Bring the Rain

by JoAnn Franklin

  “She hates snakes,” I said. “They have snakes down there, and spiders, and scorpions.” I thought about her living room she’d redecorated, the painting she’d found for above the mantle, the rug on the floor that brought the colors into focus, those good decisions she’d made when she thought she’d been healing.

  “We’ll find her, Dart.” Sandy laid his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. “We’ll find her and bring her home.”

  The desire to feel his arms around me, to hold me tight, to reassure me that everything would be okay made me stumble away from him. What was that? I didn’t love Sandy, I didn’t want him. I wanted Ash.

  I clenched the porch’s banister rails and looked for help in the silvery night. I wanted Ellen home, I told myself, that’s why my emotions were over the top. Maybe if I told myself that enough times, this inappropriate yearning to feel Sandy’s arms around me would go away, but it didn’t and I turned toward the light in the house and went inside. Sandy followed.

  “His buddy from Anchor’s Pointe, Thomas. . . that’s who’ll take you down?” Susan asked after Sandy answered all their questions.

  “Probably him . . . or the guy from Bald Head,” Sandy said.

  Classy told them about how Bill worked part-time at our little airport, and people offered him and Ellen rides to anywhere they were going.

  “Good thing your passport’s up to date,” Susan said.

  “Told you that honeymoon of ours was the best,” Classy said to Sandy. Bill’s friend had flown them to the Bahamas for their honeymoon, and they’d had to update their passports, which meant Sandy could go to Mexico without delay.

  As I walked down the hallway to my room, I opened Mary Beth’s door. The room was clean, empty, and ready for occupancy. Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow I’ll put an ad in the paper and find another tenant. Why I hadn’t rented out the bedrooms? It wasn’t like me to let something like that drop. And why wasn’t I more concerned about Ellen? I should be down there hunting for her, but I wasn’t. I didn’t want to get on a plane, but that wouldn’t have stopped me in the past. Maybe I was too old for adventures, more concerned about my needs than Ellen’s, my wishes than hers—but I’d given Sandy the money, I reassured myself. I’d done the right thing.

  My lack of empathy didn’t mean I had FTD. All humans were self-centered. I was exhausted; all of us who loved Ellen were, and I needed a good night’s sleep. That would put me right, and I’d think about going with Sandy tomorrow.

  The next morning, Sandy left for Mexico, and on the spur of the moment, Classy went with him. She’d never been to Mexico and, if I funded her trip, when they found Ellen, she’d convince her to give up the faith healer and come home. When Classy set her mind to something, that something happened. And I let her convince me because I felt guilty for desiring her husband’s arms around me when my thoughts should have been on Ellen.

  A text from Bill that night said they’d gotten there and that Ellen had not yet been found. Daily updates from Classy started with hope, then dwindled to defeat as the search and rescue became a search and recovery. Three weeks after their arrival in Mexico, Sandy and Classy came home and brought Bill with them.

  He hadn’t wanted to leave, not without Ellen’s body.

  We’d all gathered at his house, Sandy, Classy, Ellen and Bill’s kids, and me. The consensus was Bill shouldn’t be alone his first night back. He looked more exhausted than I had ever seen him. Ellen wouldn’t have thought he wanted her dead if she could have seen him now.

  “I want you and Sandy to move in with me,” Bill said to Classy. “Sandy can help me coordinate with the Mexican authorities and it will be easier if he’s here.”

  I tried to be positive when I was around Bill. Maybe Ellen had survived because of strangers’ kindnesses, had kept herself alive somehow, been abducted and treated well, treated horribly—it didn’t matter as long as she lived. What I knew was the tension no longer vibrated in the thread that connected my thoughts with hers. Or that’s what I told myself. The truth was different.

  Unless someone asked me about Ellen, I didn’t think of her.

  “What was it like where she disappeared?” Susan asked Classy.

  Hope in my friend’s voice built a vision in my mind of Ellen sitting beside a quiet stream in a bucolic meadow.

