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Through
The Doorway, Rain by |
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"Abigail, he's dead. It's been nearly a year! You can't stay in this room forever!" But Abigail turned to face the darkness, holding onto something not yet dried up, something not yet blown away. "Abigail!" "Close the door, Momma." Sarah bit her lip. She was losing her only daughter and nothing on this earth – not even a mother's sacred love – could bring her back. Sometimes she wanted to shake Abigail from this madness, to scream into her blank and fading eyes, "I lost your father but I kept going! I kept going for you! You!" Sarah closed the door and listened to the coarse wind scratching at the walls. "Who’s gonna keep going for me?" Harsh light and grit-filled wind blew Ethan into the house. He looked from Sarah to the door, took off his hat and set his rifle next to the water bucket. "God almighty, when will it rain? Been three months." He looked at the bedroom door again, blinking slowly. "I hear the Prescotts are leaving, heading for San Antone. There's land…" Sarah glared at her brother. "Ethan, we won’t give up our home. Too many of us are buried in this ground." Ethan nodded. "Water's drying up fast. Lost two more head of cattle--" "Ethan, we'll make do. We always have." Sarah turned to the door. “We always have,” she whispered. ~ Abigail listened to the secret messages in the wind – voices whispering low; she almost understood. She knew with all of her soul that if she could only decipher the words all would be revealed. It must be him, her beloved James, trying to speak, trying to tell her that he was alive. Alive and coming home. If only she could hear him. The door to her heart was locked and the key to his words was lost. Abigail closed her ears with white-knuckled fists. "James . . . please come back to me." ~ Sarah stood in Abby's doorway. Maybe San Antone would be better. Maybe some place other than this room. Some place with other people. A place with rain. Sarah tasted her own tears and they were bitter. All of it was so cruel, so much like dying by inches. "Abigail," she whispered. "I brought dinner." Abigail remained still, lost in shadow, her breathing slow. "Abby. We buried James. Remember…?" Sarah bolted upright, her hair tangled, her eyes wide and filled with pain and sorrow and betrayal as she screamed, "My James is coming home. He is, Momma. I know it. I know it. That wasn't him we buried." She dropped the bowl next to the bed and fled the room. Sarah faced Ethan, her eyes raw, her face twisted in grief. Ethan reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. "Maybe Abigail should go with the Prescotts," she said softly. "She's gonna die here. Oh Ethan--" Sarah wept, the sound hard and full of nails. "I couldn't bear to have another one buried out there." Ethan stood and embraced Sarah. He'd been at Antietam and with Pickett at Gettysburg; this was agony beyond compare. "I'll get over to the Prescotts." Sarah only nodded, her sobs shaking them both. ~ Ethan snapped the reins and headed west. In the dying sunlight, the sky filled with building clouds, towering columns of promised rain. A mocking promise, Ethan thought. They built up and then faded away like smoke in the wind. He thought he could even smell the dusty wetness of rain -- in the wind, on his tongue, in his nose. He shook his head. Fool, thinking just like with Abby.
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In the wind’s silence, in the space between heartbeats…she heard. Abigail held her hands up to the darkness and felt it all fall away. In the lull, it began to rain. It sounded like small pebbles on the roof. Abigail understood. ~ Ethan rested, wiping dirt from his hand and looked skyward. He had felt . . . he blinked as a raindrop caught his eye. "Dear God." He stuck out his tongue and tasted dust and sweetness and all the green places of the earth . ~ Sarah stared up at the ceiling past the raw beams and hardpack. Could it be? She rose slowly from the table as if any sudden movement would change God's mind. She listened to the pitter-patter above her. Abigail's door opened. "Abby?" Her daughter stood in the doorway. Beatitude came to Sarah's mind, like in the Bible. "He's come back, Momma. I told you." Sarah cried triumphantly. "Oh Abby," Sarah moved to hold her daughter. "It's only the rain. Abby, it's only the rain." Abigail pushed her mother away and reached for the door. A door she hadn't been through in nearly a year. She touched the latch and, turning slowly, gave her mother a look of fierce, pure love. The door swung open. She stood on her toes and lifted her face to the rain as it swept into the house. Lightning flashed illuminating the yard with a sharp blue-white light. Thunder rolled and pounded through her body. "James!" she called out. "I knew." Sarah reached out to her daughter… and stopped. In the yard, the parched, cracked ground turned to dirty streams. Lightning, etched her eyes. “Ethan!” Sarah screamed. Ethan shuffled with his hands full, his voice hoarse, anguished. "Here's your James! Look at him Abby!" Abigail skipped through the doorway. Into the rain. And danced into the arms of her husband's corpse.
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