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2 It Always Looks Like Rain

Evening. She and Becky stroll down the graveled driveway and approach the semicircle that cups the pond. On the water's far side, the garden. Distant in the west loom thunderheads. Behind which, now and then, heat lightning, soundless flash, etches their outlines, their heaving mass, purplish- black.

Becky still wears the sun dress that so ill-suits her, powder blue with thin white stripes that elongate her even further. She seems to revel in her height, speaking from it:

"Yes, Kythryn, I still do mourn it, and I always will. It was special and could have become more special if you had let it, like nothing this family has ever seen, if you had not run away into the commonplace. They wouldn't have approved at first or not even for a very long time but its beauty would have forced them to admire it in time. It's not easy for people to deal with you when you don't plug into any of the slots they know."

"But nothing happened, Becky. There wasn't any 'it.' This is only an idea of yours you're talking about."

"Disagree totally. What 'happens'? What is an event, an occurrence? Only outward things, only the physical? Couldn't be more wrong. What happened between us was not just friendship, it was love, and love because it grew out of that friendship, because it grew from inside out and not outside in. Not the way men fall in love with women for their ... ah, what was it you said this afternoon? Pretty young things. Not like Warren and you. Something else entirely."

She laughs lightly.

"What's so funny, Kitty?" Becky snaps. "I'm serious."

"The idea that Warren fell for me because of my beauty."

Becky scowls. "Then what did he fall for?"

She laughs again. "Thanks for that compliment too. But I thought you knew that when Warren and I first met he was going out with another woman. Was she gorgeous! Warren and I just studied together. We learned Spanish irregular verbs. Que pasa? He left her for me.

"Because he wanted you more."

"Let me finish."

They stood on the path, past the garden now, near the graveled main road.

"Sure."

"No, he wanted her more, at least in the sense you mean. He told me it took him awhile to want me after he had begun to love me. Because I was less attractive to him. Too skinny I'm sure. So your theory has a hole in in."

"Maybe that's true. But it still doesn't change what happened between us. You say nothing happened? It did happen. Not only in my eyes and yours, but in others too. Do you actually think Eileen didn't know?"

"Know what, Becky? Why bring this up again? Did you say something to her?"

"I'm not 'bringing anything up,'" she says, too sweetly. "I'm only looking at what's there. Like that cloudbank over there. It looks like rain out here, it seems like it always does on Grandma's birthday. Midsummer storms. That's the way life is too, always something brewing, near or far. You can't run away and say it's not there, you just have to accept it. I've noticed that people that run away from things always stub their toe over reality at some point. You didn't run to love, you ran away from it. God only knows what you have now; I know I don't know. But it's nothing before what we could have known together. You're kept. What's that? Where's your life?"

"How many times have we looked across this pond out of this same conversation, Becky?"

Becky shakes her head slowly.

"Did you say something to my mother?"

Becky stares at her, blank, then at the pond.

"Tell me."

She shakes her head once more, slowly, smiling.

"No you didn't? Or no you won't tell me?"

Abruptly Becky wheels around and begins to stride away in the direction of the house. Kythryn runs after her, and Becky begins to run, too.

"TELL ME!"

She cannot keep up with Becky's longlegged strides. They are within shouting distance of the house now, people are on the porch, and she slows to a walk. Becky glances back and slows to a brisk walk, eventually stopping for Kythryn to pull even with her as they enter the yard.

"Caught me." Becky grins. "Remember those summers?" She starts to touch Kythryn's cheek.

"The good old days?" Becky's hand jerks back as if Kythryn has swatted at her. Silence dangles between them. "God damn you forever."

3 Laughter and Blues

"Why always the pond?" He watches out the window; over his shoulder she can make out windwhipped treetops. Thunderous rain rattles the tin roof just above their attic bedroom.

"I don't know, unless it's simply the best place to get me alone."

"I'll call her and tell her to stay away from you at the next reunion and every one hereafter."

"No, hon. No, don't do that. It would just confirm her opinion of us."

"Which is what? I've never been clear on that." He pads sockfooted to the bed and sits down beside her; unbuttons a couple of buttons on his shirt; stops.

"That I was scared. That I gave up the chance for something special for something routine. That I am the meek wife who you support and order about. That our lives are dull and plain."

"Fine. Let her talk. She talks; we act. Let her talk."

"It infuriates me that she told some lie to my mother. A lie I can't correct."

"No. She lied to you. She never said anything to your mother. Even if she had, Eileen wouldn't have bought it. She'd laugh in her face."

"You think so? You're just saying that to calm me."

