Right as Rain

by Lindsey Stoddard

  The gun goes off and the runners shoot from their starts and turn stride over stride down the straightaway. Frankie, Ana, and the two matching girls are leading. Frankie pulls ahead by half a stride and crosses the line first. Then matching girl one and matching girl two, then Ana, and the final four stumble across after her.

  Frankie whoops and cheers and all the parents from our school in the crowd are on their feet, including my mom and dad, who are yelling, “Yeah, Frankie! Number one!” and “Go, Ana!” And I’m thinking my plan might already be working because they certainly don’t look like they need space with their hands cupped over their mouths hooting and hollering like that.

  Frankie and Ana hug and walk slowly back toward all our cheers and chants. Coach Okeke gives them handshakes and calls Frankie “Champ,” and says, “You know, those girls are eighth graders.” We glance over and it looks like their coach, whose jacket matches their uniforms, is giving them pointers. He gestures to the track and makes quick moves with his hands. The girls hang their heads and put on their warm-ups and drink from their water bottles and shake out their legs as they listen.

  Frankie and Ana pull on their sweatshirts and sit with Amelia and me in the grass while they reach out over their legs to stretch their hamstrings. We’re all still giddy that Frankie won the 100m as a sixth grader, and that Ana came in fourth.

  “I can’t wait for the relay,” Frankie says.

  “That’s a fact,” I say.

  On the lawn in the middle of the track, girls are throwing shot put and a small section of the crowd erupts in cheers, the gun blasts, and a heat of eight boys takes off down the track and curves around the bend for a 200m. Parts of the crowd cheer, and the gun goes off again. Girls are now lining up for the long jump and Coach Okeke is talking our star jumper through a last-minute visualization.

  And that’s when it happens.

  The whole crowd gasps.

  One boy lies on the track, holding his ankle and screaming.

  Everything is still except one mom running from the bleachers to the track.

  Then someone with a first aid kit from the medic tent hustles over.

  Then there’s a slow, flashing light of an ambulance that has arrived at the entrance. The medic waves his hand from the track to the driver. It’s not an emergency. No need to rush.

  His coach and the medic carry the boy off and all his teammates huddle around and one by one everyone in the crowd stands and applauds.

  It’s the slow, silent rotation of the ambulance lights.

  I can’t stop watching them revolve red and blue and white.

  Each flash fills me with that night.

  And before I can stand and hop off with high knees to the gate and warm up my muscles and try to erase my brain with each step, I can feel my chest heave hard like it did that night, like it did that night when the ambulance arrived too slowly, too silently, like someone had waved their hand to say it’s not an emergency. Not anymore.

  And I can feel the gravel beneath my knees and I can see my parents in the crowd, standing and clapping for the boy, but I can also see the tears on their faces glisten from here, and I can almost feel their arms wrapped tight around me, keeping me back from the Do Not Cross tape and in a heap on the ground.

  I lean back on my hands in the grass and jam my foot into the ground over and over until I can feel Guthrie’s guitar pick under my heel.

  Then Amelia lays her hand on top of mine, and Ana’s on top of hers, and Frankie looks right at me and I hear her secret message loud and clear. That it’s OK, my team is here if I need to run, and my team is here if I need to talk. She adds her hand to the pile, like we did at La Cocina, when we had a plan, when we were all in, and I pick a piece of grass to busy my hands and try to imagine the neurotransmitters increasing in my brain, helping me to focus.

  I tie four blades together in a knotted chain and I roll the knots between my thumb and forefinger, and before my brain can start playing memory games on its own, remembering back and back, past the baby quilt that Guthrie rubbed all the knots out of before it could become mine, I keep my eyes on the grass and say, “I’ve never told anyone everything that happened that night.”

  Chapter 36

  That Night

  “Hey, sleepyhead.”

  I pressed the light on my digital watch. 10:43.

  He held his finger to his lips and whispered, “There’s a band playing at the Basement that I want to see. I have it all planned out. I just need your help. One favor.”

  “OK,” I agreed fast, happy my big brother needed me for something, and our pinkies met in a pact.

