Heaven Should Fall - By Rebecca Coleman Page 0,103

crap around here. The wood siding on the north side of the house was starting to rot where it hadn’t been painted for years, and we had a roof leak in Elias’s room. Mom had put down an old canning kettle in there to catch the drips, and the stain spread like a coffee ring on the ceiling. I went in there once to clean up the papers that had gotten soggy on the floor before we realized about the leak. The water had trickled under the bed, and under there I found a little stack of porno magazines and also a photo of me and Jill. The colors were washed out where the water had gotten to it. I wasn’t sure what to think, exactly, about the fact that it was there. It could have just been a coincidence that he had it in his room, like maybe he kept it around the way people do with family photos all the time. At the same time, the thought sort of wormed its way into my head that it was his way of keeping a photo of Jill in his room but excusing it because I was in it, too. I thought about him putting his thumb over my face to make me disappear and then I shoved that thought out of my head before it got any worse.

Also, there was the Saturn. On top of the usual problems, every time I braked it felt as if I’d just pulled onto gravel. I handed it over to Dodge so he could figure out what the problem was. Sometimes with a car you get a sense when it’s going to be a cheap repair and other times you can feel in your gut that the fix is going to cost you an assload of money. This was one of the latter situations.

“It’s your rotors,” Dodge said once he got back from the very short test drive. He dangled my keys in the air and I pocketed them. “Feels like you’ve got bags of marbles where the brakes ought to be. I wouldn’t drive it.”

“I got no choice.”

“We got the Jeep, right? Just use the Jeep.”

I shook my head. I hated driving the Jeep. Jill could drive that thing and shift like a NASCAR driver, and I still dropped gears every time between second and third. It was the hesitation that got me, and I knew it, but I couldn’t seem to overcome it.

“Well, you got a choice,” Dodge said patiently. “Drive the Jeep, or get your ass killed. Pick one.”

I got in the Saturn and slammed the door. Dodge just shook his head at me. Thunder, the larger of Dodge’s beagles, jumped against the door and bayed, scrabbling his nails against the paint. I opened the door again and he hopped in. His tail smacked my face as he climbed straight into the back looking for fast-food wrappers. I figured he was better off with me than getting kicked around the house by Candy.

“Don’t you get my dog killed,” Dodge shouted. I gave him a thumbs-up and backed out of the driveway.

I kept the car at fifty-five so I wouldn’t have to brake suddenly for speed traps. On the open road, I rolled down the window. The violent throttle of the wind was satisfying. It was only a couple of miles to Piper’s house. It was set far back from the road at the top of a little rise, a battered Victorian with a new American flag on a pole in front of it. Two cars sat in the driveway and I didn’t know if either of them was hers. I steered the car into the gravel pull-off right in front of it, stopping just behind the little shack where they used to sell produce in season. The signs were faded but still nailed up: Fine Fresh Lemonade. I shut off the ignition and eased the seat back so I could look past that shack to the house. Thunder climbed into my lap and rested his muzzle on my leg. After a minute I cut the engine back and turned my Dave Matthews CD on low. If the car was about to shit the bed anyhow, it didn’t matter much if I ran the battery down. And the music made me think about better days, high school and college both.

Piper had had this hat from Guatemala, knitted, with earflaps and strings that hung down to about her elbows. She had mittens