BOOK ONE: DECEPTIONS
Chapters One to Twenty Six
Vignettes 1 - 140

BOOK TWO: YESTERDAY ECHOES
Chapters 27 to
Vignettes 141 -

Friday, December 3, 2010

Vignette #111: Ronnie

This was the time of day he enjoyed the most, alone after dark while his Papa was sleeping. He always woke up in the middle of the night. He always had. He didn’t know why.

He used to just lie in bed and count the tiles in his ceiling, but that was before. Now he’d slip on his robe and the neat slippers Tippy had bought for him and roam.

This place was so big. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his other home, but this place was different. Before, any little noise he made, any little noise anyone made at night would roust someone. Now he could quietly explore, just a little.

He slipped his feet in the bed shoes kept right where he could stick his feet in and pulled on the robe, hung within reach. As he tied the belt, he looked at the nightstand and smiled. Looking back at him from the frame were four faces. One of them was his, the other were three people he missed so much. His mother and Miz Hil were gone.

His Grampaw Jude he spoke to every day. It wasn’t the same as being able to touch him. It wasn’t the same as being able to take in the smell of him. Sweet wood and evergreen, Jude always smelled of sweet wood and evergreen.

His mother always smelled of biscuits and lilacs. Miz Hill was roses, she always smelled of roses. Ronnie took a deep breath remembering the scents that added up to home.

He didn’t think of his Daddy. Oh he loved him, and there were times he missed him, but Ronnie couldn’t get lots of things about the man out of his head, things that scared him. Things that made him cry.

He felt Rodie stir on the bed. Ronnie looked at the kitty and put his fingers to his lips. “Shhh!” He stood and padded toward the door. As he opened it, he heard the cat lightly pounce to the floor and knew she wouldn’t be far behind his every step.

Ronnie liked the fact that it was never pitch black in his new home. It was dark, but not the scary monsters lurking in the corner kind. If you forgot to put something away, it was dark enough to trip over it, but bright enough to lead the way anywhere you wanted to go.

He knew exactly where he wanted to go. It was his little midnight ritual. First he stopped and looked at that painting in the stairwell. His Papa was right. It was almost like the one he had found in the barn, but Ronnie liked this one better. He could stare at it for hours and always see something new.

Rodie would wind herself around Ronnie’s feet as he looked, rubbing her soft fluff on his bare ankles. Then she’d purr. Ronnie loved the sound of his cat purring in the quiet of the night, a happy sound in the dark.

He reached down and picked her up, Rodie quickly making herself comfortable as they padded to the kitchen. The room would flood with light as Ronnie opened the fridge and get them a snack. Tonight it was cream for her and a leftover cinnamon roll for him.

There was always food in the refrigerator now. Not that he went hungry on Lost Mountain. You just didn’t snack a lot, snacking was a special treat that you never did without asking. It was still a special treat. He just didn’t have to feel guilty that he’d eaten something his Mama had saved for her lunch.

As Rodie licked her paws, Ronnie rinsed her bowl and put it in the special spot for her dirty dishes. He always liked to peer out the kitchen door as he put Rodie’s things away. Sometimes he’d see Ralphie being walked if Uncle Kellen had gotten home late again.

The best thing was watching the moonlight on the pool. That was just way too cool. Not only did he have a big old pool right in his own back yard, but every night the moon came and danced all over it just for him. Ronnie thought that was God’s way of telling Ronnie He was looking after him.

Ronnie picked Rodie up after the smiles of the moonlight on the water made him sigh a time or two. He went to his favorite place in the whole world. They went right to the staircase again, making sure not to get distracted by the painting and stood in the doorway.

There he was, sleeping in his big old bed. Ronnie put the cat down and quietly rolled a little ottoman to the bedside. He sat on it, putting his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees. Ronnie loved to watch his Papa, to just sit there and watch him breathe.

He sighed. Things were right. They were so different, but they were finally right. That feeling that he had, the one in the bottom of his belly was gone. Whenever he felt it, all he had to do was look at his Papa and it went away.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love his Mommy and Daddy, he just never felt like he belonged. He was happy and they loved him, but somehow he always knew. He never really knew what that was until he came to live with his Papa.

