Raising Rain

by Debbie Fuller Thomas

  “Aw, sweet baby,” Jude said, cooing and smiling, and shrugging out of her coat. She scooped Rain from Bebe’s arms and handed Bebe a grocery sack, saying, “Here.” Jude cuddled the baby and rubbed her nose against Rain’s cheek. The fretful baby quieted to a whimper at her mother’s voice and rooted toward Jude’s face, but immediately gained a second wind.

  Bebe took the sack into the kitchen and prepared the formula while Rain cried, and Jude sang to her. When Bebe finally had the bottle of formula ready, Rain hungrily gulped it, alternately hiccupping and sucking.

  “Where were you, Jude?” Bebe asked again. “If you knew we were out of formula, there’s no excuse for coming back so late.”

  “I had a little errand to run,” she said, rubbing Rain’s tiny fingers that grasped her large one. “Something big. And I know I was a bad mother, but you’ll understand when you hear about it.”

  “So what was more important than a hungry baby? Mare and Toni are gone, and I couldn’t very well push the stroller down to Julio’s in the dark with Rain screaming the whole way.”

  “Can’t tell you.” Her green eyes flashed and she grinned. “You’ll hear soon enough.”

  “I hope it was worth it to poor Rain.” Bebe huffed and went to her room. She wanted to slam the door, but it might have disturbed the baby, so she put on her Abbey Road album and plopped down on her bed with her economics book. The class syllabus said they were having a quiz the next day, and she had lost an hour of study trying to soothe Rain. As she began reviewing her notes, she heard a commotion outside in the streets. A fire truck raced by, rattling the windows, startling Rain into crying again.

  Bebe went out to the front room and found Jude standing by the picture window rocking side-to-side with Rain contentedly draining her bottle. Jude’s attention was not on the baby, but what was happening outside. Students ran past and turned the corner at San Rey, but Jude watched, detached, as though she was not surprised or alarmed, or even curious.

  Bebe grabbed her coat and slid her arms into it. “What’s going on?” she asked, flipping her long hair out of her collar. Something between excitement and fear flickered in Jude’s face before she turned her back to the window, rubbing her cheek against Rain’s head.

  “Don’t know. Maybe somebody pulled the fire alarm,” Jude said casually.

  Bebe went out into the street and headed toward the Commons with a group of students that grew like a spreading stain onto the campus. Bebe caught up with Kevin from her biology class. A plume of dark smoke rose from one of the buildings.

  “It’s the ROTC building again,” he said. “They just moved in after the last building got toasted.”

  They continued on and stopped across the street from the burning building, keeping a safe distance from the rock-throwing crowd and the police. By then, the building was totally engulfed, reaching blazing white-hot fingers toward the darkening sky. Firemen channeled a torrent of water into the broken windows and onto the rooftop. The roiling ball of flame threw its energy across the street to sear their faces and blind them with its intensity.

  Bebe looked back over her shoulder in the direction of the Victorian with a sense of foreboding. Was this what Jude had been doing? Was she involved in this?

  The mob of students began to chant antiwar slogans, and the words throbbed like a collective pulse. Signs appeared. “Get US out of Vietnam.” “Give peace a chance.” As the firemen faced the blaze, the police turned to address the eye of the storm. Bebe and Kevin stepped backward onto the grass, but other students crushed in, getting into the faces of the police. Two students slipped through the police line and attacked the firemen before being dragged away by officers. The chant grew to a deafening roar as police in riot gear arrived. Bebe recognized a friend of Jude’s in the front line angrily making his point until a policeman shoved him back with his riot baton. He came back again, and the policeman shoved him harder, knocking him to the ground and raising his baton high. Bebe quickly looked away.

  From out of nowhere, a canister of tear gas lobbed into the crowd and students scattered in every direction, knocking Bebe to the ground. Kevin grabbed her by the arm, pulling her to her feet, and together they ran back toward the apartments away from the crowd. Bebe’s eyes burned and her lungs congested as the gas wafted across their path. When they were safely out of range, they sat down on the curb, coughing and wiping their eyes.

