Her therapist suggested she get a part-time job, and her grandparents latched on to the idea, citing all the opportunities that came with having a job. They also offered to buy her a used car to get to and from work, which was the only reason she agreed. A car meant freedom, and that was a precious commodity. She got a job at a local restaurant, busing tables and then later working as a server. The tips were good and she had nothing to spend her money on, so she saved it. What else was there to do? Summer had gone over the options, things like cheerleading and chess club, and the sport that must not be named—softball. She had no interest in doing things that normal kids did; nothing brought her joy. In the morning, she’d drive to school, and after school she’d drive to work, from work it was home: easy-peasy.
On nights when she didn’t work, she sat between Mark and Gilda as they watched their shows: the news （so they could bemoan the wickedness of the younger generations）， The 700 Club （Pat Robertson was her grandma’s crush） and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman reruns. It was her favorite time and not because she enjoyed the content. No, Summer daydreamed during those hours, hands pressed between her knees, her eyes glazed over. She thought of who she was going to be next, and where she was going next, and most importantly, she thought of all the things she wanted to do to Taured to punish him for killing her mother. She used whatever they were watching on TV to come up with her fantasy: if Pat Robertson was talking about the fires of hell, that’s where Summer would send him. If Sully was bitten by a rattlesnake, Summer would have Taured bitten by one, as well, but instead of saving him, as the brave Dr. Quinn would have, she’d watch him die, writhing on the floor in pain. It was nice, better therapy than the therapy, if she were honest.
After the shows, she’d fall into her mother’s old bed and sleep deep and heavy, momentarily sated with revenge. And that’s how it went.
When Summer graduated high school, she legally changed her name to Lorraine Ives—her mother’s maiden name, which she shortened to Rainy—and moved to New York. Her grandparents wrote to her regularly, folding a religious tract into each card or letter they sent. Rainy kept every piece of Christian propaganda in a shoebox in her closet because she thought her mom would find that funny. Shortly after her graduation, Mark and Gilda died, within eight months of each other.
She enrolled in art school after a year of working the New York restaurant scene, using the money from the sale of her grandparents’ house for her first year’s tuition. Rainy was not an artist; Taured had cared about educating the young ones with his skewed view of the Bible, art falling very low on his list of accepted activities. But art was the way people gave voice to truly important things. When she’d walked through MoMA for the first time, she’d felt like every cell in her body had come to life. You could say anything you wanted to—anything at all, and hide its meaning between layers of paint, or in the bend of metal, or in the folds of performance art. During her visit, Rainy had overheard two friends discussing an exhibit, which consisted of a piece of linen wrapped around a rope.
“I swear to God I can’t wait until this class is over. What the hell does Campsey want us to say about this. I cannot…” The taller of the two unhooked her arm from her friend’s and went over to examine the display, getting so close Rainy swore her nose brushed against the rope.
“It says nothing. I hate it.” The girl backed up, joining her friend, who was draped over her phone, not even looking.
Rainy couldn’t disagree with her more. Both the rope and the linen had been created from the same fabric, yet each was woven into a distinct texture, and then they had been wound around each other. She’d gone back to the room she rented and Googled Professor Campsey on her laptop as she ate pickle chips from a bag. Daniel Campsey taught at NYU. In his photo on the college website, he had a round face with two rosy spots high on his cheeks that made it look like he was wearing blush. He looked like a shaved Santa Claus, and she wanted to take one of his classes. It was a gut feeling, and since she was living on those lately, she licked her fingers clean of pickle crumbs and filled out an online application.
When Rainy found out that she was accepted, there was no one to tell. She wrote a letter to Taured detailing her life after the loss of her mother. The letter was six pages long; she burned it in the kitchen sink after she reread it, ashamed both of how weak she sounded and that her first instinct had been to write him at all. She didn’t want to send Taured a letter detailing her hurt; she wanted to make him hurt back.