“How’s this one?” he asked with his arms spread out from his sides. Then, his eyes met mine and he noticed the panic strung across my face, “Is it raining?” he asked as his eyes went up to Mom’s.
“Yes,” she answered. Then bent down and looked at me in my eyes that were building with liquid inside about to burst, “I promise that when I get home I’ll climb into bed with you and we will have a slumber party. Pops will be here with you and everything will be good. Okay?”
“Okay,” I mumbled, trying to hold back the tears.
“Now, go downstairs because if I smell correctly, Pops is making his apple pie for you, too.”
“Yes!” and I ran down the steps missing that all annoying third step and stopped at the downstairs hallway closet and grabbed two umbrellas, a white one for Mom and a black one for Dad. I placed them at the front door, so they would grab them on their way out. I then spun around and headed for the living room where I found Pops sitting watching some cop show on TV.
“Hey Pops, whatcha watchin’?” I asked as I plopped myself down beside him.
“Street Shooter’. It isn’t that bad,” he replied as he put his arm around my head and placed it on the other side.
“Dad watches this. So, where’s the pie?”
“Smelled it, did you? It should be done in fifteen minutes or so. Let’s find something else on TV you can watch,” he picked up the remote and started flipping through the channels searching for a show my eyes could see.
I heard the sounds of my parents walking down the stairs and the vapors of perfume and cologne danced in the air all the way to where I sat. Dad grabbed his black jacket from the closet and mom came over to me.
“Alright, Nor. We will be back before you know it. Be good,” she said and kissed me on my forehead leaving remnants of her lip gloss behind. “See you, Pops,” and she kissed him goodbye, also.
I got up on my knees to sit up and look over the back of the couch. They looked nice all dressed up. Dad helped Mom with her coat and they headed towards the door.
“See ya, kiddo,” Dad yelled to me.
“Don’t forget…,” I yelled back.
“The umbrellas!” the three of them said all together like a chorus.
“Just making sure,” I shyly muttered. I guess they knew the spiel by now.
“Love you, sweetie,” Mom yelled while she stepped outside opening up her white umbrella as soon as she walked through the door. Dad stepped right behind her and closed the door.
I turned to Pops and before I could say anything he said, “They will be fine.”
The front door opened once more and Dad poked his head in, “Psst. Hey Nora.”
“Yeah?”
“I love you,” he spoke with a wide smile mounted on his face.
“Love you, too, Dad,” and they were gone.
That was the last time I felt my Mom kiss me goodbye and that was the last time I heard my Dad’s voice. From what I have found out by Jack and Miranda, they got to the restaurant the same time they did and had a good time. Mom ate a Chicken Caesar salad and I can bet she removed the croutons. She hated those things. Dad ate a steak, as usual, a true carnivore that man was. They talked and laughed inside, but outside the weather went from a sprinkle to a downpour. Once they were finished, they kept waiting for a break in the rain to leave. Mom told them of the promise that she vowed to me and she was eager to keep up her end of the bargain. While they stood underneath the awning, there was a break and they decided to hit the road. Dad was driving and Mom sat in the passenger seat. The Garrison’s were right behind them being that they lived in the same neighborhood as us. They said half way home the rain started to come down hard again. Their speed slowed down to almost a crawl and when they got to the light at the intersection at Mason Street, they stopped at the red light. Jack said the rain held up a little where they were able to see in front of them now. All of a sudden, he saw a yellow truck slide and slams into Mom’s side of the car. After the collision, the truck ended up in the middle of the sidewalk on the other side of the street. My parents, after spinning around a few times landed in the middle of the intersection. The car was mangled, with its pieces barely holding together. There was smoke exiting the vehicle as the Garrison’s ran over to them. Miranda checked my Mom and Jack checked my Dad, they were both gone. A small fire ignited in the engine and at that same moment the rain began to pour again. Miranda looked back at the yellow pickup truck that caused this and she saw a man stumble out of the truck and he sat down on the curb getting soaked by the rain. While Jack called the police, she ran over to him and tried to talk to him, but he was made no sense and stumbled over his words. She thought he might have hit his head or was internally hurt, but as the blood tests came back later, he was just incredibly intoxicated. The police came, along with a slew of ambulances, to interview the Garrison’s and put the driver into the back of the cop car.
