Free Rain Shadow by Catherine Madera Page B

own parents: a mother continually disappointed and a father who simply didn’t pay attention enough to know much about her. How often had she wished, irrationally, for a physical handicap like her adopted brother, Anthony? If she had cystic fibrosis would her father have a reason to invest himself in her life?
    Taylor hated herself for resenting Anthony; it would be hard to find a sweeter ten-year-old boy. Abandoned to social services when he was a toddler, Anthony never knew his parents or siblings. He had especially severe lung damage from the disease and was not expected to live past the age of 15. Using his background as a nurse, her father had made it a life mission to ease the suffering of Anthony and give him some kind of life before he died — Building tomorrows into every da y , her father liked to say, echoing the motto of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
    Neal also volunteered at the school, took Anthony to baseball practice whenever he was healthy enough to participate, and to Boy Scout activities. Anything that might allow the boy to “live a little.” This was in between the sleepless nights and hospital trips that left Neal, Tom, and Anthony exhausted: A trio of misery and hope.
    As a healthy 17-year-old girl, Taylor discovered quickly she didn’t fit in to the fantasy home life she’d naively imagined would exist when she finally got the chance to spend time with her father. She’d soon found other pursuits to take up her time, including a lover engaged to be married.
    A deeply private man, Taylor knew her father’s involvement with the public, through Anthony’s on again off again social life, was difficult. Even in a liberal state like California gossip circulated around a gay couple and their adopted boy. Taylor vacillated between hating the situation for not being “normal” and admiring and protecting her father. More than once, her feelings nearly got her in a fist fight. One situation in particular remained burned into her memory.
    Not long before moving back to Washington, Taylor had accompanied her dad, Tom, and Anthony to the beach on a day the boy felt good. She’d overheard two college guys talking by the outdoor showers at a state park as she exited the bathroom.
    “You see those faggots with that little boy? Probably recruiting him for their faggot lifestyle. Makes me sick.”
    Instead of continuing down the walkway to the beach, Taylor wrapped her towel tightly around her torso and marched herself into their faces.
    “Guess what? You would have bee n reall y sick to see those men last night with that kid.”
    The guys smirked back at her, looks of disgust twisting their features.
    “Yeah, that’s right. Last night they were up about three hours hitting his back to loosen the gobs of phlegm so he could breathe. He threw up all ove r my da d from being suffocated by the junk in his own lungs. Good times. Don’t pretend you kno w anythin g about ‘the faggots’ down there. You jerks wouldn’t know about that kind of love and devotion.”
    People had stopped to stare by the time Taylor finished. She nearly screamed out the last words, her hands balled into fists in case she needed to use them.
    “Whoa. Just chill, okay?”
    One of the guys held his hands up in surrender. Taylor simply glared at him, hoping to mask her own horror at the vehement outburst, and then stalked back to the beach with tears in her eyes.
    “It’s okay, Honey, just another day in paradise for us. Shhhh … ”
    Her dad had patted her arm when she plopped by his side. She leaned into him for a moment, feeling as if her life were an iceberg, the visible tip the only thing her father was capable of seeing. Ironic that she couldn’t share her deepest pain with the one person who perhaps understood those feelings better than anyone else. But he had enough to do caring for a child that would surely die; a child no one wanted to die.
    Still, her da d ha d provided a doorway of escape when she needed one. Taylor