  Bebe had never experienced tear gas before, nor had she witnessed the type of mob mentality that suddenly combusted like opposing elements. She shivered with the sheer proximity she’d had to the violence, feeling unfairly victimized. She pulled her coat tighter across her chest against the gathering chill.

  “You okay?” Kevin asked. She nodded and he continued, “Then we’d better get off the streets in case they come looking for somebody to blame this on.”

  She thanked him for helping her, and turned down 37th Street toward the house while he continued on toward Market Street. When she got to the Victorian, she looked up to see Jude watching from the window with her arms crossed and back lit by a lamp. Bebe felt her anger grow as she came up the steps to the door. Jude turned away from the window and went into the kitchen as Bebe came in and tossed her coat onto the worn sofa.

  “What’s happening?” Jude casually asked, popping the bottle top on a beer.

  Bebe considered her coolly. “Someone set fire to the ROTC building. It’s the second time in two weeks.”

  Jude sat down at the table and crossed her legs at the ankle, sipping from the amber bottle. “You’d think they would take the hint and close up shop.” She wiggled the beer. “Want one?”

  “No.” Bebe pulled out a chair at the table and sat down across from her. “You were part of this, weren’t you? I saw that guy . . . Jerry. Jerry Sandusky. Arguing with the police. You hang out with him.”

  Jude shrugged and hiked her eyebrows. “That doesn’t mean I had anything to do with it.”

  “The police were getting pretty rough with him just before the tear gas. With a riot baton.”

  Jude’s demeanor sagged minutely, and she licked her lips. Bebe continued. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was arrested, maybe even beaten. Things heated up really fast.”

  “He’s a big guy. I’m sure he can take care of himself.” Then she added thoughtfully, “We need to get out of Nam.”

  Bebe stared at Jude until she looked back. Jude met her gaze unflinchingly, and challenged, “What?”

  Bebe answered, in a barely controlled voice, “How can you risk losing Rain over something as stupid as this?”

  “So you think it’s stupid to protest sending a half a million guys to risk their lives in Viet Nam? To come back maimed, or in a body bag. Your brother is one of them. Don’t you care about him?”

  “Of course I do,” Bebe spit out. “But you’re responsible for Rain now. You need to think about what’s best for her. I love Bobby, but it was his choice to go, and I would never break the law and take a chance on losing Rain.” Bebe shifted her gaze away from Jude’s. “I mean, you shouldn’t take the chance.”

  Jude studied her with hooded eyes. “That won’t happen. If the police come, you’re my alibi.”

  “Don’t count on it.” Bebe stormed off.

  “Don’t worry,” Jude called after her. “If I do get caught for anything I’ll tell the police that you had nothing to do with it.”

  That night, there was a knock at the door and when Bebe looked up from her book, she saw a uniformed police officer through the sheer curtains. She glanced up at Jude, who had come out from the kitchen where she was feeding Rain. Jude tried to look unconcerned, but the set of her mouth and the slight frown between her eyebrows told Bebe that she was not. Jude stepped back into the kitchen, leaving Bebe to answer the third knock.

  The officer greeted Bebe through the screen door and asked her name and whether she’d been home all day. She answered that she’d been home since ten o’clock that morning. Then he asked if it was the residence of
Judith Rasmussen. Bebe heard Rain begin to cry in the kitchen and Bebe answered, “Yes.”

  A feeling of sickly cold gripped her when he asked if she was on the premises. Jude stepped out of the kitchen with Rain over her shoulder, patting her back to shush her. Bebe had to admire her composure as Jude came to the door, giving the policeman her poker face.

  He asked Jude about her day’s activities and she lied that she’d missed class all day because Rain was colicky. The policeman turned to Bebe and asked her to confirm it.

  Bebe met Jude’s gaze and recognized the predicament she was in. Lie for Jude or take the chance of losing Rain. Bebe was no relation to Rain. If Jude was arrested, what would happen to the baby? Jude’s mother was an alcoholic and there weren’t any relatives close by. They would probably put Rain in foster care and she could get lost in the system. Suddenly, Rain let out a wail that almost broke Bebe’s heart.