  “Beautiful and deadly, all sharp edges and scrub brush.” Classy brushed a cake crumb from her lap. Someone had brought chocolate cupcakes, Ellen’s favorite. “Sandy and I are going back, once we bring Ellen home.”

  “You’re doing what?” I asked.

  “We’re going to live there.”

  “Mexico?”

  “Retirees live pretty cheap, and the people we stayed with want us to come back. It’s beautiful with the mountains and the climate. Lots of retirees from the States live in the area. They let us into their homes once the community learned about Ellen.”

  “I never imagined.” But I should have. Sandy and Classy would be happy anywhere, including Mexico. Ellen would have wanted them to be there with her. My cousin didn’t like being alone. That’s what made this so hard, knowing she was alone in those mountains.

  “If Ellen’s spirit is lost in those mountains, our being there might bring her peace.”

  A simple heuristic that comforted both of them. And was that so different from my useless hope that she was alive when everyone knew she couldn’t have survived?

  “She could still be wandering around out there. She didn’t take her cell. Maybe she didn’t want to be found,” said Bill.

  “Your wife,” I said, “went to the faith healer because she was desperate. She felt her church family had turned against her.”

  “And she thought I was going to leave her,” he said.

  “Would you have?”

  “Never. Ellen was, is, my life.” Classy and Sandy both put their arms around him as he started to sob.

  I didn’t know what to think. Bill hadn’t gone after Ellen. He’d let her stay in those mountains by herself. Maybe Ellen had been right about her husband. Maybe she’d known what the rest of us didn’t want to see. But then I realized I hadn’t gone after her either, and I professed to love Ellen like the sister I never had.

  Back home, I sat down at the computer in the living room and turned it on. While it beeped and buzzed, I tried once again to pick up that mental thread that connected me to my cousin, but the thread lay limp and lifeless in my mind. The house was quiet. Lynn and Susan had returned with me and were already asleep. Outside, the night itself was still.

  Going into my email, I started through all the unread mail that had accumulated, and there was a ton of it, evidence I hadn’t been keeping up with the normal day-to-day duties of my job.

  One more data entry for FTD.

  I noticed the sender on a message buried about four unread messages down, The Salzburg Global Seminar. I opened it, eager to read what they had to say and what they said filled me with dismay. They hadn’t heard from me, and unless I answered within the next twenty-four hours, they would assume I didn’t want to host the summit on world poverty.

  Nothing could be further from the truth.

  I’d forgotten about the invitation.

  They said they’d called.

  I checked my phone. Voicemails. Lots of them. All unanswered.

  I couldn’t believe I’d done that. Here was another bit of data that my symptoms were worsening. I got up, went to the front window, and stared out into the dark night. How could I have forgotten what had been so important to me that I’d daydreamed about it and almost fallen off a ladder?

  I turned away from the window and sat down before the computer. The screen glowed. My cousin Ellen had reached out for her last chance, knowing that she was risking everything to be healthy. Now it was my turn. I typed my acceptance, glad they contacted me, and apologized for not responding to their text. Then I hit send, waited for the message to disappear, shut down the computer, and was at peace.

  Even if th
is invitation hastened my own fall into the fury that consumed my mind—a fury that I suspected to be frontotemporal dementia, the disease that had killed Jennifer Wright—I’d be strong enough to grasp my last chance, for TRI, for myself, for my father, for Ellen. FTD wouldn’t take TRI from me until baby Raindrops were everywhere in the world.

  That Monday, I sent an email to the dean, asking for release time and also for research assistance. That was the easy one because Ash and I had talked over the weekend and mapped out a plan of action that would conserve my energy and also allow me to focus on hosting the summit.

  Then I composed a second email, the one I would send to the program faculty and the department chair and copy the dean. I rewrote it several times to find the right tone, for professors are competitive idealists. Perhaps just the right notes of excitement and joy as well as an undertone of “I couldn’t have done it without you” would appease those on staff who considered themselves my equal or had more extensive research into issues of poverty than I.