When I awoke the next morning, I noticed Mom wasn’t in bed with me. I got up out of bed and first checked their bedroom, but it was empty. I, then stumbled downstairs, still groggy, and called out for my Mom, but I got no response from her. Pops answered instead. He was sitting out on the front porch, rocking back and forth in his rocking chair, holding a cup of coffee and staring blankly into the yard. I opened the screen door to walk out and Pops turned to me.
“Morning,” he said as he looked over to me perhaps wondering if I was fully awake or not, “ I know you just woke up, but we need to talk about something,” his eyes were bloodshot; I noticed as I walked passed him and sat in the rocker next to his.
“Where are Mom and Dad at?” I asked, but I had a strong feeling that something happened last night that I wasn’t aware of and that’s what he needed to talk to me about.
“Something happened last night. They were in an accident.”
“Are they okay?” I said as I stared at him with my heart beating fast.
His face dropped down and he stared at the half empty coffee mug that he held in his hands. When he raised his head up again he took a deep breath in and uttered, “No, sweetheart. They aren’t. They passed away.”
There was a sudden pain in my chest and a numbing feeling enveloped my body. The tears that were filling up my eyes began streaming down my face slowly and consistently. I rested my head on the back of the rocker and said “Okay.” I didn’t ask any questions. I didn’t want to know any details. I just wanted my parents back. I pushed most of my feelings at that time deep down into my internal dudgeon. Seldom, does their presence appear, but when it does it sidelines me and breaks me to pieces.
Pops reached over and grabbed my arm to pull me over to his rocker. I sat on his lap with my body curled in a ball and head rested on his shoulder and cried myself to sleep as he rocked me back and forth silently; surrounded by only the sounds of my whimpering and his foot tapping as he pushed off the wood of the porch.
After that moment, time seemed to speed up. It never slowed down for me to catch my breath for a second. The house was filled with people; each one came in and kissed me on my forehead and hugging me. Some of them I didn’t know, and haven’t seen since. I felt awkward and out in the open naked for all to see. Everyone seemed to stare at me with their sad eyes drenching me. I wanted my family to stand around me and shield me from the others.
I went to their service at the old St. Patrick’s church at the end of our street, but I don’t remember much of anything. I do remember the hymn books that sat in front of me. They had dirty fingerprints on them that were a tinge of red and I could have sworn I saw a pair of Nike’s hanging out the end of the priest’s robes. That is as far up as my eye level went. My head was bowed for the whole service. Each time I would contemplate raising it up a bit, I would make eye contact with another person and retract back to where it was previously. Afterwards, we went back to the house. I ran up the steps and forgot about the third step and the screech reflected off each wall making everyone cringe a little. I slammed my door shut, flew into bed and
pulled the blanket up over my head hoping that it would shield me, so I didn’t absorb any more pain. Alex came up and sat on the edge of my bed, placing his hand on my foot.
“Hey Bud, you alright?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I grumbled underneath the blanket.
“We have to head to the cemetery soon.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I really think you should go.”
I sat straight up in bed and pulled the blanket off my head, “Everyone looks at me. Everyone touches me. I don’t want to see them going into the ground. I’m not going!” I said loudly. Alex saw the tears, which welled up in my eyes while I laid down, stream down my cheeks.
“Okay. I’ll stay with you,” Alex sadly spoke and he got up and walked out. I didn’t want to see where they were put to rest. To this day, I still haven’t seen it. I laid sunken into my bed while Alex sat in a chair in the corner as he read the newspaper for the rest of the evening. The soundtrack for the rest of the day was embodied by the sounds of the raindrops hitting the willow tree outside my window, the noise the newspaper pages made being turned and the low sound of the my whimpers that I tried to hold in. My heart felt hollow and achy, empty of all its contents making it burn with loss.
