Page 2 of The Promise Of Rain

Now she studied me just as surely as I studied her.And I wondered, did she find me as wanting?

“There are girls they marry and girls they fuck,” she stated.

I blinked at her use of profanity.If there’d been one thing she’d drummed into my head as a child, it was that ladies did not curse.

Her usage of that word ensured her my full attention.

Easing her slender frame from the easy chair, she dropped her gaze and bent to crush the burning tip of her cigarette into the overflowing ashtray on the side table.

How long had it been since she’d emptied it?

That distasteful job had once been mine.

Straightening to her full height, she turned narrowed, angry eyes on me and continued, “I’ll let you guess which one we are.”

My jaw dropped.

We.

As if we were the same, she and I.

Cut from the same cloth.

Like I hadn’t a hope of escaping the life she’d led.

The apple that falls not nearly far enough from the tree.

She winced, her eyes flashing with what I suspected was pity before growing hard once more.Without another word, she turned and walked away from me.

I didn’t take my eyes off her back until she closed her bedroom door.

Outside, the first fat raindrops of the coming storm pelted the window.

I watched them slide down the glass like tears from Heaven.

Living in a rundown cottage just beyond the docks, the town of Moose Lake sitting pretty on one side of us, miles of farmland on the other, Mom worked at various local farms.

For as long as I could remember, our lives and her income revolved around rain.

I hope the rain holds off.

If only it would rain.

There’s been too much rain this year.

We need to pray for rain.

As if the heavens gave a shit what happened here on earth.

She hadn’t changed since I left, not in any way that mattered.

But I had.

Afraid to be on my own after what happened, I’d moved back in with Ansel.

Some might say it was a step back.

But I thought about the paint swatches I picked up on the weekend, the corkboard of dreams hanging on my bedroom wall, the rich smell of yeast and the fragrance of vanilla, cinnamon and the punch of soft, sourdough beneath my fists.