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CHAPTER 1
She glanced down at her once-beautiful dark red suede pumps, and realized she'd made a terrible miscalculation, irresponsible in fact. The shoes were ruined, darkly spotted and stained by the wet pavement and rain. Why had she chosen these shoes, when she knew the weather reporter simply called the outlook, "terrible outside"? She had heard the drone on the television that was always on in the kitchen, the channel never changed. "Don't go outdoors unless you absolutely have to ... the danger of flash flooding today is very real." Yet here she stood, standing in it, ruining her shoes, the rain blurring her vision. She had heard the storm out her picture window, the rain and wind lashing on branches that bounced along the glass; she didn't see it, the drapes were tightly closed against any light. She had considered going back to sleep, but knew that wasn't a good idea, and had pushed herself to get up, get moving. She was afraid she might melt into the couch and disappear under the floorboards.
After dry toast and a cup of tepid tea, (she had forgotten the water was ready and had let it sit too long), she had reluctantly gotten dressed. The dog had watched, wagging her tail, thinking she would somehow be included in this walk. The cat jumped high on the island counter, walking across the new-just-last-year black shiny granite, a contrast to the cream colored cabinets in their remodeled kitchen, a concession she had made, wanting white french marble instead. The cat drank from Sarah's teacup, defiantly, glancing up at her, daring her to move him, and she just watched. Even the pets were tired of her inactivity and were bored with her.
She owned perfectly fine rubber boots; they were sitting in the back of the closet ... big ones that she had used often, walking on the shore, throwing rocks and collecting treasures on foggy, wet, misty, interesting fall days. She had suitable sturdy shoes sitting neatly by the door ... they could take the wet and mud. Instead, she chose her suede designer pumps with the gorgeous red sole. Instinctively, she knew why she had slid them on her bare feet ... plain and simple, David had bought them for her. They reminded her of him, the memory fresh today of their shopping trip together, where she complained they were "way too expensive" ... but he bought them anyway. They had laughed about her becoming a princess and he her Prince Charming, fitting the shoe on her "tiny toes" ... and now they were ruined.
She had been thinking of David all week; she put the shoes on absentmindedly, pulling them from the closet at the door, along with her long classic raincoat and red striped umbrella, also gifts from her husband. It took about five minutes of walking down her flagstone steps, out to the sidewalk and a couple of blocks to the right, avoiding her driveway, to completely soak her feet, the rain pouring in great heavy cascades of water, the wind whipping the rain into her face, rendering the umbrella useless. She folded it up, crunched it under her arm, and pulled up her hood. What in the world had brought her out of her warm, cocooning living room, sitting under her son's sweet train blankie, the smell of him there, on her soft, cushioning, sink-back-into couch? Why had she even bothered crawling out of bed to begin with? Why, today of all days, would she leave her home?
She needed another novel, not one on her tablet, but a real book to hold in her hands, the smell of a book necessary. It would take her to another place, even if just for today. She needed to move, to breathe the air, even if it were chilly and damp. Her house was too quiet, the ticking of the funny black kitty clock on the kitchen wall making her feel she might go mad. She had grabbed the tail, turned the clock over, and removed the batteries. After she tossed the clock into the empty tall kitchen can, she had gotten her purse and grabbed those shoes.
The small mom and pop bookstore, run down and showing signs of being in trouble, sat away from the main road of town, but just a couple of blocks from Sarah's house. She could make it there. She had frequented it often; they knew her well, but not so much lately. She remembered when they used to serve coffee and flaky, melt-in-your-mouth croissants. She and David would go, early morning, when the streets were still quiet. She would sit there for hours, devouring a book, buying another before she would leave. Later, she would take Ethan. They'd sit on the carpeted old floor, reading and giggling together. Her stomach turned over. "Don't. Don't think about it. Just get a book and go back home", she told herself.
She turned to cross the road, and there she waited for the light, the signal that it was safe to cross. She was staring at her shoes, wondering if she might figure out a way to save them, when she saw two very large, scuffed and dark, also soaked shoes stop in front of her. She glanced up, and could barely see his face, the rain running like a waterfall over the brim of his hat. "Sarah."
She recognized the voice, and stepped back intuitively and defensively. She noticed scars on His face that hadn't been there before. "How are you," he asked.
"I'm ... I'm ...," she stammered quietly. Her heart pounded violently against her chest.
"What?" he answered back. "It's hard to hear. Can we go somewhere to talk?"
"No, I ... I ... have an appointment, across the street. I'm late."
"Sarah. Just for a moment. I've been very concerned. You haven't returned any of my messages."