  “When will you be . . .”

  But he held a finger to his lips.

  “I’m not going to tell you when,” he whispered. “Because I know you, and you’ll start counting. No counting, Rain. No worrying.”

  He explained how he would walk quietly down the stairs, and right as he was opening the door to sneak out, I would have my big job.

  “You’ll flush the toilet so Mom and Dad won’t hear the door squeak open and close shut.” I nodded my head as we practiced counting out one, two, three silently on our fingers.

  “Flush on three,” he said.

  Then he rustled my already bed-headed hair. “Thanks.”

  He carried his shoes in his hands so they wouldn’t make noise against the wood floors, and I wondered how he knew to do that. Probably the same way he knew how to get in to see a band at the Basement when you had to be twenty-one to enter.

  I walked to the bathroom up on the balls of my feet and laid one finger on the toilet handle. Then I looked down the staircase to the front door and locked eyes with Guthrie.

  We counted out together silently. One, two, three.

  Flush.

  And he was gone before the water swirled down the bowl.

  And I helped him go.

  I crawled back in bed, straining to make out his truck tires on the gravel driveway, but all I could hear was the toilet bowl filling back up and running loud before it faded away and the house was silent again.

  I tried not to think of all the things that could happen when you break the rules, in the dark, past curfew. I tried not to worry. And I tried not to count. I tried not to press the light on my digital watch for four minutes. Then another four. I counted out perfect seconds in my head. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, and wondered how long a concert goes. The average length of a song is four minutes, and that’s a fact because I used to sneak into my brother’s room and study the labels of all the records in his collection so that I would know all the names of the songs too. But I didn’t know how many songs a band played at a concert, or how long it would take him to drive there and home since all the stoplights in town were blinking yellow at this hour.

  I pressed the light on my watch again. Four minutes. Another song.

  12:34 . . . 12:38 . . . 1:02 . . . 1:06 . . . 1:10 . . .

  At 2:41, the phone rang four long rings. I could hear my dad clear his voice through my bedroom wall.

  Then panic.

  Mom’s voice. And drawers slamming and, “What about Rain?”

  “Call the neighbors.”

  But I had already pulled on my hand-me-down jeans and Guthrie’s worn hooded sweatshirt and I stood in their bedroom doorway. “I want to go with you.”

  “Rain,” Mom started. “Honey—”

  “I’m going.”

  Dad tried too. “It’s really best if—”

  “I’m going.”

  I slid my bare feet into my Adidas Ultraboosts, and we all ran to the car. I laced my shoes in the back seat while Dad reversed down the driveway and sped off at fifty miles per hour down our dirt road. The speed limit is thirty-five, and Mom and Dad always complained that thirty-five was too high for a dirt road with so many dips and curves, but right then, it wasn’t fast enough. And when the dirt turned to pavement, the needle on the speedometer got close to sixty and we whizzed right through the first blink
ing light and the new stop sign in town that everyone missed anyway because they just weren’t used to it yet.

  Then I saw the lights and an ambulance and three cop cars. And my brother’s truck. And I didn’t want to think about what could make a truck look like that. Crushed so hard from the side that it looked like half a truck, pushed into the median, with dirt and grass dug up in two streaks behind it. I squinted my eyes against the lights and looked for Guthrie in the driver’s seat, but there was no more driver’s seat, just squished metal, and broken glass glinting in the red lights.

  I thought he must be sitting on the edge of the ambulance with a blanket over his shoulders. That’s what happens in books. The family looks and looks and just when it seems too terrible to be true, they find him, sitting on the back of an ambulance with a nasty cut above his eye and all the EMTs saying that he’s going to be OK, and everyone hugs.

  I squinted my eyes again, but the lights were too bright and we were stopped and couldn’t go any farther because of barricades and Do Not Cross tape and a cop asking Dad to roll down his window, but I had to find Guthrie, so I flung open my door and took off running.

