Just Talking in the Rain

"Amen. I'll do my best to keep you safe. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes. And I thank you. This would be a terrible time to be alone."

Inside, everything looked normal. The lights worked, the two refrigerators hummed, the phone had a dial tone, and I didn't see any signs of damage. Once we had the car emptied out I did a walk around inspection and verified that all was well. The ground had caught so much water that the lawn was like a sponge, squishing underfoot as I tromped around. Two plastic chairs were missing from the back patio, but I spotted them up against the backyard wall. I decided to leave them there for now, rather than mess up the lawn by walking across it when it was so waterlogged. A wind chime under the back eaves was torn apart and missing half of its chimes. There were a couple of small piles of leaves in the backyard, where they had blown in from some neighbors' trees and been deposited where the wind eddied in the lee of the brick wall. Over in a corner was somebody's birdhouse, upside down on the ground. Around front there was no sign of distress, although there was some water on the garage floor, where it had blown in under the overhead door. In a spare bedroom a couple of windows had leaked a little around their sides and bottoms, but that was all I could see. No signs of roof leaks, nothing blown down, and no flooding.

In the family room, I found Kim watching the news on a local TV channel. "They're saying this area was protected by those hills over there. The high school here is being set up as a shelter for people whose houses are torn up."

"That's just two blocks down the street."

"Maybe we could go there and see if they need any help. Want to?"

The rain was letting up, reduced now to showers that came and went, each one lighter than the last. I got out rain jackets with hoods to keep the rain from running down our necks, and we walked to the high school to avoid a parking problem that would only get worse as the day went on. Inside, Red Cross volunteers with arm bands were directing traffic. There were more volunteers than refugees, but that was sure to change. We were directed to the gym where we set up cots. They were clumsy to handle at first, and we had to be careful not to pinch our fingers as the legs swung around and clunked into place, but after the first dozen we had the knack and they unfolded as if they were anxious to stand up and welcome the needy. As fast as we could set them up, other people grabbed them and arranged them in neat rows. Other people were walking down the rows, depositing a folded blanket on each cot, and laying a water bottle in the middle of it. They were followed by the pillow ladies, one holding a pillow case and the other dropping a pillow into it so it could be laid on the cot next to the blanket.

I straightened up to ease the growing pain in my back, and looked around. We'd been there about an hour and already a hundred cots or more were arranged on the gym floor, all ready for people who need a place to sleep. "I'm ready to take a break."

"Me too. This goes fast, but it's a lot of work." Kim waved to the coordinator with the Red Cross arm band, and he got the message. Two fresh volunteers showed up. We showed them how to set up cots and then we walked over to the back door of the gym, down a hall, and out to a loading dock where two Red Cross trucks were being emptied, while four more waited in line. Kim watched and shook her head. "They really have this down to an exact science, don't they? Food, cots, bedding, water. And so efficient. If they were a business, they could call it Disasters R Us. They know what people will need, and they get it there when it's needed, then pack it up again and get ready for the next earthquake or whatever. Amazing."

The rain had stopped. We walked around to the front of the building, where I could see a steady stream of local residents coming to help. "They don't need us any more, and I want to take it easy till my back feels better. Let's head for home." We walked back to my house, carrying our jackets over our arms so the Red Cross stickers on our shirts would show that we'd helped. Inside, Kim helped me to strip down to my underwear and put a pillow under my lower back as I lay down with a sigh. "You lie there for a while, and then I'll help you turn over and smear you up with some liniment. We can't do much more today anyway, so you might as well rest."

"What are you going to do while I'm goofing off here on the bed?"

"I want to make a few phone calls so nobody will be worried about me, and then I'm going to fix a dinner for us to eat later, in place of lunch and supper."

"Do you need me to show you where everything is?"

"I need you to lie still. No matter where you've hidden the cooking utensils, I'll find them."

"Everything in the freezers is marked."

"I know. I already looked. You've been a good boy. Remind me to put a sticker on your forehead. Would you prefer a gold star or a teddy bear?"

"My taste would lean more toward a kiss."

"There. Now close your eyes and rest."