"Really??" She turned to face him, no longer startled or afraid. "Concerned? Honestly, don't you think it's a little late for that? Your concern ... its definitely late for that. Just where were you when I needed you?"
Silence. She quieted, breathing in and out slowly, the way the doctor had taught her, one of the many strategies she had been trying to put into place.
"Why are you here now? Where have you been this time?" she asked pointedly, looking him straight in the eye, through the raindrops cascading off her hood, hearing them pound and fill her ears. She turned away then, and this time more quietly, with hurt catching in her throat. "Where have you ever been?" She surprised herself with the energy in which she had addressed him, and realized with a start that she hadn't spoken aloud in weeks.
He looked at her then, saying nothing, he too, breathing in and out, vapor coming from his face. "I checked with the University; they told me you'd taken a leave of absence. I went by your house just now, and no one answered the door. The dog barked though, so. ... I was just walking back to my car when I saw you. I'm parked over there." He pointed to a car garage, farther down the street. "I'm sorry; I haven't been able to be here. You have every right to be angry."
As he spoke, he guided her arm gently, under the awning of the card shop, the red hearts and Valentine's spilling all over the display window, the door opening, providing a rush of steamy warm air as a woman entered beside them, looking strangely back at the pair. "A lover's quarrel", the woman thought. "Best to leave it alone ..." and Sarah's brief look inside revealed cut outs and angels and candy decorations hung everywhere through the store. Sarah glanced away, her own heart aching with memories of choosing the funniest saying on the tiny candy hearts, slipping it into her husband's socks on Valentine's Day, or under his car visor, or sitting on his toothbrush. Her mind remembered the red construction paper heart Ethan had cut out all by himself last February, the cuts uneven and jagged, but his hug melting her soul, making it the best gift ever.
This had been a mistake, engaging in conversation, coming out, going to the bookstore. All of it. She couldn't do this; she couldn't do any of this. She wasn't ready. She'd never be ready. She told him then, pulling herself to the present, she couldn't talk to him, that she couldn't talk at all, that he needn't have bothered to 'check on her'. Then she defiantly stared at him.
He looked at her for a long time, his pocked face stony and silent, the scar across his left cheek white in his tight lipped demeanor, his blue eyes lined deeply now at the corners, and he asked quietly, "Why did you take a leave, Sarah?" He gripped his hat, turning it slowly in his fingers. "You love your work."
"I didn't take a leave. They made me", she said angrily. "I didn't choose this ... this life. I NEVER chose this life." She threw her hands up, dropping the folded, soaked umbrella. "I need to teach, to write.
They were afraid I was ... unstable. That I might not 'be at my best' with the students." She raised her arms to demonstrate brackets around the words, her umbrella now soaked on the ground; He stooped to get it for her. "Soooooo. ... now I read a lot. I can't write at home, not yet. I've tried. Nothing comes. I spend time with Carrie, our lab. Sleep with the cat curled up next to me ... on the couch, though, not in ... not in the bed. I eat, occasionally ... I'm good. Really good. Terrifically ... good." The sarcasm just couldn't help but escape.
She looked at him then, a look of defiance penetrating his eyes. "Satisfied? Saw what you wanted to? You can leave now."
"You're soaked. Why don't you let me buy you a cup of coffee? I want to catch up, to hear about ..."" She cut him off with her hand up, her face turned away.
"No. No, you don't get it. I don't want to see you." She stared at him then, realizing he looked tired, older. "You were all I had, you know. Ever. Every time I needed you, you were gone. You could've saved me, but you weren't there, not ever when I needed you to be my white knight. You come back here, offering ... what. To be my savior now? When it's too late? You left me. You always left me. Everyone has ... always left me."
She looked at him again, this time tears mingling with the raindrops. Quietly, now, "You could've ... and you just ... didn't. I don't blame you, really. I just wasn't worth it." The last bit of her sentence came out in a cry, loud and angry. She wrenched away from his arm on hers, turned toward the street, saying, "I have an appointment. I'm going. Just leave me alone, please. Again. Just leave me ..." Sarah stepped into the street, and she was very aware of her right foot being totally and coldly under water in the river running down the edge of the curbed pavement, the water silky while it moved against her ankle. She vaguely thought, I will never fix these shoes now. She remembered a horn then, a screech of tires, a smell of burning rubber, the pounding of the rain, as she felt herself flying free, loose ... feet off the ground, now landing with a thud, the breath knocked from her. She was very aware that she could not breathe, but it didn't hurt. The silence inside of her made her see so clearly, everything outlined darkly, succinctly. Then there were his shoes, next to her ... she could hear muffled yelling, as though cotton balls were in her ears ... like Ethan's ears, when he had an earache, and he laughed, "I can't hear you, Mommy!", yelling loudly, scaring the dog. ...
