Page 78 of Praying for Thunder

OLD AND BRAVE SOULS

Ryannon

What was it like to fall in love with Thunder? Depends on what age you are speaking. There were many different levels to our mad love. Innocent. Desperate. Ravishing. But when I was twelve years old, I was to experience what it would be like to no longer have him on this earth. His life—his tragedy—was my gravity. Through his bruised skin and scarred heart, he was able to keep me from floating away…

When my mother passed, I prayed to grow wings so I could follow her to Heaven. That’s where Daddy said she went after…

No one cried harder than him at her funeral. When I was the only one left at her gravesite with him, he swore it was an accident, yet wept, as if begging for her to forgive him.

Mama was young but had been raised to be an old-school Louisiana church-going woman. That’s why Daddy built her one after taking her from her home. In that tiny church, which wasn’t allowed to be used after she died, she had taught me my faith. She also taught me I never wanted to marry a man like Daddy.

Jesus couldn’t return her to me once God had her in his clutches. I didn’t blame God. I just wanted to keep her, too.

Jesus gave me Thunder instead. I was thankful for the gift, for that boy, every day. Even on days I couldn’t see him. Seeing the roof of where he lived was enough.

There were many trees in the distance between our homes, but mine stood on stilts as it was so close to water. Daddy and Mama’s bedroom was on the main floor. My brothers all slept on the second when they were younger and still lived with us. I was in the large attic bedroom on the third floor. It was like a fairyland, with every toy a little girl could want. It even had a window and a hammock swing that faced the sun.

Little did I know that sun was pointing to where Thunder would someday be.

I didn’t only pray for Thunder in Mama’s church. I prayed for him from my bedroom, in that hammock swing, hoping I could help protect him from his family that Daddy hated.

One early morning, waking in my bed that also faced Thunder so I could watch over him, I was shocked when seeing smoke in the distance. I rushed from bed and ran to the window.

“Where—” I hissed, my mind trying to comprehend why I no longer saw a grey roof. I even touched the glass, hoping I was still asleep.

I wasn’t.

Not able to pull my eyes from the sight, I made my way to the door. Finally to the stairs, I raced down… “Daddy! Daddy! I think there’s a fire!”

At the bottom, on the main floor, he sat on the front porch rocking chair, the door wide open. He was watching the smoke, too. Casually drinking coffee, he warned, “Rya, you let things be.”

Through the opening, I ran past him and down the front three steps. “I won’t let nothin’ be if it means he’s hurt!”

Daddy once told me I was as stubborn as Mama. I’d be anything that boy needed if it meant keeping him in my life.

Daddy yelled my name as I ran to our front pen where Sable was already pacing, seeing me coming. Daddy preferred I rode with a saddle, but I had no time to waste. I had to help Thunder. I had to go and pull him from the fire that had swallowed his home.

After tearing open the gate, I climbed the fence and jumped on Sable. A cluck of the tongue and my bare heels adding pressure to her sides, we took off toward Mama’s church. Passing our other full horse pens and barns, I repeatedly prayed, Please let him be okay.

Once to the church, I followed the direction Thunder always came from when coming to find his Rya.

I was his…

“Thunder?” I was only eight when I told him the terrible news. “Daddy says I can’t marry you when I’m older.”

That church held so many memories for me. All of them with Mama. Building new ones without her was like trying to build a boat while sinking in quicksand.

That was until a beautiful boy stood in the doorway, the sun glowing behind him as if he were a god. I had been in trouble that morning. Daddy told me I was so bad that he was going to kill my rabbit. He said I needed to be judged… So, when the young god appeared, I was scared he was there to deliver my punishment.

“My mama is dead, too.”

But he wasn’t there to judge or punish. He was there to… save me.

After that fated day, my deliverance, I wanted to give him my soul. My heart swore he was the one to keep it safe.

His god-like blue eyes filled with dread. “Why? Why can’t I marry you, Rya?”

I sniffled. “He says your family is bad.”