Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - Kate DiCamillo [15]
Sarah Ruth laughed and clapped her hands. “Rabbit,” she said.
“He’s for you, honey,” said Bryce.
Sarah Ruth looked first at Edward and then at Bryce and then back at Edward again, her eyes wide and disbelieving.
“He’s yours.”
“Mine?”
Sarah Ruth, Edward was soon to discover, rarely said more than one word at a time. Words, at least several of them strung together, made her cough. She limited herself. She said only what needed to be said.
“Yours,” said Bryce. “I got him special for you.”
This knowledge provoked another fit of coughing in Sarah Ruth, and she hunched over again. When the fit was done, she uncurled herself and held out her arms.
“That’s right,” said Bryce. He handed Edward to her.
“Baby,” said Sarah Ruth.
She rocked Edward back and forth and stared down at him and smiled.
Never in his life had Edward been cradled like a baby. Abilene had not done it. Nor had Nellie. And most certainly Bull had not. It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love. Edward felt the whole of his china body flood with warmth.
“You going to give him a name, honey?” Bryce asked.
“Jangles,” said Sarah Ruth without taking her eyes off Edward.
“Jangles, huh? That’s a good name. I like that name.”
Bryce patted Sarah Ruth on the head. She continued to stare down at Edward.
“Hush,” she said to Edward as she rocked him back and forth.
“From the minute I first seen him,” said Bryce, “I knew he belonged to you. I said to myself, ‘That rabbit is for Sarah Ruth, for sure.’”
“Jangles,” murmured Sarah Ruth.
Outside the cabin, thunder cracked and then came the sound of rain falling on the tin roof. Sarah Ruth rocked Edward back and forth, back and forth, and Bryce took out his harmonica and started to play, making his song keep rhythm with the rain.
BRYCE AND SARAH RUTH HAD A father.
Early the next morning, when the light was gray and uncertain, Sarah Ruth was sitting up in bed, coughing, and the father came home. He picked Edward up by one of his ears and said, “I ain’t never.”
“It’s a baby doll,” said Bryce.
“Don’t look like no baby doll to me.”
Edward, hanging by one ear, was frightened. This, he was certain, was the man who crushed the heads of china dolls.
“Jangles,” said Sarah Ruth between coughs. She held out her arms.
“He’s hers,” said Bryce. “He belongs to her.”
The father dropped Edward on the bed, and Bryce picked up the rabbit and handed him to Sarah Ruth.
“It don’t matter anyway,” said the father. “It don’t make no difference. None of it.”
“It does so matter,” said Bryce.
“Don’t you sass me,” said the father. He raised his hand and slapped Bryce across his mouth and then he turned and left the house.
“You ain’t got to worry about him,” said Bryce to Edward. “He ain’t nothing but a bully. And besides, he don’t hardly ever come home.”
Fortunately, the father did not come back that day. Bryce went out to work and Sarah Ruth spent the day in bed, holding Edward in her lap and playing with a box filled with buttons.
“Pretty,” she said to Edward as she lined up the buttons on the bed and arranged them into different patterns.
Sometimes, when a coughing fit was particularly bad, she squeezed Edward so tight that he was afraid he would crack in two. Also, in between coughing fits, she took to sucking on one or the other of Edward’s ears. Normally, Edward would have found intrusive, clingy behavior of this sort very annoying, but there was something about Sarah Ruth. He wanted to take care of her. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to do more for her.
At the end of the day, Bryce returned with a biscuit for Sarah Ruth and a ball of twine for Edward.
Sarah Ruth held the biscuit in both hands and took small, tentative bites.
“You eat that all up, honey. Let me hold Jangles,” said Bryce. “Him and me got a surprise for you.”
Bryce took Edward off in a corner of the room, and with his pocketknife, he cut off lengths of twine and tied them to Edward’s arms and feet and then tied the twine to sticks of wood.
“See,