I stayed in bed for days; Pops brought me my food, Mike and Brian would alternate carrying me to the shower and waited until I was done to carry me back, John came in and told me the gossip of everything that I had missed around town.
About a week and a half later, I exited my room for the first time. I sat on my bed in a daze only to become jolted out of it by fits of laughter and music that came from downstairs. After the fifth time of this happening I decided to check it out. As I descended the steps, skipping ‘Diablo’, I followed the sounds and quickly realized that they came from the dining room. Through the smog of the cigar smoke, the vapors of alcohol, and how the dining room table was moved outside only to be replaced by two smaller round tables, I realized that it was poker night. At one table sat Drew, Elijah, Colin, John, Alex and Brian. Colin was half way standing up in his chair with his index finger in the face of Drew angrily, while the others sat there laughing like hyenas. The second table consisted of Pops, Mike, Evan, Brady and Pops’ brothers, Charlie and Sammy. Charlie talked everyone’s ears off, like he so often does, about how he can barely hear because of a bomb that went off close to him while he was in the army and how the explosion made him so discombobulated that he walked right into a tree making a branch fall down and hit his head, so he was knocked out, woke up and couldn’t hear a thing. It is a story that we all have heard a million and one times. Sammy is the exact opposite; he hardly ever utters a word. I thought he was a mute for the longest time until when I was about five years old and I fell off my bike and he ran over to ask if I was okay.
I stood at the doorway, silently watched the scene in front of me. My lips birthed a smile at the sight of these men, men, that even at a young age; I knew that they were, at that moment, my whole life.
“Charlie, are you telling the bomb story again?” I eventually said with a slight roll of my eyes in a pretending matter, making the guys all turn to look at the doorway.
Smiles emitted from their faces as their eyes lit up. Pops, with a cigar hanging out of the side of his mouth, yelled over the noise, “Hey, Nor! Come join us,” and he waved me over with the one hand and in the other he held a deck of cards. I walked, pushing away the smoke that lingered in my way and pulled a chair in between Charlie and Sammy.
Sammy just nodded his head towards me, but Charlie on the other hand said, “Yes, I was telling that story, again. You know the blast went off….”
“Only four feet from you,” I helped him finish. He looked almost shocked that I knew how that sentence ended and he was about to open his mouth again, but Mike chimed in.
“And you ran into a tree, and then a branch fell and knocked you out,” he said.
Charlie gave Mike a snotty look and was about to again say something, but the boys at the other table beat him to it and all together chanted, “It wasn’t so much a branch, more like a mini tree.” Charlie looked peeved as everyone laughed at him.
“Tough crowd,” he grumbled.
Pops dealt the cards out and everyone anteed up, including me being that Pops taught me how to play when I was six. Sammy pushed some of his chips my way so I could join in. And, like he always does, Charlie took a peek at my hand.
“Stop it,” I commanded and he giggled. Charlie is over-the-top in everything he does. He constantly talks, sings, he will stop anywhere at any time and do a little jig to make you laugh and it works every time. He looks exactly like Pops. Come to think of it so does Sammy. Not only does Charlie’s dancing ability set him apart from them two, but also in his attire. That man loves a plaid pant. He has them in every color. His shirt and shoes don’t always match them, but his fedora hats do every time. Sammy is more like Pops in his outward appearance, the basic button down and a nice pair of khakis or jeans. “Seriously, stop it, Charlie!” and I shoved him further away from me. There was uproar at the other table.
“John! You stole my chips!” Elijah yelled.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. They were sitting right here.” he said jumped up and leaned towards John, trying to grasp whatever it was John was trying to hide in his hand. “Give me them.”
“Fine, you baby. Take it,” and he handed it back to him a bit roughly.
