Acts of God Read Online Free Page A

father had been at work on a night shift at a chicken-plucking plant in Dardanelle. The dead people in the house were the baby’s mother and grandmother and older brother.
    Rafael’s father got to the Red Cross trailer twenty minutes after Marie and John Tucker and Jason and Hardin and Tommie Anne got there. He picked up his son and sat cuddling him in his arms, sitting on the edge of a straight chair.
    â€œTheese is your shirt?” he asked Marie.
    â€œIt’s his now,” she answered. “I’m okay.”
    AT NINE THAT night the Fayetteville Five started driving back to Fayetteville. For a long time no one really talked. Then Marie began.
    â€œLast spring when I met my biological father I told my mom, Annie, I thought nothing important would ever really happen to me again. She told me I was wrong.”
    â€œThe stock market crashed,” Jason said.
    â€œThat’s nothing compared to this. This could be the most important thing that ever happens to any of us as long as we live.”
    â€œNo, it’s not,” Hardin said. “Lots more is going to happen. I haven’t even gotten my driver’s license yet. All I have is a learner’s permit.”
    â€œI almost didn’t come with you,” John Tucker said. “I only came so Tommie Anne wouldn’t be driving my car.”
    THEY STOPPED AT a filling station in Carville and then drove across the street and got hamburgers and french fries at McDonald’s. Marie went into the restroom and put on a T-shirt she had bought at the filling station. It was dark green and had some sort of corny painting on it but she wanted a clean shirt and it was the only one in a small.
    â€œWear it inside out,” Tommie Anne suggested.
    â€œAnd have this ugly painting next to my skin. No way.”
    Tommie Anne leaned in close and looked at the painting more closely. “What’s it of, anyway?” she asked. “You can’t even tell.”
    â€œIt’s some kind of monster truck from a video game. See, it says MONSTER MADNESS . Disgusting.”
    â€œHow much did it cost?”
    â€œFive ninety-five. It doesn’t matter. We found a baby boy alive in the ruins of a tornado. I’d wear this shirt to school to get to be there again when Hardin started yelling and we went there and saw it. I’m going to start liking Hardin a lot more after I saw him holding Rafael. Rafael—I’ll remember him always. When he gets bigger we have to go to Adkins and see him and maybe take him to a park to play. I don’t want to lose this night forever.”
    â€œWe will. We’ll go see him every year and see how he is doing.”
    â€œHe lost his mother and his grandmother.” Marie looked down. She didn’t want to cry again. It embarrassed her to keep crying about things.
    â€œAnd his big brother.”
    â€œThat’s another reason I’m going to start liking Hardin. I’m going to tell him I like him and not get mad if he wants to watch his stupid football games on television when I want to watch
Say Yes to the Dress
.”
    â€œ
Say Yes to the Dress
is so good. I could watch it all day.”
    â€œLet’s get out of this bathroom. We have to get on back home before our parents freak out. Dad’s called four times.”
    The next morning the story was on the front page of the
Arkansas Gazette
along with a photograph of the baby’s father holding the baby. In the photograph the baby was still wearing Marie’s baby blue Izod that she liked so much she washed it by hand in cold water so it wouldn’t fade. There was a quotation in the story about her putting it on the baby. Later that week she received a package from the manager of Dillard’s Department Store with three new Izod shirts in her size. One baby blue, one yellow, and one white.
    â€œHow did they find out my size” was all she could think of to say when she told her friends about