The Value Of Rain Read Online Free PDF Page B

Breece, my second and older uncle, was an unknown factor to me until just a few days ago, even though he had been mentoring me on the streets for almost five years. The revelation of his family connection was still a hot coal in my throat, one I could neither swallow nor spit out.
    “So,” Sylvie said, “you were born and Francois and Charlotte were brought back into contact.”
    “Yes, he wasn’t about to be denied access to his only grandchild.” I sighed. “He was my balance against Charlotte.”
    “Which you lost when he died,” she said.
    I nodded again.
    She took one final drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out as she looked at me. “How old was Charlotte when Marie died, Charles?”
    “I’m ... not sure. I seem to recall Francois saying that she was almost seventeen.”
    “Seventeen. Seventeen, Charles,” she stressed. “It doesn’t add up on either side of the story.”
    “I’d take my grandfather’s version over Charlotte’s any day.”
    She nodded.
    “If I was in your place I probably would too. But I don’t think...,” she paused to put her thoughts together. “Let me ask you this, do you remember the coolers?”
    “The coolers?”
    “On your fishing trips with Francois,” she said.
    I smiled. “Yeah. His beer, my soda.”
    “How much beer?”
    “Hell, I don’t know. A case?” I answered hesitantly.
    “A case, for one man? On a three hour fishing trip?”
    “What are you trying to say?”
    “Nothing. I’m just questioning the idol worship you have for Francois.” She studied me in silence for a moment. “What if I told you that Linda Preston was really a little mouse of a woman?”
    “I wouldn’t say anything. She was dead and gone long before I was born.”
    “True,” she conceded, “but I think it explains why you heard so much about Linda and virtually nothing about Marie.”
    “I still don’t get what you’re driving at.”
    She leaned forward in her chair, eager for me to see it. “Linda was easily dominated, Charles. Just like Jarrel. He’s big and gruff looking, but he’s just a little mouse inside. Marie, your real grandmother, was just like Charlotte is. I don’t think your grandfather took too well to that.”
    I flicked the stub of my cigarette out the window. “Fine, but what the hell does any of that have to do with what your husband did to me?”
    “Jarrel was a pawn too, Charles. Only his war preceded yours by a few decades. Charlotte used him as revenge against Francois. She destroyed his character and pushed him into the arms of a pedophile, and then tried to mold him into her own little weapon.”
    “Why? Revenge for what?” I asked, still clinging to my skepticism.
    Sylvie shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    “So all the years of planning and scheming backfired on Charlotte and everything hit me instead?” I asked heatedly.
    “You weren’t the target, but yes.”
    “And now I’m supposed to forgive him?”
    She shook her head sadly. “No. He doesn’t want that, Charles. He doesn’t want anything from any of you.”
    “Then what the fuck is he doing here?”
    “Trying to get some understanding of why, Charles. Just like you.”
     

Chapter Four
June 1975
     
    I learned a lot in the four years I spent at Sanctuary. Most of it was about how much abuse the other boys around me had suffered at the hands of those who claimed to love them. Two thirds of my fellow wards were sex offenders who had repeated the acts of abuse and violence on other kids, just as had been done to them. It was the only real human contact some of them knew.
    There were boys who had been raped by their fathers, brothers and uncles. Others who had been initiated into Satanic cults through the physical and sexual abuse of animals, themselves and other children. And still more who had been given up for adoption and dropped into the system because their parents already had too many kids, simply couldn’t be bothered, or were hooked on some kind of drug.
    There was no