  Hendrix wasn’t going to be happy no matter what I did, but if I did this right, I’d minimize her involvement when I asked for the university’s help and for the faculty’s assistance.

  From: Dart Sommers

  To: Chair, Psych Professors

  CC: Dean Wright

  Subject: Salzburg Honor

  Colleagues and Dean Wright,

  I have wonderful news to share. I’ve been invited to host a worldwide summit on poverty at the Salzburg Global Seminar in Austria, and I need your help. As several of you are also on the bleeding edge of the poverty revolution, please join me in Salzburg for this event that can and will make a difference in the lives of many across the world.

  How gratifying it will be to have a table of NCUW professionals at the Schloss to showcase our university’s efforts to extinguish poverty. Moreover, if you research poverty with other professors, please recommend that they contact me as well. We want the American representation to be on equal footing with that of other countries. I’ve already asked several prominent international researchers to provide the foundation for a platform of speakers around issues of, solutions to, beliefs about, and ongoing efforts to combat poverty.

  This is a dream come true for me and an honor, but I can’t do this summit alone. Please mark your calendars. The summit will run for six days culminating in an evening gala and final wrap up.

  Please also be aware that because of the extensive planning needed to hold the summit, I am requesting that Dean Wright release me from teaching duties during the coming spring semester.

  Join me in this opportunity to make a difference.

  Best,

  Dart Sommers

  The dean’s email response came back almost immediately.

  From: Dean Wright

  To: Dart Sommers

  CC: Chair, Psych Group

  Subject: Teaching release granted

  Dart, congratulations on this achievement. NCUW is happy to assist you in any way possible, including a teaching release from all classes during the spring semester of 2017.

  You make us proud!

  Sincerely,

  Jasper Asher “Ash” Wright

  Hendrix’s email came a few hours later.

  From: Kathleen Hendrix

  To: Dart Sommers

  CC: Dean Wright, Chair, Psych Group

  Subject: Salzburg Summit

  Colleagues,

  I’m writing to share my thoughts about Dr. Sommers’s request and the manner in which she imposed her needs upon us.

  Upon discussion with Dean Wright, I’ve been told program faculty must take up the slack while Dr. Sommers is off having fun in Austria. However, my understanding is that we do not have to assist Dr. Sommers at Salzburg, although we can if we so desire.

  Which brings me to my second, more important point. Salzburg is a city of wealth. The Schloss is a symbol of that wealth, a sprawling castle amidst beautiful grounds. How can she, we, use such a showplace to discuss issues of poverty when our meals will be prepared by renowned chefs; expensive, specialty foods will be brought in for our enjoyment; and our beds will be made in the morning by those paid to wait on us?

  It strikes me as hypocritical and distasteful of Dr. Sommers to ask us, her colleagues, to afford ourselves such a privileged experience when around the world millions are going to bed hungry each night.

  I do not need to associate myself with such an organization to continue my research into efforts that will eradicate poverty.

  Sincerely,

  Kathleen Hendrix, Professor

  The mental accompaniment of a sword swishing from its scabbard and the resulting clash of steel resounding in my ears accompanied my third reread. I wanted to blast off a rebuttal but instead, I pushed away from the computer, paced my office for a bit, and remembered . . . what I had also forgotten.

  Grabbing my desk chair, I spun it around, sat down, and brought up Hendrix’s vita on the computer screen. There. Under presentations. Salzburg Global Seminar presentation on teaching autistic children. That had been ten years ago, and she’d gone back for a second presentation a year later because they’d liked her so much. Now I remembered the talk she’d given to the faculty on her return and her comment that Salzburg was an honorable event and everyone on faculty should experience it.

  Something else, I thought, something more in that vita, and I scrolled past presentations through grants until I found affiliations, on page sixty. She belonged to the NCUW Club, a very special, posh restaurant on campus that the university had established to impress donors.

  And she denounced me as hypocritical.

