Free Miracle in a Dry Season by Sarah Loudin Thomas Page A

good-bye. Angie quizzed him about how low the water in the creek was. He wondered that she didn’t go downthere herself to look. If Liza could make it, Angie would surely have no problem. The sisters finally bid Casewell good-night, and he headed for home.
    The garden work was something Casewell wasn’t used to anymore, and he could feel his tired muscles stiffening as he prepared for bed. He lay down and waited for sleep to come, which it almost always did quickly. But this night he lay awake, picturing a young woman wading in cold creek water while a young man looked on. Poor Frank. Poor Liza. Would they have been happy together? Would they still be married today? Would Liza have stayed “bold” if she’d had the love of a good man to encourage her? Would Frank have stayed sober?
    His ponderings led him to think of Perla Long. Perhaps Sadie’s father had made Perla feel bold and alive. Casewell felt anger burning in him at a man who would refuse to take responsibility for his child. And how could a man let a woman like Perla slip through his fingers? She had exercised poor judgment, certainly, but she didn’t act alone.
    Casewell realized he’d tangled his sheets around his legs. He felt trapped, caught up like a fly in a web. He kicked and pulled at the covers, almost panicking over the constricted feeling of the sheets wound about him. He got loose and sat on the side of the bed, panting a little. He pulled on his clothes and went out to the workshop to do some sanding. Sleep seemed elusive at the moment.

    Casewell finally crawled into bed in the small hours of the morning. He woke far too early when the telephone jangled. He staggered into the kitchen and answered it.
    “Casewell, I think you should come see your father today.” His mother spoke without preamble.
    “Is everything okay?” Casewell asked, still groggy with sleep.
    “Fine, fine. I just think you should come today.”
    “All right. When?”
    “Come on over now, and I’ll feed you breakfast,” she said and hung up the phone.
    Casewell replaced the earpiece over the rotary dial on his wall phone. He scratched behind his ear in an absent kind of way, and it occurred to him to find the phone call a little strange. He walked back to his bedroom to get dressed.
    At his parents’ house, Casewell entered without knocking. He could smell sausage frying and his stomach rumbled. It had been a long time since the Talbot sisters’ beans and corn bread hit bottom.
    “Smells good, Mom,” he said, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table and sitting. His father sat in his place, hunched over a cup of coffee, scowling. “Hey, Dad, how’re you feeling this morning?”
    His father let fly a curse that made Casewell flinch. “If one more person asks how I am, I’m gonna cut ’em.”
    Casewell glanced at his mother standing at the stove. She cast a worried look over her shoulder. She turned back and began cracking eggs into the sausage grease.
    “How many, John?” she asked.
    “None,” he grunted. “Why should I eat if I’m gonna die anyway?”
    Casewell began to see why his mother had called. “I’ll take three, Mom,” he said. She smiled gratefully.
    “So, Dad, how’re the calves coming?” he asked.
    His father blew heavily, as if trying to disperse a cloud ofmosquitoes. “They’re coming. Can’t say the same for the grass. No rain makes for poor feed.”
    “I was at the Talbot sisters’ last evening. Creek’s mighty low. Liza said it was the lowest she’d seen it.”
    “Drought,” Dad intoned, as if he were about to launch into a great speech. His eyes were a little glassy. “Gonna be a terrible drought. I can feel it in my bones. Could be the end of us all.” He turned crazy eyes on Casewell. “Not just me—all of us.”
    “Well, now, you never know.” Mom slid a plate with three eggs, sausage, and biscuits in front of Casewell. She set a plate with just one egg in front of Dad, as if she were trying not to draw attention.