“If you are going to cheat, you should really learn how to do it better,” Alex contributed to the argument.
With our attention fully back at our table, Charlie and Mike had already folded. “Alright, what does everyone have?” Pops asked and the table put down the cards showing everyone else what they had. Pops had a straight, Sammy had three of a kind and I placed my hand down and I showed the table that I had a straight flush, winning the pot. I threw my hands up into the air with excitement and then placed them over top of my winnings.
“Hold on one second,” Pops said as he got up out of his chair. He walked out of the room leaving me with my body laid across the table anticipating his return. He made his way back through the doors and to the table. “Here. Why don’t you take these instead?” and he placed a small box on top of the pile of chips in between my hands.
“What is it?”
“Open and you will see. You can have the chips, too,” he replied as he put his cigar back into his mouth and Mike began to shuffle the cards.
I sat back in my chair and opened the box. There inside, was my Mom’s gold necklace that she wore everyday and my parent’s wedding bands with the inscription “Two peas in a pod” etched inside them. That was an ongoing joke with them since the first day they met when they finished each other sentence. In fact, I heard Dad say it to Mom the day the incident occurred. We were in the kitchen and I said something about the sun shining through the window into my eyes and they both began to sing ‘Good Day Sunshine’ out loud at the same time. Then he said “See, we are still two peas in a pod” and playfully slapped her in the behind.
I slid the two rings onto the necklace and attached it around my neck and there it has stayed since that moment. I didn’t know whether or not to cry with sorrow or rejoice that I had something that was important to them. The tears were winning until I looked up at Pops and he smiled at me knocking the tears back down. I returned the gesture and we carried on with our poker game.
Darren had a squeaky clean record; he had never gotten in trouble with the law before that night. I pleaded with Pops and whoever else would listen to let me go into the court room. They constantly threw my age into the reason why I shouldn’t go, but eventually my pleas worked and I went in. I couldn’t miss that much school, but I was there often enough. I sat right behind the D.A and stared right at Darren. I knew everything about him; His left pinky finger would stand straight up in the air when he covered his eyes when photos were shown. He would fidget in his seat when anyone mentioned my parent’s names, Joyce
and David, aloud. He would perk up in his chair, lean forward and tilt his head ever so slightly whenever pictures of his beloved pickup were displayed. Much like him, I covered my eyes when they showed photos of my parent’s car. I have never seen them and hopefully, never will. I have examined the pictures of his truck though. For a while I was fascinated by it, the mangled mess of canary yellow would grab a hold of my sights and hold them captive. The hue of the yellow was the exact shade of the shirt Dad tried on when Mom and I called him a bumblebee. It has haunted me since. I thought it was the universe trying to tell me something, something I should have seen and begged them harder to stay, an omen of sorts. But, I was too blind to see.
I sat there not because I liked it, but because I felt it was the last of them. It was the last thing that happened in their life and I needed to sit there for them. Granted, my parents probably wouldn’t allow me to be there, but Pops is easier convinced. At the sentencing, I sat in between Mike and John and they both grabbed my hands. I didn’t understand the intensity that the sentence would affect me back then. I thought if he was found guilty then, great, but now I realize that it’s not only the ‘guilty’ part that counts. The duration of that sentence matters, too. He received 15 years in prison and got out in 11. He moved into the same River Road house that he lived in with his parents before his imprisonment. The house sits within the same town that I live. He goes to the same stores as me, enters the same movies, walks the same streets and breathes the same air. I have a habit of searching every car and every face I come in contact with to see if it is him. My fear is that one day I will come in contact with him and I don’t know how I would react. Will I confront him with full fury? Will I break down and cry? Will I grab the sharpest thing near me and attack? He, also, lost his license for six years, probation for ten and had to do 75 speeches to schools about the dangers drinking and driving. My parents can’t breathe anymore. Not exactly justice.
When It Rains: The Umbrella Collection Page 4