He’d heard the whispers that he didn’t really understand. He could hear the things people said when they knew his mother was too busy to be paying attention. He never understood why they didn’t know that he could hear what they said. It was kinda mean.

Then Stevie Rose told him flat out and he mean it to be mean. At first he just thought he was lying, but it made him so sad. Finally his Mama asked him if he wanted to talk about whatever had made him so said.

He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t stop crying. “Stevie Rose says nobody ever wanted me. That I ain’t really yours. He said that a horrible monster left me on your doorstep and you took me in because you were afraid he’d come back and eat you if you didn’t.”

“Aw Honeypot.” His Mama smiled. She always called him Honeypot, and when she smiled there was always that little sad place right in the corner. She pulled him into to her biscuit and lilac smell and told him.

She told him that Stevie Rose was just being mean. When he asked her why he would be so mean, she told him that he was just jealous, because his Mama and Daddy didn’t get to choose him, but Ronnie was special because his Mama and Daddy did.

From that day on Ronnie understood a little better. When that feeling would come into the bottom of his belly, he would just remind it how special he was and that Stevie Rose’s parents got stuck with a loser.

Now they were all gone. Sometimes it made him sad, but it was a different kind of sad like knowing you’d eaten the last candy in the bottom of your Trick or Treat bag. He knew it was gone and things would never be quite the same, but he had such sweet memories that far outweighed the sad.

This was where he was supposed to be, in his favorite spot in the whole wide world watching his Papa sleep. He looked so peaceful, most of the time. Ronnie liked it when he’d steal into the bedroom at night at his Papa would be sprawled out gently breathing.

Once and a while he’d let out a big old sigh, just like he’d finished doing something he loved more than anything. His Papa would then smile in his sleep, his face relaxing and his body melted into the bed.

Ronnie gently reached out and wiped his fingers across the sleeping man’s forehead pushing that stubborn tuft of black hair back into place. His Papa seemed so at peace. Ronnie liked to think he was having a happy dream. He didn’t seem to have too many of those.

It wasn’t fair. All his Papa needed was a little peace and a whole lot of love. He looked happy all the time, but Ronnie knew better. He could feel it, like the strange tickle that used to always be in his belly only this was in his father’s eyes.

Sometimes when he didn’t know you were watching that look came over his face. Ronnie couldn’t put his finger on it, but he knew it wasn’t good. It was like he was watching the family dog get run over in slow motion and knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

But tonight was a good night. His Papa was sleeping so peacefully Ronnie had to watch his chest just to be sure he was still breathing. It was the best place in the world to be.

Sometimes, Ronnie needed to be there. Some nights, his Papa’s eyes would dart back and forth beneath closed eyelids. He’d tremble and sweat, sometimes moaning in pain. He’d ball the sheets up in his fists until his knuckles turned white, lying still but thrashing his head back and forth.

And there were the nights his father would sit up and scream. It didn’t scare Ronnie, it only made him feel bad that he wasn’t there to hold him and soothe him back down to sleep. It didn’t happen too often, but the two or three times it had were two or three times way too many.

Ronnie wanted his Papa to be happy. He wanted him to not have bad dreams, especially the ones that made him scream in his sleep. He knew it was impossible not to have a nightmare once and a while, but his Papa had had more nightmares asleep and awake that any one person deserved.

His Papa stirred. Ronnie leaned in close, just in case. The sleeping man sighed and relaxed. It made Ronnie smile.

Ronnie got up and quietly pushed the ottoman back to its place in the corner. He walked back to the bed and watched him sleep for just a second longer. He leaned over and kissed his sleeping Papa’s cheek.

As Ronnie turned to go he saw his father’s eyes flutter. Those half sleepy blue eyes shined in the dark. His Papa smiled.

Ronnie smiled back.

His Papa lifted the covers and Ronnie scooted in beside him. In a moment his Papa’s arms held him tightly and the boy was all nestled in his father’s perfect loving warm. He heard the cat leap lightly on the bed and roll up in a ball at his feet. Ronnie sighed and drifted off to sleep.

He was wrong. This was his favorite place to be.

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