She rubs the sweat off her face for the thousandth time. She opens the door that leads to the back alley, hoping to catch a gust of cool air. She checks the oven temperature one more time, then sits on the doorway step and takes a deep breath.
She remembers she forgot again to buy the pregnancy test. She likens herself to a person falling off a high riser and mumbling "now is not the time to panic yet". She wonders if the joke went like that. She's always been shit telling jokes.
There is an old transistor radio on the shelf, all covered in flour dust. She tried turning it on on her first night at the bakery. It didn't work. But that was months ago. Maybe someone from the day shift had it repaired. Maybe it was just the batteries, she thinks.
She gets up and walks up to the shelf. She turns the radio on. She turns the dial, looking for some music station. All she finds is radio static and talk shows where angry people nag about things she couldn't care less. At the end of the dial she catches one last station. At first she thinks it's more static, but the noise has a different feel. It takes her a few seconds to identify the sound that comes out of the radio:
Rain.
She frowns and toys with the knob, trying to fine-tune the station, until she admits to herself it is what it is. A radio station playing rain sound. She chuckles and shakes her head at the absurd of filling valuable air time with that, but she leaves the dial where it is. She turns up the volume and goes back to the doorway.
She steps out to the back alley and looks up. A few stars still shine in the strip of night sky visible between buildings, which makes the rain sound at her back even more incongruous. She sits back on the step and closes her eyes. She remembers rainy nights back in the day, before he left, cuddling in bed with the blinds all up. In between lovemaking, he would joke about the perv watching them from the roof across the street, and she would giggle and cover herself up with the sheets, and he would pull them back, smiling, and they would eye each other, one eyebrow raised playfully, and that would be that, while the rain hit the window panes.
That would be that.
The alarm bleeps. Time to take out the bread loaves. She gets up and drags her feet to the oven. While she dons the padded gloves to handle the metal trays, a fat rain drop falls on her cheek.
