Chapter 32: Rain

The old man in lot nine was on the roof with a nail gun, and he had been there since six that morning.

"Left a bit!" the choir woman shouted up from the lawn. "You've got it crooked!"

"It's a roof, not a painting!"

"It's Pearl's roof. It should be straight."

Cora stood at the edge of the new yard in Pinewood Estates, with a paper cup of coffee, and laughed until she had to put the cup down.

Where the burned trailer had been, there was a house.

It was small and square and painted yellow, with a porch across the front and two bedrooms and a kitchen with a window over the sink.

The neighbors had built it in five weekends.

Ronan had paid for the lumber and refused to be thanked, and Cora had paid for the glass.

The eleven-year-old boy from the mailbox sat on the porch steps with a laptop, fixing a bug in the park's new mailing list.

He did it for free, and was paid in pie.

Pearl came out through the screen door in her good apron with a tray.

"Nobody eats until that man gets down off the roof," she said.

"I'm not on a ladder," said the choir woman, from the lawn.

"Then nobody eats until the roof's done."

The old man laughed, and kept hammering.

Brent's car pulled up at the park gate at noon.

He did not drive it in.

He left it at the curb and walked the last hundred yards with a box in his hands, alone, in a plain gray sweater.

He set the box on the porch rail and did not stay.

"Mom's trial is in March," he said to Pearl, low. "I'll testify. Every word. I put the rest of my shares into your trust. It isn't enough."

"No," Pearl said. "It isn't."

"I know." He looked at the yellow house. "It's a good house."

"It's got a good roof," said Pearl. "Go on, now."

He nodded and went.

Inside the box was the wedding ring Cora had left on a desk the morning of the divorce, with a note taped to the lid in Brent's cramped hand.

It said: I've been a coward for fifteen years. I'm learning how to stop.

Cora read it twice.

Then she dropped the ring into the coffee can on the porch rail, where the neighbors kept the money for the roof.

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