Every Time a Rainbow Dies by Rita Williams-Garcia Page A

mess.
    Once he got the hang of sex, he thought he could screw Julie forever. They had ample opportunity at her house, and she enjoyed it. Even though his body was always ready, the want of her faded. The thinking of her. The list of things he liked about her did not seem so extensive. Her treasures. These all faded. So even as he entered her, joined with her, and rode her until he was finished with her, he did not want her.
    Julie was not completely without dignity, nor was she blind to his lack of interest. She was back with Yves shortly before Valentine’s Day. From his rooftop Thulani saw them walking arm in arm when he went to close the dovecote. He wished he cared.

FOURTEEN
    â€œShouldn’t his family do this?”
    Thulani had just come in from taking another large garbage bag out to the Dumpster. Going out in the rain didn’t bother him as much as what they were doing, raking through Dunleavy’s things. Before the sun came up, Truman pulled him out of a warm sleep and said, “We have work to do, braa.” No further explanation.
    Truman threw another stack of magazines onto the pile but offered no reply to his brother. They had been in Dunleavy’s apartment since the hard rain started falling early that morning, clearing out cupboards and closets. In that time they accumulated two heaps: one of clothing that would be donated to charity and the other of what Truman called junk.
    â€œThis isn’t right,” Thulani said. “Us being here. Throwing out the man’s things.”
    It was the third such remark he made about being in Dunleavy’s apartment and the third time Truman didn’t answer. Finally Thulani got the message. Mr. Dunleavy must have died in the nursing home, and there was no one else to dispose of his things. Why Truman couldn’t have said in the first place that Dunleavy had died, Thulani didn’t understand. It was like Mommy dying. One minute Thulani was talking about her, counting the days until her return; then suddenly he learned she had long been gone. The difference was he felt sorrow about Mr. Dunleavy’s death, but no pain, and he was glad of that.
    Truman tossed a cardboard box onto the heap that would be bagged as garbage, spilling some photographs on the floor. Fascinated by the photos and bored with the task of bagging garbage, Thulani stopped to pick them up.
    There was not one color print among them, just old brown and yellowed prints, not even black-and-white. The surfaces of the photographs were matte, and some of the borders were scalloped. To Truman’s displeasure, Thulani sat cross-legged on the floor and thumbed through stacks of photographs in the cardboard box. He’d feel the surfaces of the prints, then turn over each photo to see the dates stamped on the back. The fairlyrecent pictures, at least twenty years old, had been taken in Brooklyn. He recognized the shops and streets. The older photographs, however, were of Jamaica. Even without the greens and yellows he knew his homeland. The place where his father lived and where he had run free as a little boy. It seemed an unspoiled place.
    He came across a photograph of three schoolgirls in their best pinafores, gathered on the steps of the school with their teacher and principal. This was not the kind of picture that would normally interest him, except for the middle schoolgirl in plaits, who had his eyes and Truman’s nose. Surely this was his mother or at the very least an aunt. He pointed out the girl to Truman.
    Truman gave the photograph a passing glance and said, “The Salvation Army will be here by one to pick up the furniture and clothing.”
    If Truman didn’t want to see it, that was on him. Thulani put all the photos in the box, except the one of the schoolgirls. He placed that picture on top of the box lid.
    â€œThese should go to someone,” he told Truman.
    Truman shrugged.
    â€œDunleavy wrote to someone from home.”
    Truman