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The Sound of The Rain

"Poppa, Poppa!" The tiny little girl with the wild red curls ran to the front door and waited — breathless — for it to open. The wooden floor lay icy beneath her feet and her toes curled against the cold. She heard her father outside, stomping his boots to shake off snow. "Poppa," she whispered. Then the door swung open and he stood there, looming above her, as he let in the night and the cold to dance round her bare legs.

"Poppa!" A huge smile claimed her face and she stretched her arms skywards to him. He stood for a moment, looking at his girl, and then he bent down low and she started rising, rising up high in the air, safe in the circle of hard, strong arms. His black overcoat pressed soft against her cheek; the white scarf smelled fresh and clean with snow.

She raised her head up from his shoulder and gazed into his deep brown eyes. "Poppa, I love you. I waited so long for you to come home." She pushed her cheek against his and felt with a shock the crisp coldness of the winter night upon it. His chilled skin moved against her own, and she could feel his smile.

The room was dark and cold and she shivered as she roused herself from a deep, heavy sleep. She stretched her arms out from under the blanket, then drew them in quickly at the shock of the bedroom air; she curled up into a tight little ball under the clean white sheets. Momma always used clean white sheets. Momma was downstairs, asleep... maybe... and… Poppa?

She turned over and buried her head under the pillow, waiting for her shivering to subside as her own body heat warmed her.

She lay there an endless time, trying to relax. Peeping out from under the pillow, she watched with heavy, swollen eyes as the skies lightened. Her hair, long and wavy now with only a tint of red, lay still and limp around her shoulders where she had tossed it in peaceless sleep. She listened as a light rain began. Listened to the raindrops hitting and sliding off the rooftops. She wondered if they hurt, hitting and falling so far to the ground. She wondered if it hurt them to die. Die.

Die.

Poppa.

She turned over again and lay on her back, throwing her arm over her eyes to shut out the half gloom and pain of a rainy sunrise. The blankets she pulled up around her neck, still trying to get warm — please — give me some warmth.

The rain came down, down, down and she listened. The rhythm spoke to her. 'Steady… Calm,' it said. With her eyes closed, she could see the raindrops bouncing off the roof and rolling down with acrobatic grace to reach the ground, half frozen in the November chill, finding some... dead... and soggy grass root to nestle up against.

Down, down, down, little pinpricks of sound. So light and lovely. So steady. No matter that hurt or death lay at the end of the journey. Just the falling and the noise that they made on rooftops for very tiny red-haired girls to hear. Reason enough. To go on. To be a dying raindrop. Down, down, down, and she fell asleep, nestled in the sound of the rain.

That day, she stood with her mother's hand in hers, looking down at her Poppa, so white and still in his final bed. People milled all around, trying to comfort, trying to help, but they didn't. Little noises came from their mouths but didn't break into the numbness surrounding the two women. He was gone and that just was, a thing to be borne, to carry, however heavy.

The funeral stretched out into a long, empty eternity of substanceless words and they made it through, somehow, hand in hand. Then the saying goodbye came. Saying goodbye to him one last time before the coffin—casket — no... coffin... was closed.

Go ahead, Momma, please. You first.

She watched as her mother bent down, a timeless moment, her shaking hand barely touching his hair, his mouth. Momma kissed his cheek and the relatives behind them murmured approval.

No. I can't do that. No. Don't make me. I can't touch him.

Her mother moved on and an uncle embraced her, stroking her cloud-white hair. She sobbed in his arms for a moment, and then looked back towards the —casket —waiting for her daughter to end the ritual. After, they would close the casket and life could move on.

She drew a deep breath and moved closer to the body.Barbaric custom, kissing the corpse.

But I can't!

She felt the stares from the lines of people. She closed her eyes and memories danced behind them. She recalled the little jade cross he gave her at fifteen. Her hand reached to her throat; her fingers remembered at the touch of the bare, silken skin how the chain had tangled in her curls and broken. The necklace lay now in her jewelry box; it had for years. Alone, just the silence of the wood surrounding it.

Memories of him, pulling her through the water, dragging her out of the force of a rip-tide with Lake Michigan wild around them. His body, huge and white, a solid known home to cling to. Steady, he seemed. Steady, like the sound of the rain falling in the early morning.

A picture came of the way he kissed her mother on their eighteenth anniversary, just the way she always hoped some man would kiss her. A parade of ex-lovers marched through her mind and she saw her Poppa shaking his head at each and every one. A short, terse shake, as he looked back to Momma and the warmth and glow of his gaze welled up inside of her.

Mother.

Suddenly, too soon, the memories ended and with a wrench, the silk-lined casket loomed in front of her again and her mother stood next to it, needing. She could feel the thin, frail hand which she had grasped all morning, sometimes comforting, sometimes clinging to, the hand that must ache with the emptiness surrounding it now, the emptiness of her forty-year romance ended. How will Momma sleep on her clean white sheets without his warmth beside her?

Perhaps I'll stay on a few days. Perhaps the rain shall fall again. Rain. She blinked her eyes and heard that sound, listened a moment to the steady rhythm.

And she saw him there. Dead. Still. Quiet.

Dead.

She slowly bent down and put her cheek to his.

She felt... the freshness of a crisp, cold winter night. Her face moved into a smile.

The End