Rain

Fiction by Cindi Aseltine of Cerro Coso Community College
3rd Place for College Fiction - 2017 Met Awards

The rain was coming down so hard on Ana’s windshield she could not see. It was like a thick dense mist was covering the glass both inside and outside of her car and nothing seemed to help. She had tried to focus on the dividing lines on the freeway even turning off the once blaring radio, but something happened. It wasn’t something she could see or hear, but something she had felt. Not a movement, but a gut instinct. Screaming and yelling to no one, all that managed to escape Ana’s lips was “what the hell” as the car began spinning around and around on the freeway out of control. Her mind was racing, it seemed, as fast as her car was spinning. “I know there were two big trucks in the slow lane I just passed and cars behind me,” her mind screamed as she gripped the steering wheel tighter and tighter, spinning faster and faster. And then suddenly, it was as though time suddenly stopped and her life flashed before her eyes.

Today had started no different for Ana than it had for the last two years: Stay up half the night tossing and turning in her bed until her alarm went off at 0430, her mind never turning off. After the third time of hitting the snooze, her husband, John, whose snoring was part of the reason Ana didn’t get much sleep, would grumble and then nudge her, “Ana, you need to get up”. Reluctantly, she would turn the alarm off and literally crawl out of bed, grasping in the blackness of the room for her fuzzy black robe. Ana had tried to figure out why she could never sleep at night, wondering if it was her relationship with her husband that was going downhill on a daily basis or her extremely demanding, never satisfied boss.

The house was dark and cold as she quietly made her way to the coffee pot for her morning ritual before getting into the shower. It didn’t matter how dark the house was, the aroma of the deep roasted coffee waiting for her was all she needed as light to find it. “I am just too old and exhausted for this anymore”, she mumbled to herself as she opened the front door, coffee in hand, to see if the morning paper was in the driveway.

“Great, just great”, she said under her breath as she surveyed the wet driveway in front of her and flooding flowerbeds. The sky was as black as coal, yet, the lightening streaking and crackling across the sky revealed the large grey clouds above, followed by an almost deafening, roaring thunder. Hoping the rain would let up for her drive she grabbed the newspaper, ran back into the house and turned on the shower.

Always in a rush, Ana grabbed her coat ready to leave, but once again realized her shoes were still in her darkened bedroom, with her sleeping husband. “Damn,” she grumbled knowing that once again she would have to feel around in the blackened room like a blind person to find her shoes, all the while trying not to wake John up.

“Ana, what the hell are you doing? I am trying to sleep!” John said gruffly with an irritated tone in his voice.

“Sorry, just trying to find my shoes, again!” Ana replied, in an equally irritated tone.
In a voice that inflected his irritation and ‘it’s all about me attitude’, John yelled, “Don’t you think you could have done this last night!”

“That’s it,” Ana thought to herself. Always the one to have the last word, Ana replied, “This is my house too. I am tired of tippy toeing around you just to make you happy! How about me!” as she purposely turned on every light in the bedroom so to blind John in the light and make her point.
She could see the anger in John’s blue-grey eyes as he turned to glare at her, but she did not care. The last two months, he had been putting her through hell. Often, while she lay awake in bed, listening to the roaring snore of John, she wondered if she still loved him. She wondered if he still loved her.
Was it that they had just been together so long it had just become a convenience rather love? Ana did not know. It seemed everyday was just a routine; she’d get up and leave for work in a pissed off mood in the darkness of night; John, would stay in bed until seven or eight in the morning, get ready for work and leave a giant mess in the house, that waited for her to come home and clean it up. She would hastily cook John dinner and clean the dishes afterwards. No words would be spoken during dinner or conversation about each-others day. They would just eat in a silence that was deafening and then head into different parts of the house to watch television.

In the last few days, while sitting in numbing silence of dinner, she had caught John looking at her. It almost as if he was gazing at her like when they were high school sweethearts. She had seen what she thought was tenderness and love in his eyes, but the silence always remained. “I just don’t have time to deal with this anymore. Do I even want to deal with it?” seemed to always be her last thought before the mundane routine ended and she would finally drift off asleep.

Spinning and spinning she thought about her life with John and what had happened in the last few days between them. Memories of the happy times, the laughter they shared over even the most stupid things, the tears they shed when they lost a pet or worse a loved one like John’s mom. Ana and Mary had always had a stressful relationship while she was alive. It wasn’t until that day John’s dad had called and said Mary had suffered a heart attack and died that Ana realized how very much she had loved Mary in all those turbulent years between the two. And the realization or rather finalization that Ana would never be able to tell her that now that she was gone.

It was in that moment as she saw her life flash before her, spinning and spinning around the freeway, she realized she loved John; truly, deeply and totally loved him. John was her sole-mate and she couldn’t, she wouldn’t lose him because of the unspoken words between them. As the tears began to fall from Ana’s eyes, she whispered in a hushed voice, “I didn’t kiss you good-bye this morning or tell you I love you. I’m sorry.”

Suddenly, Ana felt a tremendous jolt knocking her into the drivers’ side window. Not knowing if one of the big trucks had finally hit her or if the car was now rolling, Ana could do nothing but cry. The tears of fear and reality began to flow uncontrollably, burning her cheeks as she sobbed wanting this to be over. Realizing her car had hit something causing it to stop she rolled down the window to see what had happened. It was still raining so hard it was as though someone from heaven was dumping buckets of water on earth, but at least she could make out something beside her. There, wrapped around her still running car, was a chain link fence covered in thick green weeds that stood almost five feet tall, protecting Ana and her car. “I love you John,” was all that consumed her mind as she dialed his phone number.