A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Chapter XVIII: Stormy Weather

Flies were stealing my house. Had I not had my fly swatter, they'd have picked the house up off the foundation and carried it away. Even the mozzies weren't this diabolical. 

Leaving my trakkies on the bed I walked around in my Sydney shirt I bought at the beach, dusting and polishing. Along with scratching bites and swatting flies, I was sneezing up dust. My body crackled and ached when I knelt down or when I stood back up. When I told Molly I was out of shape, I wasn't kidding. 

My skinny frame looked even smaller in my oversized shirt. My arms hung like twigs that swayed in the wind. 

Am I too skinny?

Aside from a couple of joints my body didn't feel bony. I still had womanly curves and beautiful wide hips. But I lacked in muscle and I struggled to wield a simple vacuum cleaner. Maybe doing a bit of exercise would fix that problem. Just then the phone rang and I left the bathroom mirror to answer it. 

"Hello? Hello? Hannah? It's Wanda. I called Diego and he said he'd be happy to-"

I slammed the phone back down on the hook. If I knew Wanda, her talking would drown out the dial tone and she wouldn't even know what happened for a while. Just in case I slipped the phone off the cradle and left it lying on the table, hoping no one I actually liked picked that day to call. 

Now where was I....

My stomach rumbled.

Right. Making lunch. 

**********

I lay in bed thinking I had forgotten to do something....

**********

The next day I worked outside in the garden, once in a while stopping to read my book. Angus and I had planted a bed of flowers a few months ago together and the blooms were bright and beautiful. The violets were my favourite. I pulled out plenty of intruding weeds and watered them with a tiny silver can. A few birds must have stopped by because I found peanut shell remains and scattered seeds I didn't recognise. A few earthworms crawled away when they sensed me and I helped cover them back up with my trowel. 

A large boom of thunder caught my attention. The sky was half sunny and half cloudy, with the clouds rolling in fast. Collecting my things I went back inside. As I washed up more thunder cracked and I jumped. Several years later and thunderstorms still scared me. 

This called for a security blanket.

I grabbed Mr. Kincaid too. 

All wrapped up on the couch I switched through the channels on the telly. Nothing covering the band, nothing exciting to watch. I shut it off. 

A sort of mundane boredom hung over me.

**********

"Hello?" My voice was wary and quiet. If Wanda thought she could bother me again....

"Hannah?" Brian's voice came clear through the phone and I sighed in relief. "Ang asked to check up on ya'," he said. "He got that flu bug an' he's too sick to talk."

"He's sick?" I asked distraught, slumping over. "My Angus McKinnon!" I hated when loved ones got sick. I suppose everyone did.

"He's alright, jus' a fever an' the like. No shows for a while which is lucky for him." Brian kept his cheerful attitude which made me feel a little better. "He wanted to call yesterday but it was jus' too busy around here, ya' know? But he asked to make sure you were holdin' up in the hot sun."

"I'm okay," I said omitting my most recent panic attack. "It's boring here without him. What about Georgeanne and Cliff, are they okay?"

"Cliff? He's back an' doin' fine. He jus' got to see 'em right when he was born an' he loves 'im. Says he looks jus' like Georgeanne an' the like. Name's Luke."

"That's great!" I said, rain slapping the windows. A mix of rain and hail had been bucketing all day and I almost wondered if Brian could even hear me. "I'm glad he got there okay."

"Yeah, he's been giddy all week. Listen, we're at a couple payphones an' time's runnin' out so if there's anythin' ya' want me to tell Ang at all..."

I wracked my brain for anything to tell him. Something short and quick. "Tell him...tell him I love him," I blurted out. Brian chuckled. 

"Will do, lass. Take care of yourself, then."

"You too," I said and hung up the phone. 

Right at that second a flash of lightning illuminated the room and the power went out. 

Perfect timing.

**********

I shook the torch trying to get the batteries to work. It flickered a few times then stayed steady. Wrapping my blanket tightly around myself I tiptoed through the house. Pulling the curtain back I saw the neighbourhood shrouded in dark clouds and ominous warnings. Fences blew in the wind with loose rubbish tumbling down the street. Mr. Kincaid sat on the couch, not even fazed. I tried to see my flowers in the garden bed but they were out of range. Someone's wind chimes broke off the house and smashed into the shrubs. One lone car drove slowly down the street, the wipers on high. 

I watered my potted fern and was grateful I didn't decide to plant it outside. Bridgette and Margot, inanimate as they were, seemed grateful they were inside as well. 

My torch flickered. The batteries were running low. Deciding the storm wasn't dissipating anytime soon I decided to wait it out until morning. Taking Mr. Kincaid by his paw, I trudged up the stairs and to our bedroom.

Bit of a difficult sleep.

**********

Our yard was a mess.

Flower petals strewn about, dirt and mud covering our white fence, the neighbour's fence completely blown over, and a few letterboxes smashed all over the street. Ours was still standing, albeit a little lopsided. This would take hours to clean up. But the rainbow in the sky was a nice touch. 

The power came back on a couple hours later, probably a broken power line or perhaps a tree. As the birds came flying out of their hiding places, I put on my work boots and went out to start cleaning things up.

**********

Caked in mud and leaving a trail of footprints everywhere I went, I took my boots off and tossed them back out, huffing at my carelessness. As if there wasn't enough to clean up around here. Right as I was getting the mop and bucket I heard a knock at the door. 

So help me God, if that's Popplewell....

I braced myself when I answered the door but instead I saw a tiny little girl and a woman holding an even smaller boy. The woman beamed at me. "Hi, Hannah!" The little girl waved at me from behind her mother and the little boy stared at me, unblinking. 

"Linda?"