  My response to her email was brief.

  From: Dart Sommers

  To: Kathleen Hendrix

  CC: Dean Wright, Chair, Psych Group

  Subject: Salzburg Summit

  Dr. Hendrix,

  Universities and professors seek grants, taxpayer dollars, and donations from the very wealthy to explore ideas. Perhaps the money that pays our salaries, keeps our offices heated in the winter and cooled in the summer, and sustains this university should be given to the poor.

  You have presented twice at the Salzburg Global Seminar. You belong to the NCUW Club. I don’t have to tell you that the Schloss is a symbol of endurance and an inspiration that the impossible can be achieved. Places like Salzburg and for that matter this university, secure our illusions that life is not chaotic, unpredictable, and brutal. However, our work in Salzburg won’t tolerate that pacifier.

  I hope you will join us in our efforts to address world poverty and to make a difference.

  Sincerely,

  Dart

  But before I hit the send key, I paused. Perhaps if I didn’t respond to her viciousness, ignoring her would extinguish the boorish behavior. No, I decided, extinction was the wrong tactic to take. I hit the send key.

  That decision cost me, although at the time, when she didn’t respond, I’d thought I’d won. A few hours later, I sent another email on a different topic to program faculty, this time a gentle reminder that the program had designated five p.m. tomorrow as the absolute deadline for all program faculty to review doctoral applications and submit any targeted questions they wished those applicants to answer.

  Hendrix’s response slapped me in the face.

  From: Kathleen Hendrix

  To: Dart Sommers

  CC: Psych Group

  Subject: Re Gentle Reminder

  I will not be able to meet this deadline. (Uh oh, she’s saying she wasn’t informed, didn’t agree—my imagination whirled with possibilities. She’s too wily to put in the specific reason. What is clear is that it’s your fault.) I will need more time for the task. (And if she doesn’t get it, that’s harassment, discrimination . . . the legal system offered her plenty of refuge.)

  I have had MANY OTHER obligations that were previously scheduled to be completed. (In other words, she’s too important to be bothered.) I will submit my evaluations next week. (Interpretation: she�
��ll do this when she damn well feels like it.)

  Kathleen

  When I responded, with exaggerated politeness, that we had all agreed to the deadline, she accused me of singling her out.

  And she didn’t stop harassing me.

  Whatever I sent out to the program or the chair and the dean on behalf of the program, Hendrix responded in a manner that made me look inept, addled, incompetent, or vicious. Her emails suggested I was singling her out, always a dangerous action in an academic setting.

  As November wore on, she started to personalize every message as an attack on her. Finally, it occurred to me that I was in a duel with a skilled fencer of words and innuendo, and I had underestimated her. She’d perfected those bullying skills to stay alive in the competitive environment of academe. She’d also cheated and lied to stay here, but I had forgotten to bring her lies to the dean’s attention.

  Nothing would help, I told myself; Ash would ignore what I had found, so why bring it to his attention?

  I felt as if someone had splashed Payne’s gray over everything. Although my words about TRI and Salzburg painted colorful, vibrant word pictures, Hendrix’s slow black jealousy and hatred dampened my passion. My paintings for Lynn grew grayer and grayer and the paintings themselves more abstract as that passion faded.

  Or that’s the lie I told myself. The brain always anchors deceptions in emotions. The frustration, anger, and fear that had made my childhood miserable had come back to life within me as the more complex emotions like conscientiousness faded.

  That isn’t who you are.

  And that was another thing. Those whispers in my brain. As if two selves resided there, the one that spoke to me reminding me of what I should do, who I used to be, the dreams I had, and the other, still for the most part silent except for those demands, the sudden hijackings of my thoughts, my body.

  All of it almost too much and crippling to productivity. Instead of arriving at the office at eight as I did during the semester and semester breaks, I’d stumbled in at ten in the morning, congratulating myself it wasn’t one, reassuring myself that I got more work done at home than I could with the constant interruptions at the office.