Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - Kate DiCamillo [16]
“You eating that biscuit?” Bryce called out to Sarah Ruth.
“Uh-huh,” said Sarah Ruth.
“You hold on, honey. We got a surprise for you.” Bryce stood up. “Close your eyes,” he told her. He took Edward over to the bed and said, “Okay, you can open them now.”
Sarah Ruth opened her eyes.
“Dance, Jangles,” said Bryce. And then, moving the strings with the sticks with his one hand, Bryce made Edward dance and drop and sway. And the whole while, at the same time, with his other hand, he held on to the harmonica and played a bright and lively tune.
Sarah Ruth laughed. She laughed until she started to cough, and then Bryce laid Edward down and took Sarah Ruth in his lap and rocked her and rubbed her back.
“You want some fresh air?” he asked her. “Let’s get you out of this nasty old air, huh?”
Bryce carried his sister outside. He left Edward lying on the bed, and the rabbit, staring up at the smoke-stained ceiling, thought again about having wings. If he had them, he thought, he would fly high above the world, to where the air was clear and sweet, and he would take Sarah Ruth with him. He would carry her in his arms. Surely, so high above the world, she would be able to breathe without coughing.
After a minute, Bryce came back inside, still carrying Sarah Ruth.
“She wants you, too,” he said.
“Jangles,” said Sarah Ruth. She held out her arms.
So Bryce held Sarah Ruth and Sarah Ruth held Edward and the three of them stood outside.
Bryce said, “You got to look for falling stars. Them are the ones with magic.”
They were quiet for a long time, all three of them looking up at the sky. Sarah Ruth stopped coughing. Edward thought that maybe she had fallen asleep.
“There,” she said. And she pointed to a star streaking through the night sky.
“Make a wish, honey,” Bryce said, his voice high and tight. “That’s your star. You make you a wish for anything you want.”
And even though it was Sarah Ruth’s star, Edward wished on it, too.
THE DAYS PASSED. THE SUN ROSE and set and rose and set again and again. Sometimes the father came home and sometimes he did not. Edward’s ears became soggy and he did not care. His sweater had almost completely unraveled and it didn’t bother him. He was hugged half to death and it felt good. In the evenings, at the hands of Bryce, at the ends of the twine, Edward danced and danced.
One month passed and then two and then three. Sarah Ruth got worse. In the fifth month, she refused to eat. And in the sixth month, she began to cough up blood. Her breathing became ragged and uncertain, as if she was trying to remember, in between breaths, what to do, what breathing was.
“Breathe, honey,” Bryce stood over her and said.
Breathe, thought Edward from deep inside the well of her arms. Please, please breathe.
Bryce stopped leaving the house. He sat at home all day and held Sarah Ruth in his lap and rocked her back and forth and sang to her; on a bright morning in September, Sarah Ruth stopped breathing.
“Oh no,” said Bryce. “Oh, honey, take a little breath. Please.”
Edward had fallen out of Sarah Ruth’s arms the night before and she had not asked for him again. So, face-down on the floor, arms over his head, Edward listened as Bryce wept. He listened as the father came home and shouted at Bryce. He listened as the father wept.
“You can’t cry!” Bryce shouted. “You got no right to cry. You never even loved her. You don’t know nothing about love.”
“I loved her,” said the father. “I loved her.”
I loved her, too, thought Edward. I loved her and now she is gone. How could this be? he wondered. How could he bear to live in a world without Sarah Ruth?
The yelling between the father and son continued, and then there was a terrible moment when the father insisted that Sarah Ruth belonged to him, that she was his girl, his baby, and that he was taking her to be buried.
“She ain’t yours!” Bryce screamed. “You can’t take her. She ain