Page 34 of A Boy Called Lovesong

“Or all of the above, and then some,” said Earl with a concerned glance at the engine.

“Looks like there’s only one thing to say to that,” chuckled Maybelle from the plantation house. “Welcome to Clara’s Crossing. You got any luggage?”

“Oh, I don’t plan on staying.”

Thunder rolled across the sky.

“You might as well stop for the night now,” Maybelle said. “Unless you plan on hitching a ride outta here in the middle of a storm. We don’t get many cars passing through. You could be out in that rain a while waiting for a ride.”

I looked outside through the open roller doors to the auto shop. “What rain?”

As if on cue, the heavens opened and a deluge of biblical proportions pounded the dusty street, drops so fat and heavy they left dents in the earth.

Thunder cracked, aBOOMso loud the tin walls of the auto shop clattered in terror.

Nobody flinched but me and Chet.

Actually, I jumped with such surprise that one shoe almost slipped off my foot.

Chet was under the car in a flash, trembling fearfully.

I knelt down and tried to coax him out, my voice calling over the sound of rain pelting down on the tin roof. “Hey boy, it’s okay. Come on out.”

Timidly he ventured far enough out for me to pick him up and hold him tight. “It’s okay, buddy. I got you.”

“And I got your luggage,” said Cybil, the large woman from the general store. She was hauling my suitcase out of the trunk.

“No, please.” I moved to stop her. “Please don’t touch my things.”

“Let me help,” Leroy said to Cybil, both of them with their hands all over my suitcase now.

“I said, don’t touch my things.”

There was another crack of thunder.

Chet leapt from my arms and cowered under a nearby workbench.

Earl unscrewed something under the hood and released a gush of steam.

Between the pounding of rain and the clash of thunder and the hiss of the steam, I snapped.

“Please! Just let go!”

Leroy and Cybil instantly released the suitcase.

It hit the ground on one corner.

With the impact, a latch broke off and the lid flipped open.

Shirts, underwear, and socks—both dirty and clean—tumbled out, as well as—

“Joel!”

I dropped to my knees as the urn hit the rough cement floor.

A crack appeared in the ceramic shell and the urn rolled.

Desperately I scooped my hands under it, scraping the skin off my knuckles before scooping the vessel up and cradling it in my arms.

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