"... ambulance!" She could see her beautiful, expensive wine colored pump laying sideways directly across from her head, just out of reach. She saw His hat, laying in the rain, the drops bouncing off the top of it like a trampoline. She watched the shapes of the drops, large, angry, full, plopping. She thought about moving and she just couldn't. She was just too tired. She could see her hand in front of her, twisted strangely, fingers reaching upward, the rain drops dripping one by one, collecting on and running off of her new-last-evening impulsive red polish, thinking ... the drops are so beautiful, big like this, reflecting the lights ... like glass Christmas balls ...
Her blue eyes stayed open and trained on her shoe so that she wouldn't forget where it was, and now on her hand, so strange looking, and unblinking, she saw her body twitching and convulsing; she didn't feel it. She was aware now of red lights, flashing, reflecting off the shiny blacktop and onto her hand. She saw the sticky red below her and wondered what she had fallen on. She just needed to get up now. She should never have worn those shoes. She wanted to breathe and tried ... tried hard. She saw His shoes, saw His hand gently take hers, holding it, stroking her fingers. She decided to rest. She'd talk to Him after she rested. If that's what he wanted, fine. She would talk to Him.
CHAPTER 2
Sarah sat on the scratchy wood of the porch, her legs curled underneath her, her knobby little knees white with the pressure. The rain began, and she watched large, big drops come through the holes in the roof of the porch, landing on the dusty wood, sending up a tiny poof of "smoke" each time. She leaned forward to watch, and the rain started coming harder now. She slid down the porch, where the rain wasn't, and she listened to the voices inside. She heard her Mommy using that mean voice, and she sat, alert now, this voice the one where Sarah knew to best just hide. She sank back against the wall of the house, hoping to blend in and stay unnoticed. Maybe if she was very, very quiet ...
Her mommy sounded strange, like when she woke her in the middle of the night with a bad dream, all fuzzy. She looked up then, at all of the jingling windchimes her Mommy had made, in wild, bright colors, the rain gently blowing them, making it hard for Sarah to hear.
"You're all high and mighty, showing up. What good are you? You don't have any right to tell me what to do. You think she's better off because you show up once every couple of months? Why don't you just leave us the hell alone." Sarah rubbed her finger on the glass, to clear a spot where she could watch. She heard the chair fall back against the tile floor, and watched her Mother get up fast from the table where she had been sitting, rattling the bottles on the red rimmed, rickety wooden table with the one leg too short. He had placed a folded up newspaper under the leg the last time He had been here. He took her Mother then, holding both of her arms, pushing her up against the wall. Sarah held her breath. She had seen this before and it never ended well.
"Look at you." He was talking so low, so quietly, Sarah leaned her head closer to the door. "Why don't you get yourself ... this place ... cleaned up for God's sake? Why don't you buy some food instead of that poison you keep putting in your veins?" He shoved her then. "When was the last time she had a glass of milk, took a bath, wore clean clothes? Jesus, Mary, look at you ... what you've become. And I did try to help."
"You don't know what it's like!" She screamed and then just as quickly sobbed and quieted. He picked up the chair and sat her back in it. "You don't know what it's like. Nothing is selling, and what did you want me to do. Maybe ... maybe if you had stayed?"
"You know I couldn't do that. You knew what this was from the beginning. You were helping me. I was helping you. That's all. But you have to take better care of that kid.' Then, looking up, like he had made a decision, "You need to let me take her. There's people who will care for her." He got a broom, and a broken box lid, and started sweeping the shards of glass and grabbed the bottles, dumping them into a brown paper sack that said "Ruby's Liquor" in big, bold red letters on the side, followed by a phone number.
Sarah's feet were wet and getting cold. The water ran down the wall of the house. There was precious little dry space. She grabbed the doll, it's hair matted and sticking up, from it's hiding place under the rail. She held it close and looked again. Her mother had her head down on the table now, racking coughs coming in between the crying. "She's all I got." Sarah saw her Mother stare into space, quieting. "What will I do? They won't gimme that food if she ain't with me. I won't get a dime of help."
"Jesus Christ! Just when I start to think you ... do you even know where she is right now?? Do you?" He was shouting now, and tossed a rag across the room. "You don't give a shit. Stop pretending."
There was quiet then, and Sarah ducked away from the windowsill, as he looked out now toward the porch. "I'll be back," he nearly whispered, walking swiftly toward the screened door, crooked, thin, the holes in the screen covered with masking tape, the pieces dirty at the edges. Sarah shrank back, all the way to the edge of the porch. He stood in front of her now, asking ... "Are you cold?"
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Rain"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Sandy Robertson.
Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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