  Bebe turned a calm face to the policeman. “Yeah, the baby’s been like this all day and she had to stay home with her. Is there a problem?”

  He considered the three of them. Bebe irrationally felt as though he were reading her mind. He thanked them and left, and Bebe watched him all the way to his car. She sensed Jude watching her, and looked over. Jude smirked as she turned away and kissed Rain’s little fist.

  “See, baby, I’m never going to lose you.”

  Bebe’s mouth went dry at the sway Jude now held over her.

  The first workday after the time change always unnerved Rain. She sensed the shadows lengthening outside on the fringe of windows surrounding their work space, and the darkness silently sneaking up on them. She wandered over to the bank of windows. Lisa joined her with what was probably her fifth Diet Pepsi of the day. It was only 5:00, and the cars in the streets below had already turned on their headlights.

  “I hate this,” Lisa said, shaking her head. “I wish I could hibernate until April.”

  “But you’d miss Thanksgiving. And Christmas.” Rain noticed how the succession of streetlights in the intersections resembled a string of decorations.

  “Holidays in our families are always a nightmare. Last year we went to five places on Thanksgiving, and then we spent Christmas alone in Kauai and made everyone mad.”

  “Five places?”

  “Both of our parents are divorced and remarried, and Lyle’s mom is on her third.”

  Rain looked back out the window at the string of streetlights. “Sounds like you got off easy for Christmas.”

  “Some of them aren’t speaking to us yet.”

  With a start, Rain remembered that Hayden had purchased tickets for them to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra at Arco Arena in November. She wondered if he still had the tickets, or if they were at the house. She would dearly love to see the show, but how would she go about asking him for them? What if he’d already arranged to take someone else?

  Rain realized that her holidays were now uncertain. Who would she spend time with? Would she be alone? For the last seven years, they had split their time between Hayden’s family and Bebe’s. Her mother and William didn’t celebrate the holidays at all, so that was a relief. Jude said the holidays were too commercialized, but Rain knew it was just an excuse so she didn’t have to deal with them. For all she knew, the holidays could hold bad memories for her mother. Rain didn’t really know how William felt about them, and she hoped that after speaking with him the night before about not mentioning Valerie again and keeping the house an office-free zone, she would still be welcome at whatever they did.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” Lisa said, giving her a side-bump with her bony hip. “We need to celebrate your birthday.”

  Rain frowned through the darkening window. She felt a mixture of anxiety and elation about her impending appointment at the fertility clinic, complicated by the fact that she was one year older on the babyscale.

  Rain sighed and let the muscles in her face slack like a slipping mask. Had she been keeping it up all day? “Maybe I’ll just forget about it this year.”

  “Hey, snap out of it,” Lisa ordered. “Be thinking about what you want to do, okay? No excuses.”

  Rain mimicked Lisa affectionately, and Lisa went back to her desk. In less than two weeks, on November 10, Rain would turn thirty-eight. Not a reason to celebrate. Time was slipping away from her, diminishing her chances of becoming a mother.

  Rain went back to her desk and cruised Internet sites for baby clothes until 5:30, when she could officially clock out. She hated coming home in the dark. Even when Hayden was expected to come home any minute, she never liked walking into a dark house. She hadn’t thought to leave a light on when she’d left that morning, not realizing until she’d gotten to work that it would be dark and chilly in the house at 6:00 when she got home.

  She pulled the car into her garage and did a visual scan of the interior before she closed the automatic door, unlocked the car door, and got out. The timed light went out before she could gather her things and get to the door that led into the kitchen. For several uncomfortable moments, she groped in the dark for the light switch, tripping on the bottom step that led to the kitchen door. When she was safely inside the kitchen with the lights on, she made sure the door was locked behind her. As she stripped off her coat and draped it over a chair, she heard Noah crying at the front of the house. She turned lights on as she went into the living room. He raced inside and she securely locked it after him.

  “You didn’t expect this early night either, did you, Noah?” she asked, shaking out crunchies into his bowl. “Better get used to it.”

