This morning it rained in broad daylight. A father was headed to the bus stop, a daughter on either side of him, down the maple-lined suburban road it was getting hard to live on. They walked down the center of it because they could. The only neighbor who drove too fast was already gone, his red pickup missing from the tire-worn patch of lawn where he parks it.
"It's raining," said the daughter to his left. The soft rope of her ponytail swung back and forth as her gaze flicked from one side of the street to the other.
And it was. Though the sky was a clear September blue, the trees were shedding a little storm. They heard it on both sides of the street — the pattering of drops as they leapt from leaf to leaf to lawn. But they could see it only to the left of them — where the sun had play and could ignite the falling drops like dust motes clapped from a window-side couch.
"It's just the dew," he said, regretting, as he said it, the way he'd reduced it to a fact.
"Why is it falling?" said the daughter to his right. She adjusted the strap of her backpack and looked into his eyes, expecting nothing more than the perfect answer — one that made sense, one she could understand.
For this he was less quick. The air was breezeless — even the air high above them seemed still. A single contrail failed to lose any of its distinctness as they moved up the middle of that tiny storm. It made him think of a hurricane's eye — that clarity when people come out to sightsee and get killed, because they forget the rest is coming.
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe it is the rain. Maybe the drops have been hiding in the leaves from the last time. Maybe the sunlight chased them out." He was happy to hear at least a hint of something in his own voice that showed the world didn't always turn out to be the way it looked. He followed the contrail until it disappeared in the glare of the sun caught in the vines of bittersweet that rise like a tangled cloud in the crown of their neighbor's cherry tree.
His daughters weren't listening though. They were opening the umbrellas they carried in their backpacks. They were marching under the sugar maples just starting to bloody themselves with autumn. They were laughing and twirling the umbrellas at their friends, who stood at the treeless bus stop in bright light and shirt sleeves — not getting the joke, not understanding rain can fall from even cerulean skies.
Right now, his daughters' mother was headed south, possibly forever. When they asked about her missing car, their father told them it was in the shop. Later, he told them that their mother had gone on a trip, that the plane was the kind that left in the night to save on gasoline, that she would call when she landed. Lying to them was easy. Their ability to believe him unconditionally was one thing he hadn't squandered.
Two blue jays dove through the trees screaming, zigzagging so abruptly he thought they'd have to be connected to follow so well. They did it without hitting a branch, not even a leaf. Higher up, a buzzard wheeled over the street and flapped its sails twice, searching for an updraft so it could find the pets and half-domesticated possums that had been impulsive in the night.
His daughters were running now. At the same time, they were struggling to close up their umbrellas and stow them for when they would really need them — somewhere among the books and lunchbox, the extra house key, the list of emergency numbers, the family picture where they're all waving from the lip of a hotel balcony. They could hear the bus's bad engine climbing the hill. And then the yellow lights, the squeal of brakes, the mechanical stop sign that pops out like a toy.
The cars backed up in both directions — everyone smoking or angry or bored. And then the father waved to his daughters as he always did, and as often happened, they weren't looking — because their friends were happy and hearing the joke about the spinning umbrellas, the sunny rain.
He turned. He walked home in what was falling for reasons he couldn't understand. He sat down at the kitchen table with the phone in front of him. He was waiting for the call he knew would come — the call that would answer nothing, but that would have to be heard, ridden out, repeated.
"It's raining," said the daughter to his left. The soft rope of her ponytail swung back and forth as her gaze flicked from one side of the street to the other.
And it was. Though the sky was a clear September blue, the trees were shedding a little storm. They heard it on both sides of the street — the pattering of drops as they leapt from leaf to leaf to lawn. But they could see it only to the left of them — where the sun had play and could ignite the falling drops like dust motes clapped from a window-side couch.
"It's just the dew," he said, regretting, as he said it, the way he'd reduced it to a fact.
"Why is it falling?" said the daughter to his right. She adjusted the strap of her backpack and looked into his eyes, expecting nothing more than the perfect answer — one that made sense, one she could understand.
For this he was less quick. The air was breezeless — even the air high above them seemed still. A single contrail failed to lose any of its distinctness as they moved up the middle of that tiny storm. It made him think of a hurricane's eye — that clarity when people come out to sightsee and get killed, because they forget the rest is coming.
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe it is the rain. Maybe the drops have been hiding in the leaves from the last time. Maybe the sunlight chased them out." He was happy to hear at least a hint of something in his own voice that showed the world didn't always turn out to be the way it looked. He followed the contrail until it disappeared in the glare of the sun caught in the vines of bittersweet that rise like a tangled cloud in the crown of their neighbor's cherry tree.
His daughters weren't listening though. They were opening the umbrellas they carried in their backpacks. They were marching under the sugar maples just starting to bloody themselves with autumn. They were laughing and twirling the umbrellas at their friends, who stood at the treeless bus stop in bright light and shirt sleeves — not getting the joke, not understanding rain can fall from even cerulean skies.
Right now, his daughters' mother was headed south, possibly forever. When they asked about her missing car, their father told them it was in the shop. Later, he told them that their mother had gone on a trip, that the plane was the kind that left in the night to save on gasoline, that she would call when she landed. Lying to them was easy. Their ability to believe him unconditionally was one thing he hadn't squandered.
Two blue jays dove through the trees screaming, zigzagging so abruptly he thought they'd have to be connected to follow so well. They did it without hitting a branch, not even a leaf. Higher up, a buzzard wheeled over the street and flapped its sails twice, searching for an updraft so it could find the pets and half-domesticated possums that had been impulsive in the night.
His daughters were running now. At the same time, they were struggling to close up their umbrellas and stow them for when they would really need them — somewhere among the books and lunchbox, the extra house key, the list of emergency numbers, the family picture where they're all waving from the lip of a hotel balcony. They could hear the bus's bad engine climbing the hill. And then the yellow lights, the squeal of brakes, the mechanical stop sign that pops out like a toy.
The cars backed up in both directions — everyone smoking or angry or bored. And then the father waved to his daughters as he always did, and as often happened, they weren't looking — because their friends were happy and hearing the joke about the spinning umbrellas, the sunny rain.
He turned. He walked home in what was falling for reasons he couldn't understand. He sat down at the kitchen table with the phone in front of him. He was waiting for the call he knew would come — the call that would answer nothing, but that would have to be heard, ridden out, repeated.
