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Rain stretched out her spine with a deep sigh. The trip back home to Salmon Springs had seemed to take forever. She sighed again.
She had been in such a funk for the last two weeks. It wasn’t like her to be depressed, but the sudden death of her father coupled with the break-up had taken her down a peg. She felt like she was walking through mud every day. She just wanted to stay in bed.
“Hi sweetie!”
She looked up to see her mom waving to her from the porch. She looked a little thinner but otherwise better than Rain had expected for it only being two weeks after her husband died. She moved in to give her mom a hug. “Mom, how are you doing?”
“Getting by,” she answered. “It’s a little easier every day.”
Mom leaned down to pet Luna, massaging behind her ears as the dog squirmed happily. “Who’s a pretty girl?” she asked Luna in that voice people used with dogs and babies. Luna reached up to lick her face and both women laughed.
“I brought you some stuff,” Rain told her, gesturing towards the car.
“You don’t need to bring us food and supplies every time you come,” her mom protested half-heartedly. “We can take care of ourselves you know.”
It was an argument they had every time. The truth was her parents – well, her mom now – lived on a very low income. Rain liked to help them however she could. They never wanted to take her money, although she had more of it than she needed, so she made it a point to bring them other things they could use. Boxes of food, household supplies, seeds and fabric filled most of the back section of her Subaru wagon. And a large bag of peanut M&Ms, her mom’s secret vice.
They lugged the boxes into the house and talked about the plans for the funeral the following day. “We’ll be at the community center,” her mom explained. “It’ll just be a simple ceremony. Of course, everyone from the community will be there.”
Rain suppressed a smile. That described every funeral for every person who’d ever lived in the community since it opened. Did her mom think she’d forgotten?
Rain’s sisters started trickling in over the next hour. They were all sitting around the large farmhouse table drinking tea and catching up when they heard a knock on the door.
“I wonder who that would be?” her mom mused. “No one here knocks.” The community was very casual, and everyone was used to walking right into each other’s houses. This wasn’t an area where strangers turned up by accident either, so hearing someone knocking on the door was unheard of.
Her mom returned to the kitchen a few minutes later. “Rain honey, you have some visitors.”
Rain looked up from her tea in surprise. John and Angelica were standing behind her mom.
She moved to a standing position, unaccountably happy to see them despite everything that had happened. “John. Angelica. What are you guys doing here?”
John seemed frozen, standing there staring at her, but Angelica rushed forward to wrap Rain in a tight hug. “Oh my god Rain, we just heard about what happened. I hope you don’t mind but we wanted to come to the funeral. It felt important to be here to support you. You need your friends at a time like this.”
“That’s so wonderful,” her mom gushed before Rain could respond. “You’ll stay here of course.”
John snapped out of his daze. “Oh no, Mrs. Waters, that’s very kind of you but we couldn’t impose on you. We’ll just get a hotel room in town.”
One of Rain’s sisters snickered behind her. This was rural Oregon; there were no hotels for nearly 100 miles.
John slowly moved closer to Rain, hesitated, then pulled her in for a hug. She sighed as she relaxed into the familiar comfort of his body. It felt like coming home.
He pressed his lips to her hair. “Can we talk for a few minutes?” he whispered softly. “Please?”
His voice wasn’t low enough for their rapt audience. Before she could respond, her mother interjected, “You kids go up to Rain’s room and talk. We’ll have some tea and get to know Angelica.”
She looked curiously between them, clearly sussing out that they were more than friends even though Rain had never mentioned him. “You kids can take all the time you need up there. We’ll be fine down here.”
They smiled at each other for being called “kids”. At their age that didn’t happen very often.
“Come on John,” she said, pulling him by the hand.
Rain led him to her childhood bedroom, still very much the same even though she hadn’t lived there in over twenty years. Things didn’t change much in the community. They didn’t waste money on things like redecorating. Everything was used over and over again until it fell apart. She eyed her threadbare old bedspread. It was about one wash away from falling apart into rags.
She closed the door and leaned against the desk, waiting for John to make the first move. The silence stretched on for a few minutes, becoming uncomfortable, but Rain wasn’t going to make this easier for him. Not after he’d been such a jerk.
“I owe you an apology,” he began finally, his voice hoarse with emotion.
She nodded. “You do.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“When you were gone, I realized that I’d gotten very attached to you, much more than I had realized I was.”
He began to pace back and forth. “I’ve lived alone for a long time, and even when I was married, I never felt this, this, I don’t know how to describe it, this deep sense of loss or something, this emptiness, when the person I was with was gone. It’s not like me to need someone like that. It freaked me the fuck out, how vulnerable I was with you. How much you could hurt me.”
He stopped to look at her, running his hand through his hair, then resumed pacing when she remained silent.
“At some point during all my soul searching about why I felt so needy, I realized that it was because I love you.”
She inhaled sharply. Somewhere along the line she’d convinced herself that he didn’t have the same feelings for her as she did for him. Love.
“I couldn’t wait for you to get home Sunday so I could tell you. When you didn’t show up, at first I was so worried that something had happened to you.” He stopped pacing and met her gaze directly. “I was scared Rain. When I realized how much you meant to me, how much power that gave you over me, I freaked out.”
“I would never hold power over you,” she said indignantly.
He nodded. “I know. Honestly I do, but I wasn’t being rational. I imagined all kinds of scenarios....you were hurt, you were with another man, you were just playing with me, everything was just casual to you. Every scenario ended with me being heartbroken. Devastated.”
“Then when I saw you were home that day and realized you’d returned and hadn’t responded to me, I was relieved, but also angry. You were right to call me an asshole, I never even gave you the chance to tell me what happened.”
“That was two weeks ago John,” she reminded him. “You’ve been stewing about this all this time?”
He eyed her warily, then nodded. “I’ve wanted to come over and apologize but I still had it in my head that you were in the wrong, so I didn’t. When I talked to Daisy this morning and she told me what happened, about your dad, then I knew what had distracted you. I’m so sorry Rain.”
He moved towards her, and she held her hand up. “What are you sorry for exactly?” she asked him curiously, wondering if he even got why she was so mad.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know there was an explanation for what happened,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t ask.”
Irritation flowed through her. “You should be sorry you didn’t have faith in me and assume that there was an explanation,” she told him sternly. He flinched a little at her tone.
“I never gave you a reason not to trust me, and yet you didn’t trust me. You should be sorry that you immediately jumped to the worst conclusions about me. As a result, you weren’t here when I needed you the most. You should be sorry that your ego was more important than me and my feelings. You should be sorry you woke me up at 6 a.m. to yell at me because you’re insecure.”
She could see the light dawning in his eyes as her words registered. “You really hurt me John,” she said sadly. “You did it at the worst possible time. I don’t know if we can come back from that.”
John reached out and grabbed her hand. “Please Rain, these past two weeks, well the past three really counting the time you were gone, they’ve been the worst of my life. I’ve never felt so empty.”
His voice was serious and sincere. “All those years I never knew all the things I was missing out on in life, but once I saw what my life could be with you in it? You changed everything for me Rain, all for the good.”
He slid his hand up to cup her cheek and she leaned against his palm automatically.
“It’s like my life was some old black and white movie, and you brought color into it. I thought I was happy before, but now that I know what I’m missing without you...I hate it Rain, I really hate it. Please forgive me.”
Rain shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know John. I’m so confused right now.”
He met her gaze, staring deeply into her eyes so she could see the truth of his words. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I didn’t give you credit. Most of all I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me. I love you Rain. Please tell me you love me too.”
She nodded. “I do love you John, but I don’t know if that’s enough.”