I guess I dozed off. The business with the pillow under my back seemed to help ease the pain, and when I opened my eyes later I felt pretty good. Kim was there, helping me to roll over onto my front, and then massaging my back from neck to butt, along with spreading some liniment on and rubbing it in. When she got done I smelled like wintergreen oil and I was all tingly where she had been rubbing. She seemed to have made my muscles go slack all up and down my back, and surprisingly I felt taller than I had been, which made no sense at all to me, and I was wondering if I ought to try to figure it out as I felt myself drifting off to sleep again.

I woke up. It seemed just a few minutes later, but I noticed that the daylight was fading at my window. The clock said it was quarter past five, so I must have slept the whole afternoon away. I got up and walked into the bathroom, and what a difference! My steps felt lighter, and I realized that I must have been in some slight amount of pain with every step I took, maybe for a long time. I put on a light shirt and some lounging pajamas that I almost never used, and went to find Kim. She was reading in a big, soft chair in the family room, with her feet tucked up under her. Something smelled real good as I passed the kitchen.

She picked up her head and smiled at me, marking her page and setting the book down. "How do you feel now?"

"Like a new man. Whatever you did for me, it worked wonders. You must have magic fingers. I never expected to stay in bed this long, but I feel so much better now that I think you must have made muscles relax that were cramped up for a long time. And whatever you're cooking, smells great."

"It felt like old times, taking care of my man, rummaging through your kitchen, preparing a meal for us, and then sitting down and feeling good about what I'd done. You did something wonderful for me by being in pain and letting me take care of you. That's what we women are supposed to do, take care of our men so they can take care of us. Something about it is just so right, and as I was sitting here I realized that it's our natural role. When the Garden of Eden story was written, thousands of years ago, it was trying to tell us that we can be happy and content if we just go along with what we were created to do. What's funny about it is that you're thinking I did something wonderful for you, when actually by letting me take care of you, you were doing something wonderful for me."

"I could sure get used to having a good woman around. It's been so long. Any idea where I could find a sweet, beautiful woman to share my life with? Mind you, I don't want one with a long, complicated name that'd be hard to remember. Maybe just a single syllable would be the best. Any suggestions?"

"Suppose it started with a K. Would that feel right?"

"I think it'd be perfect. Maybe Kay or Kat or Kit or Kip or something like that. Will you help me find one, please?"

By that time I had sat down on the sofa and Kim had moved over to lie down, with her head on the arm rest and her shoulders in my lap. It was a delightful position, and I had to marvel at her ability to make everything "just so right" as she had phrased it. "Kim, you know when we were talking earlier and I said it was too early to use the L word? Do you think maybe we could use it now? Would I sound foolish if I said that I love you? Somehow it just feels right to say it now, because that's what I'm feeling."

"It's all right with me. I feel that I love you, too. All these years we've been going on bravely, living on our own, accepting the fact that we'd been left alone by things we had no control over. I wonder if we've been searching for each other and just didn't know where to look. Love makes us vulnerable, so we draw back from it because we don't want to be hurt any more. But when it's right, it's right, and there's no sense fighting it."

"This has been an intense couple of days, hasn't it? Like a lifetime of shared experience, all condensed into a short span of time." I was silent for several seconds, thinking about what it all meant. "Maybe the storm is telling us that we never know how much time we have, and we'd better stick together and make the best of things."

"Together. Yes. That's the key word, together. We weathered the storm together, we closed up my house and came over here together, we looked at the results of the storm's destruction together, we went out and did something to help others together, and here we are now, together. It all felt good, nothing forced, nothing awkward, nothing we couldn't keep doing for a long time, together. Yes, I'd say that love is exactly the right way to describe what we've found." She squirmed around a little and looked up at me with those eyes, and I could feel the last of my defenses being breached.

I started to say something, then stopped and ran it through my head one more time to be sure how it would sound. "Do you think we could make this a permanent arrangement? I'd really like that."

"Yes, I think we could, and I think we should. In fact, I think we'd be silly not to. Please, let's try to spend our time finding happiness, together."

And so we did.