched it on, she said, “He’s got a good job managing a car wash in Modesto. It’s one of those big fancy ones.”
    â€œThat’s good.” Bebe thought about saying she would drive down sometime to get her car washed, but they both knew it wasn’t true. “Have you heard from Cynthia?”
    â€œI saw her in Walmart last year at Christmastime. The girls werewith her. Vanessa was visiting from Florida, and Breanna was starting graduate school in the fall.”
    Bebe watched her mother as she set out creamer and sugar on a tray with her back to her. She could just imagine how pleased her mom would be if Bobby were still married to Cynthia and those girls were his instead of a product of Cynthia’s second marriage. Bebe and her brothers had only produced boys.
    â€œWe’re taking Scotty down to the recruiting office tomorrow afternoon.”
    â€œHow long will he be gone?”
    â€œThirteen weeks.” Bebe focused on the undulating rows of vines through the window. They led away across the flat land into a low agricultural haze that obscured the horizon.
    â€œHe’ll be a man when you see him again.”
    Bebe blinked back some tears and took a deep breath. “He’s already on his way. He was twenty in June.”
    â€œYour brother was already a soldier by the time he was twenty.”
    â€œHe wasn’t even old enough to drink the wine from our grapes,” Bebe said. She quickly regretted her words. She knew her mother blamed herself for Bobby’s forays into alcohol dependency because they, like all the vineyards around, had had to switch from selling table grapes to wine grapes years before to survive. Earning the disapproval of certain church families at the time had only compounded her mother’s guilt, though she’d had little say in the decision-making process.
    Bebe edged closer to the chasm that so often separated them. “These times are different.”
    Her mother glanced up and then pulled open a drawer for spoons. “Will they send him overseas?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Bebe added a stack of napkins to the tray. “Probably. I’m sure his unit will be deployed eventually.”
    Her mother arranged the spoons and napkins next to the cups on the tray with careful precision and said without looking at Bebe, “Let’s hope his homecoming is different, too.”

    August 31, 1969
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    Bebe lugged her suitcases up to the porch of the white Victorian and knocked on the door