  I counted each stride until that was all I could hear. The one, two, three of my sneakers against the pavement drowned out the policemen shouting after me. They waved their arms and tried to cut me off, but they weren’t as fast as I was. Not even close. I ducked under a barricade and stretched the yellow tape over my head, running toward the flashing lights of the ambulance. The lights were slowly rotating, no big whoop-whoops that you hear when they’re driving like crazy to save someone’s life because every second matters. And the lights were too slow. Everyone was too slow. No one was rushing like I was.

  I was trying to keep count of my strides, but my legs were losing pace until I stopped because I didn’t know which direction to turn. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and another. Mom and Dad. And even though I’d only run twenty-eight strides, my muscles were shaking and I was feeling heavy and I collapsed on the pavement into a big heap with Mom and Dad’s arms wrapped around me and each other, and I thought maybe, maybe if we just stayed like this forever and didn’t look up, we wouldn’t see the ambulance door close and see it drive off slowly. We wouldn’t hear the officers asking us to come with them so they could tell us that an eighteen-wheeler lost its brakes on the interstate ramp and soared through a red light and right into Guthrie. And we could just squeeze our eyes closed and make it all untrue.

  But no amount of pretending ever brought anyone back. And that’s a fact.

  Chapter 37

  Flying

  By the time I tell them the whole story of that night, my knotted grass chain has twenty-four blades and is long enough for a necklace.

  I don’t look up because it feels too hard to see their faces. But I can see that their hands are busy making grass chains too, which makes me think they were really listening and heard every word I told them. And before Coach Okeke comes over and tells us it’s time to get warmed up for the relay, I can feel their secret messages rise up and up in that same place that the remembering rises up—that they are right here, even though there isn’t anything to say, they are right here.

  We take off our sweatshirts and stand up and Coach Okeke tells us, “High knees to the gate.” Before I can throw my first knee to my chest, Frankie looks at me and her eyes are a little red and her nose a little runny and she ties her grass chain around her neck and nods. Amelia and Ana tie theirs too and so do I, and even though no grass chain necklace ever brought anyone back, it makes me feel lighter, like I could fly.

  And we have a relay to win.

  My hand is tight around the baton as I bounce at the start line. I can see my parents in the bleachers. My dad’s pointing at me and waving, and Mom’s hand is cupped around her mouth and chanting, “Rain! Rain! Rain!” And even though it sends a rush of embarrassment straight up to my cheeks, I’m glad they’re smiling and cheering and happy and maybe not thinking about 365 days ago.

  Then I see the white of Ms. Dacie’s hair. She’s making her way up the bleachers to an empty seat at the top. And when I scan the crowd up and down I see Mrs. Baldwin clapping and cheering too, which means school is out now, and that’s a fact because a bunch of other teachers and kids from our school are rushing through the entrance to catch the last race.

  Then I focus ahead and see Amelia one hundred meters ahead of me on the track, shaking out her legs and arms and rolling her neck, getting loose, and Ana one hundred meters from her, then Frankie. Together we’ll make one loop around the track.

  In the lane next to ours is the all-eighth-grade maroon-and-white relay team. Their coach is yelling something about the handoff and the girls watch him and nod.

  Amelia, Ana, Frankie, and I all look to Coach Okeke for last-minute advice, and when he’s sure he’s got all our attention he raises his fist in the air and slowly starts bopping it once, twice, three times and we all join him and start our secret team handshake even though we’re all one hundred meters apart. We do the spin turn at the end, and even if we feel a little silly doing a handshake to the empty air in front of us, it feels like we’re already closer to each other than the one hundred meters we have to run.

  “Those are my sixth graders!” Coach Okeke yells. The rest of our track team is standing with him and the whole crowd is on their feet and the gun hasn’t even gone off yet.

  Then the official lifts the bullhorn to his mouth and says, “Runners! Take your mark!” I crouch down next to the maroon-team eighth grader.

  “Set!”

  Then the gun blasts and I explode forward.

  I can hear Coach Okeke and the team and Mrs. Baldwin and the other kids from MS 423 and Dacie and Mom and Dad and all the parents in the bleachers. Coach Scottie’s voice is loud in my head. Hut! Hut! Hut! And I swear for one second I can hear Izzy shout, Look at her go! And Guthrie, and the way he used to cheer me on at my meets in Vermont. Rain, Rain, feel no pain!

