The Tiger Rising

Chapter 28

“Oh,” said Sistine, in that voice that Rob loved. “See,” she said, “that was the right thing. That was the right thing to do.”

Rob nodded. But in his mind, he saw a flash of green. He remembered what happened to Cricket.

“What?” said Sistine, turning to him. “What are you thinking about?”

Rob shook his head. “Nothing,” he told her.

“Roberrttt.” The sound of his name came floating to them from the direction of the motel.

“That’s my dad,” he said, confused. “That’s my dad calling me.”

And then they heard Willie May. “Do Jesus!” she screamed, her voice high and wild.

And then there was the crack of a gun.

They both stood still, stunned and silent. And when Willie May came running out from under the pine trees and saw them, she stopped. “Thank you, Jesus,” she said, looking up at the sky. “Two whole children. Thank you. Come here,” she said. She opened her arms. “Come to me.”

Rob started walking toward her. He wanted to tell her that she was wrong. He wanted to tell her that he did not feel whole. But he did not have the energy or the heart to say anything; all he could manage was putting one foot in front of the other. All he could do was keep walking toward Willie May.

Willie May led them back. And when Rob saw the tiger on the ground and his father standing over it, holding the rifle, he felt something rise up in him, an anger as big and powerful as the tiger. Bigger.

“You killed him,” he said to his father.

“I had to,” his father said.

“That was my tiger!” Rob screamed. “You killed him! You killed my tiger!” He ran at his father and attacked him. He beat him with his fists. He kicked him. But his father stood like a wall. He held the gun up over his head and kept his eyes open and took each hit without blinking.

And Rob saw that hitting wasn’t going to be enough. So he did something he thought he would never do. He opened his suitcase. And the words sprang out of it, coiled and explosive.

“I wish it had been you!” he screamed. “I wish it had been you that died! I hate you! You ain’t the one I need. I need her! I need her!”

The world, and everything in it, seemed to stop moving.

He stared at his father.

His father stared at him.

“Say her name!” Rob screamed into the silence. “You say it!”

“Caroline,” his father whispered, with the gun still over his head, with his eyes still open.

And with that word, with the small sound of his mother’s name, the world lurched back into motion; like an old merry-go-round, it started to spin again. His father put the gun down and pulled Rob to him.

“Caroline,” his father whispered. “Caroline, Caroline, Caroline.”

Rob buried his face in his father’s shirt. It smelled like sweat and turpentine and green leaves. “I need her,” Rob said.

“I need her, too,” said his father, pulling Rob closer. “But we don’t got her. Neither one of us. What we got, all we got, is each other. And we got to learn to make do with that.”

“I ain’t going to cry,” Rob said, shutting his eyes, but the tears leaked out of him, anyway. Then they came in a rush and he couldn’t stop. He cried from somewhere deep inside of himself, from the place where his mother had been, the same place that the tiger had been and was gone from now.

Rob looked up and saw his father wiping tears from his own eyes.

“All right,” said his father, holding Rob tight. “That’s all right,” he said. “You’re okay.”

When Rob finally looked up again, he saw Willie May holding Sistine like she was a baby, rocking her and saying shhhh.

Willie May stared back at him. “Don’t think you gonna start pounding on me now,” she said.

“No, ma’am,” said Rob. He wiped the back of his hand across his nose and slid out of his father’s arms.

“I went and got your daddy,” Willie May told Rob as she swayed back and forth, rocking Sistine. “I figured out what you was gonna do. And there ain’t no telling what that tiger would’ve done once he got out of that cage. I went and got your daddy, so he could save you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Rob.

He went and stood over the open-eyed tiger. The bullet hole in his head was red and small; it didn’t look big enough to kill him.

“Go ahead and touch him,” said Sistine.

Rob looked up. She was standing beside him. Her dress was twisted and wrinkled. Her eyes were red. Rob stared at her and she nodded. So he knelt and put out a hand and placed it on the tiger’s head. He felt the tears rise up in him again.

Sistine crouched down next to him. She put her hand on the tiger, too. “He was so pretty,” she said. “He was one of the prettiest things I have ever seen.”

Rob nodded.

“We have to have a funeral for him,” Sistine said. “He’s a fallen warrior. We have to bury him right.”

Rob sat down next to the tiger and ran his hand over the rough fur again and again while the tears traveled down his cheeks and dropped onto the ground.