  She turned on the television for noise and headed back to her bedroom, flicking on light switches as she went. It was ridiculous, being creeped out like this for no reason. She turned on the bedroom overhead light and went to her dresser. As she unhooked her earrings, she looked down to the plush carpet and froze when she saw a trail of deep footprints.

  Rain blinked and her skin tingled with a heightened sense of fear as she glanced around the room, pushing down a rising sense of panic. Nothing looked out of place. She forced herself to take a deep breath. They could be her footprints, she reasoned. She placed her foot beside one of the impressions. It dwarfed her small shoe.

  She groped behind her to the baseball bat that she kept propped in the corner by her bed for security. She hefted the cold metal and wrapped both fists around the base of the bat in a tight grip. She crept silently to the bathroom and quickly pushed the door open with the bat. Nothing looked different from when she’d left that morning. She glanced into the shower, but saw that it was empty and she pivoted to turn back to the bedroom. The only sound she heard was the distant voices from a television commercial.

  She went to the phone, thinking to call the police. But what would she say—that there were footprints in her carpet? She silently crept down the hall, kicked open the spare bedroom door, and flipped on the light switch, like an action hero. She sidled in and did a visual scan, opening the closet and sweeping beneath the bed with the bat. Next, she crept up on the guest bathroom, stepped in, flipped on the light, and whacked the closed shower curtain with the bat. The bat hit air and shower curtain, and she jumped when the shampoo fell down from the corner rack and rattled in the tub.

  She checked every door and window for signs of entry, but found none. Why would someone enter her house and leave without disturbing anything? There was one solution—it could have been Hayden. He had a key, but there was no other sign that he’d been there.

  Feeling satisfied that she was alone, she wandered back into her bedroom and checked all her secret hiding places, which she knew were not secrets to real thieves. She checked a locked box in the bottom drawer of her dresser. Both his birth certificate and his Social Security card were missing.

  She sat there looking at the contents feeling stupid and incoherent. Why did Hayden come and go, using his key to get these documents, thinking she would never know? Maybe he didn’t want to see her again. Maybe he just wanted to avoid her.

 
; She locked up the box and went back out to the kitchen, picking up her cell phone. She punched in his number, but when she heard his voice, she fumbled for words.

  “Hayden. Hi. Did you . . . were you over here today?”

  “Rain? Hold on.” He turned away from the phone and said something to someone. Did she hear a female voice?

  “Uh, why?” he asked, his voice a little too perky.

  “Just wondering. It looked like someone had come while I was gone.”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, I did actually, when you were at work. I hope it didn’t alarm you.”

  “No problem. I can take care of myself. I mean, it could have been someone else.” She winced. Shut up, she told herself.

  “Sure.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Yes, I think I have everything now,” he said. “In fact, I left the house key on the counter by the coffeepot.”

  Rain looked up to see the small silver key lying by the sugar bowl on the beige tile.

  “Okay, well, I need to go,” she said. “If you think of anything else, call me.”

  He hesitated for a moment. “I will,” he said. And she hung up.

  She went around methodically turning off excess lights and curled up on the couch with Noah, who wouldn’t stay to be petted for long. He jumped down and left her alone to stare at the key from across the room.

  She hugged a throw pillow to her chest. The thought occurred to her that he may have remembered the tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and come for them at a time when there would be no argument over them.

  Why did it have to be like this? She hadn’t stopped loving Hayden, she just wanted a baby. She just didn’t want to kick herself years from now because she hadn’t tried hard enough.

  She knew she would be a better parent than her mother had been to her. She wasn’t afraid to show affection or to risk being vulnerable with someone, or to put the child’s best interests before her own. She had loved watching Scott and Dylan grow and being part of the process. Hearing their little voices, their fresh logic and never-ending questions. She remembered Scott beaming when he finally rode his bike without training wheels. Dylan always made pictures for her to take home with his name printed in wavering letters. He would climb up beside her on the couch to read a picture book and then correct her if she skipped any words. She was lucky that she’d had great examples of the parent she would be in Bebe, Neil, and William.