Free Before the Storm by Diane Chamberlain

“She’s cool,” he
    said. “You should keep this one.”
    I heard the sound of dishes clinking together in the kitchen
    and left the brothers to help clean up. I found Miss Emma up
    to her elbows in dishwater.
    “Let me dry.” I picked up the dish towel hanging from the
    handle of the refrigerator.
    “Why, thank you, darlin’.” She handed me a plate. “I heard
    you playing in there. That was lovely. I didn’t know a sound
    like that could come out of that electric thing.”
    “Thanks,” I said, adding, “Marcus plays really well by ear.”
    “It’s his choice of music that makes me ill.” I had the feeling
    nothing Marcus did would be good enough for her.
    “It’s what everybody listens to, though,” I said carefully.
    She laughed a little.“I can see why Jamie likes you so much.”
    I felt my cheeks redden. Had he talked about me to his
    parents?
    “You care about people like he does.”
    “Oh, no,” I said. “I mean, I care about people, but not like
    Jamie does. He’s amazing. Three weeks ago, I almost killed him.
    I did. Now I feel like…” I shook my head, unable to put into
    words how I felt. Taken in. By Jamie. By his family. More at
    home with them than I’d felt in six years with my icy aunt and
    silent uncle.
    “Jamie does have a gift with people, all right,” she said.“The
    way some people are born with musical talent or math skills
    or what have you. It’s genetic.”
    I must have looked dubious, because she continued.
    “I don’t have the gift, Lord knows,” she said, “but I had a

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    diane chamberlain
    brother who did. He died in his thirties, rest his soul, but he
    was…it’s more than kindness. It’s a way of seeing inside a
    person. To really feel what they’re feeling. It’s like they can’t
    help but feel it.”
    “Empathy,” I said.
    “Oh, that stupid tattoo.” She squirted more dish soap into the
    water in the sink.“I about had a conniption when I saw that thing.
    But he’s a grown man, not much his mama can do about it now.
    He doesn’t need that tattoo.” She scrubbed the pan the corn
    bread had been baked in.“My aunt had the gift, too, though she
    said it was more of a curse,because you had to take on somebody
    else’s pain. We were at the movies this one time? A woman and
    boy sat down in front of us before the lights were shut out. They
    didn’t say one single word, but Aunt Ginny said there was something wrong with the woman.That she felt a whole lot of anguish
    coming from her. That was the word she used— anguish. ”
    “Uh-huh,” I said, keeping my expression neutral. Miss
    Emma was going off the deep end, but I wasn’t about to let
    her see my skepticism.
    “I know it sounds crazy,” she said. “I thought so too at the
    time. When the movie was over, Aunt Ginny couldn’t stop
    herself from asking the woman if she was all right. Ginny had
    a way of talking to people that made them open right up to
    her. But the woman said everything was fine. As we were
    walking out of the theater, though, and the little boy was out
    of earshot, she told us that her mother’d had a stroke just that
    morning and she was worried sick about her. Ginny’d picked
    right up on that worry and took it inside herself. She ended
    up with a bleeding ulcer from taking on too many other
    people’s worries. That’s how Jamie is, too.”

    before the storm
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    I remembered Jamie after the accident, when I wondered
    why he’d expressed no anger toward me. You already feel like
    crap about it, he’d said. Why should I make you feel any worse?
    I shivered.
    Miss Emma handed me the corn-bread pan to dry. “Here’s
    what happens with people like Jamie or my brother or my aunt,”
    she said. “They feel what the other person feels so strong that
    it’s less painful for them to just…give in. I knew when Jamie
    was small that he had the gift. He knew when his friends were
    upset about something and he’d get upset himself, even if he
    didn’t know what