"No. NO, I'm not. I see through her. It's one of her tools for trying to make your admit she's at least partly right. It's like the thing she said about--what was it about forcing people to admire the two of you?"

"That 'our love' would have been so beautiful that the family would have been forced to accept it."

"See, that's her. Wanting to force people to do something. That's what she's always tried to pull with you, too."

"I hope you're right."

"Sure I am. Let's go to bed."

"To sleep."

"To bed."

"Not tonight."

"It's a great storm, Kyth. Wouldn't want to waste that."

"True. But I'm a bundle of nerves tonight. Too many people wanting--"

"What? What are you laughing about?"

He leans over her, shirt gone now, and laughs too, uncertain. "What?" he asks again.

"I started to say, 'Too many people wanting a piece of me.' Oh me."

He grins. "It's a mighty good cure for being a bundle of nerves."

"Warren, no. Besides, I just can't, not in this room. It's the room--this is where she always tried--"

"Lord. I forgot. I'm sorry, Kyth."

"'s okay."

He bends his head lower and begins to brush her cheeks and neck with light kisses.

"Why are you pulling at my robe, buster?"

"Don't worry. I just want to hold you while we got to sleep, nothing between us." He raises his head again, blue eyes steady on her. She rubs his coarse hair, too short now to ever get out of place.

"Will you go ahead and get the light?"

"After I finish undressing you."

"No. Now."

"Some day I hope to make you comfortable with your own body."

And he finishes undressing them both, then gets the light and returns to wrap her in his arms. With the pull of his arm she rolls on top of him and spreads her legs around his. He whistles low and hugs her tight to him.

"Probably can't lie long like this," she says. "Probably get too clammy."

"Maybe not. The rain is cooling things off."

In the dark, in the storm freshened room, they whisper. Faint lightning blues the air an instant, and she glimpses him staring at the ceiling, concentrating. She settles her head just beneath his shoulder. His breathing is uneven, a little fast.

"You gonna be okay? Want me to move to the other side of the bed?"

"No-o-o ... I'll calm down in a few minutes."

She kisses him lightly at the base of his throat and he tightens his arms around her.

"Warren?"

"Right here."

"You know what she said?"

"What?"

"That people who run away from life always stub their tow on reality at some point. Am I just run-- what?"

His chest shakes so hard that she bounces where she lies. "Maybe we should go back with a flashlight and see if we find a handful of toenails."

Then it's her turn to explode, and they try to cover each other's mouth with their hands to muffle the sound. After a couple of moments he heaves a big sigh and says: "The thing is, how seriously can you take a person who speaks in clichés? That means she's probably thinking in them, too."

She places her head high on his chest again. "Right."

"You know what I wish." More a thought aloud than a question. She feels his head turn toward her voice. "That Mom could've known what I'm going to do. That I could've told her what I wanted to do."

"You think she was worried?"

"I don't know. I think so. Maybe just me."

"Career careen career," he recites.

It's a familiar conversation. She thumps his chest with her palm and he grabs it.

"You have plenty of time. Twenty-seven is nothing."

"Yeah ..."

For a couple of moments they lie there in a silence within the tapering rain. "Good night," she whispers at last.

"Good night."

4 Without End

Later--she is unsure when--she awakens. No sound of rain or wind. Warren has shifted away from her but she can hear his steady breathing, slipping into deep sleep, a hint of a snore now and then. She snuggles up to his back and his breathing rhythm falters for one or two beats; resumes. But on her lids she feels dim light sneaking through the window.

She rolls out of bed. She cannot find her robe in the dark, so walks naked to the window and stares out into the starlit night.

The old house, from corners far away, creaks around her; outside is bare of creature sound, strange for a country summer night--no crickets, no frogs, at the edge of hearing only one dog briefly alerting the countryside: Strange sounds in the dark, strange smells!

In the starlight, beside the driveway, the old locusts tower in silent watchfulness over the house. No change in them through the years. Maybe another two or three branches dead, maybe not. Beneath them, some cars, including her and Warren's. Farther, beneath other hills, she can make out two or three of the streetlights that neighbors have put up in their yards in recent years.

She returns to be, the other side this time lifts the covers, and slips in so that she is cradled by Warren. He is much too heavy, too solidly oblivious to the world, for her to budge, and there is too little room for her yet she stays there, finds his hand and puts it on her belly, holds it there with her own. Twists her neck for a moment and can barely make out his face, his mouth drooping open rather unappealingly, face flattened against the pillow like so much dough against a board, almost feels tears for an instant and lifts his hand to her lips. Where might her father be nowadays? Then dismisses it and stares at the rectangle of window.

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