Research: Journals
The Journal
Issue 32.2
A Room of Rain
Gary Fincke
"You come away from that television set and watch this show right here in your own back yard," my mother shouted through the screen of the open living room window, but I waited until the commercials came on before I went outside.
"What show?" I said when I reached the back porch. I couldn't make out anything special because it was raining, a drizzle, the kind that I walked in fifty times a year without an umbrella while she lectured me about how I'd have pneumonia before I knew what hit me.
There she was standing in it, her hands out to the side like she was a little girl who had the day off school, like I did, for Veteran's Day. "Come over here beside me, Bradley," she said, using my full name like she did when she wanted me to know the words were important. I didn't mind. The rain, thin and soft, felt good. "Isn't this the cat's meow?" she said, but after a few seconds I was thinking about how the commercials would be over in a minute, maybe less, while she took my hand and said, "I have a surprise for you." And she walked me, I swear, just seven steps before the sun came out. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Not one.
