“You got to close your eyes.”
The girl closed her eyes.
Bryce picked up Edward and held him so that he was standing straight, like a soldier, at the end of the bed. “All right now, you can open them.”
Sarah Ruth opened her eyes, and Bryce moved Edward’s china legs and china arms so it looked as if he were dancing.
Sarah Ruth laughed and clapped her hands. “Rabbit,” she said.
“He’s for you, honey,” said Bryce.
Sarah Ruth looked first at Edward and then at Bryce and then back at Edward again, her eyes wide and disbelieving.
“He’s yours.”
“Mine?”
Sarah Ruth, Edward was soon to discover, rarely said more than one word at a time. Words, at least several of them strung together, made her cough. She limited herself. She said only what needed to be said.
“Yours,” said Bryce. “I got him special for you.”
This knowledge provoked another fit of coughing in Sarah Ruth, and she hunched over again. When the fit was done, she uncurled herself and held out her arms.
“That’s right,” said Bryce. He handed Edward to her.
“Baby,” said Sarah Ruth.
She rocked Edward back and forth and stared down at him and smiled.
Never in his life had Edward been cradled like a baby. Abilene had not done it. Nor had Nellie. And most certainly Bull had not. It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love. Edward felt the whole of his china body flood with warmth.
“You going to give him a name, honey?” Bryce asked.
“Jangles,” said Sarah Ruth without taking her eyes off Edward.
“Jangles, huh? That’s a good name. I like that name.”
Bryce patted Sarah Ruth on the head. She continued to stare down at Edward.
“Hush,” she said to Edward as she rocked him back and forth.
“From the minute I first seen him,” said Bryce, “I knew he belonged to you. I said to myself, ‘That rabbit is for Sarah Ruth, for sure.’”
“Jangles,” murmured Sarah Ruth.
Outside the cabin, thunder cracked and then came the sound of rain falling on the tin roof. Sarah Ruth rocked Edward back and forth, back and forth, and Bryce took out his harmonica and started to play, making his song keep rhythm with the rain.
18
BRYCE AND SARAH RUTH HAD A father.
Early the next morning, when the light was gray and uncertain, Sarah Ruth was sitting up in bed, coughing, and the father came home. He picked Edward up by one of his ears and said, “I ain’t never.”
“It’s a baby doll,” said Bryce.
“Don’t look like no baby doll to me.”
Edward, hanging by one ear, was frightened. This, he was certain, was the man who crushed the heads of china dolls.
“Jangles,” said Sarah Ruth between coughs. She held out her arms.
“He’s hers,” said Bryce. “He belongs to her.”
The father dropped Edward on the bed, and Bryce picked up the rabbit and handed him to Sarah Ruth.
“It don’t matter anyway,” said the father. “It don’t make no difference. None of it.”
“It does so matter,” said Bryce.
“Don’t you sass me,” said the father. He raised his hand and slapped Bryce across his mouth and then he turned and left the house.
“You ain’t got to worry about him,” said Bryce to Edward. “He ain’t nothing but a bully. And besides, he don’t hardly ever come home.”
Fortunately, the father did not come back that day. Bryce went out to work and Sarah Ruth spent the day in bed, holding Edward in her lap and playing with a box filled with buttons.
“Pretty,” she said to Edward as she lined up the buttons on the bed and arranged them into different patterns.
Sometimes, when a coughing fit was particularly bad, she squeezed Edward so tight that he was afraid he would crack in two. Also, in between coughing fits, she took to sucking on one or the other of Edward’s ears. Normally, Edward would have found intrusive, clingy behavior of this sort very annoying, but there was something about Sarah Ruth. He wanted to take care of her. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to do
At the end of the day, Bryce returned with a biscuit for Sarah Ruth and a ball of twine for Edward.
Sarah Ruth held the biscuit in both hands and took small, tentative bites.
“You eat that all up, honey. Let me hold Jangles,” said Bryce. “Him and me got a surprise for you.”
Bryce took Edward off in a corner of the room, and with his pocketknife, he cut off lengths of twine and tied them to Edward’s arms and feet and then tied the twine to sticks of wood.
“See, all day I been thinking about it,” Bryce said, “what we’re going to do is make you dance. Sarah Ruth loves dancing. Mama used to hold on to her and dance her around the room.
“You eating that biscuit?” Bryce called out to Sarah Ruth.
“Uh-huh,” said Sarah Ruth.
“You hold on, honey. We got a surprise for you.” Bryce stood up. “Close your eyes,” he told her. He took Edward over to the bed and said, “Okay, you can open them now.”
Sarah Ruth opened her eyes.
“Dance, Jangles,” said Bryce. And then, moving the strings with the sticks with his one hand, Bryce made Edward dance and drop and sway. And the whole while, at the same time, with his other hand, he held on to the harmonica and played a bright and lively tune.
Sarah Ruth laughed. She laughed until she started to cough, and then Bryce laid Edward down and took Sarah Ruth in his lap and rocked her and rubbed her back.
“You want some fresh air?” he asked her. “Let’s get you out of this nasty old air, huh?”
Bryce carried his sister outside. He left Edward lying on the bed, and the rabbit, staring up at the smoke- stained ceiling, thought again about having wings. If he had them, he thought, he would fly high above the world, to where the air was clear and sweet, and he would take Sarah Ruth with him. He would carry her in his arms. Surely, so high above the world, she would be able to breathe without coughing.
After a minute, Bryce came back inside, still carrying Sarah Ruth.
“She wants you, too,” he said.
“Jangles,” said Sarah Ruth. She held out her arms.
So Bryce held Sarah Ruth and Sarah Ruth held Edward and the three of them stood outside.
Bryce said, “You got to look for falling stars. Them are the ones with magic.”
They were quiet for a long time, all three of them looking up at the sky. Sarah Ruth stopped coughing. Edward thought that maybe she had fallen asleep.
“There,” she said. And she pointed to a star streaking through the night sky.
“Make a wish, honey,” Bryce said, his voice high and tight. “That’s your star. You make you a wish for anything you want.”
And even though it was Sarah Ruth’s star, Edward wished on it, too.
