Rain Reign: Parts IV–V

I cry into Rain’s fur and she sits there patiently, occasionally turning to lick my cheeks, until I get a Kleenex and blow my nose and make the tears stop.

“We practically stole her,” I reply in a small voice.

The sidewalks are gone, and broken store windows have been patched with tape, but carelessly, as if the owners don’t expect to be able to salvage their businesses.

The house that once stood there, Rain’s old home, is now a pile of lumber and rubble, surrounded by fallen trees.

We get out of the car and listen to the country sounds of branches rustling and birds chirping.

Uncle Weldon and I are on our way out of the store when I see a rack of newspapers, including one called The County Gazette.

At the end of the article we’ll include a contact number—a number at the Hatford Herald—that people can call if they have any information about Rain or the Hendersons.

I don’t know exactly what the subject of Parvani’s composition is, but suddenly she shoots her hand in the air and says, “Mrs. Kushel? What’s that word you taught us that means to tear something down?”
Mrs. Kushel puts on her thoughtful face and taps her pencil against her fingers. “Raze?” she suggests after a moment.

I hustle Rain outside and we walk up and down the street until I think Uncle Weldon is at his desk at work.

She lands on the floor and gets ready to spring again, but before she can, my father lowers his fist. He brings it down on Rain’s back and she lurches sideways and crashes into the legs of the table.

This may be a sincere apology.

They always took her collar off when she was in the house so that it wouldn’t get snagged on anything.

The other day Mrs. Leibler told me to try to see things from someone else’s perspective. “Put yourself in that person’s place, Rose,” she said. “What do you think she’s thinking? What is she feeling?”

Rain is sitting on her haunches in the middle of the floor.

My father is standing at the front of his own truck, tinkering with things under the hood.

Uncle Weldon retreats to his truck, opens the front door, and slides behind the wheel.

I scramble into the truck with the garbage bag, the backpack, and my mother’s box.

We ride in silence in the charged atmosphere, through the dark streets of Hatford, our headlights shining on the falling rain, the slick trees, and once, the eyes of a raccoon hesitating at the side of the road.

“She had an aneurysm in her heart. She died very quickly.”

Uncle Weldon ran his hand thoughtfully over the foreclosure notice tacked to the front door.