  My feet are turning over fast, and I’m flying, and even though my brain isn’t emptying like it’s supposed to, it’s filling up. Filling up with all the voices cheering me on.

  Hut! Hut! Hut!

  My little Raindrop!

  Rain, Rain, feel no pain!

  I clutch the baton and dig hard and keep my eyes focused on Amelia in front of me.

  She’s looking over her shoulder and getting set for our handoff. I can feel Guthrie’s guitar pick with each stride, and can see the knotted grass chain bounce off my chest each time I pull my arms through the air.

  Look at her go!

  Rain, Rain, feel no pain!

  I see Amelia’s back-stretched, open hand, reaching for me, and I reach for her and pass the baton. As soon as she feels it safe in her hand, she takes off, and she’s flying too. I slow my legs and gulp the air and watch Amelia round the curve toward Ana. Their handoff is perfect too, and Ana is neck and neck with the maroon-team runner, but she holds with her stride for stride. Frankie cheers her on and reaches back. Ana stretches forward and the pass is perfect and Frankie digs deep and pumps her arms and it looks like her Flyknit Racers aren’t even touching the track she’s going so fast. I watch her sprint to the finish line, her knotted grass chain bouncing on her chest too, and I reach for mine and rub the knots and cheer and cheer until she strides across the line.

  Before I can even look to see if my parents are hugging, I’m in a falling heap of arms and legs and the rough rubber of the track is digging into my knees and it’s the same kind of heap that I wish I could hold on to forever, like maybe if we did, just stayed in a tangled web of sixth-grade relay team, I wouldn’t ever have to feel the prick of Guthrie’s guitar pick again, or see a closed door, or calculate the amount of space between my parents, or miss Izzy.

  “W-we d-did it!”

  “Made history!”

  Then the whole team is surrounding us, and I can’t hear any singular voices anymore because they’re all blended together into a roar of applause and
cheers, but I know that in that roar is Amelia, Ana, and Frankie, and Mrs. Baldwin, and Coach Okeke, and Dacie, and Mom and Dad, and Coach Scottie, and Izzy. And Guthrie.

  On the way home we all wear our medals around our necks with our knotted grass chains, which are still holding strong even after the run, and the big heaping pile of cheering, and the award ceremony. We walk side by side by side by side linked at the elbows, and everyone on the sidewalk smiles at our first-place medals and weaves around us. Mom and Dad, and Frankie’s dad, and Amelia’s mom, and Ana’s mom follow behind us and I can hear Mom trying out little phrases in Spanish, and it doesn’t even embarrass me as much.

  Ana’s mom wears her hair pulled up in two tight buns on the top of her head, just like Ana does, and it reminds me of Ana’s comic strip, the superhero woman with the Dominican flag cape. My brain doesn’t even need to make one hundred clicks before I’m 100 percent certain that Ana’s superhero is her mom, and that Ana is the little girl she’s carrying through the dark sky.

  We stop at La Cocina, and it’s the same waitress we had before. As soon as she sees our medals, she pushes the little tables together and we pull all the chairs around until our knees all touch underneath. Then the waitress disappears and comes out with a big tray of hot chocolate mugs with huge scoops of melty vanilla ice cream floating on top. There are enough mugs for everyone, even the parents.

  “Felicidades,” she says, and points to our gold medals. Then she returns to the counter to refill the coffee mugs of everyone sitting and chatting.

  At first we can’t stop replaying every tenth of a second of the whole relay race.

  “I r-really th-thought that g-girl was going to c-catch me!”

  “I could hear her footsteps right behind me the whole way!”

  I take a slurp of hot chocolate around the mound of ice cream and say, “The crowd was so loud. I’ve never run in front of that many people!”

  “We were going crazy up there!” Ana’s mom puts her arm around Ana. “Stomping our feet. Screaming at the top of our lungs. I don’t know if I’ll have a voice all weekend!”