A hopeful sign?

Last of the furniture carted away. The television with its infinite channels long gone. Kids planted on boxes, awaiting Mom. Neither protested too much. Marginally disappointed.

This will likely be the last time I wash my hands in the kitchen sink. Water company scheduled to shut it off by sundown. Still flowing reliably. Kara couldn’t stand it. “What’s wrong with using the sink in the bathroom, Gerry?”

Nothing, darling. The kitchen sink means nothing.

How long before the water stops flowing?

A house can’t stand without water.

Life itself…

Ruel barks at the roofers. The five-year-old collie will miss the backyard. His personal proving grounds. Ladders prudently staged in front of the house. Ruel runs in circles, trampling brown grass, oblivious to future returns.

Bradley will take him. Yes? Younger brothers owe an eternal debt to their elder siblings. Will Bradley allow me to crash on his couch? More importantly, will Morgan? Never warmed to that “most cutting candor” I utterly failed to disguise.

Kara pulls in front of the house, idling before the freshly clipped lawn. I know what’s expected. I knew it from first kiss. We were at our best, dating. Indestructible so long as we lived apart, interacting in controlled bursts.

An absolute catastrophe married to a mortgage.

The kids escape the nearly empty residence. They scream “Mom” and flee the forlorn plot. Kara mechanically pops the locks on the car’s doors and the squealing pair disappear into the backseat.

I approach the mid-priced sedan accompanied by a symphony of hammers.

No chance of reconciliation but perhaps a thawing of tensions: a reluctant détente.

I mouth words, genuinely positive ones.

Kara’s focused on safely getting the kids buckled in. She then pulls away from the curb. A leisurely, twenty-miles-per-hour dismissal of everything that has been…

I exist!

What now?

Rumbling skies. Five minutes until noon. Lunchtime. I turn, assess the state of the roof. The bare minimum is all that’s required in a white-hot market…

Plod across stubby blades of grass and settle in a lawn chair with a busted middle nylon strap. The cooler I’d put out for the workers holds eleven cans of beer and three bottles of water. A beer wins out.

The best moments in life occur when no one’s paying attention.

Widely spaced raindrops threaten a sodden outcome.

The roofers descend. Renaldo approaches, opens the cooler, extracts a beer.

I imagine foam spray striking the side of my face as he pops the tab. A locker room celebrant amongst wild-eyed teammates.

“Lost a guy to lightning,” Renaldo says, and takes a prolonged swallow.

I sip. “Killed him?”

“No…” Renaldo studies the storm-clouded sky. “But he was no good afterward. Convalescent home. Visited him, occasionally. Every time he heard thunder he’d holler for an orderly to push him onto the screened-in porch.”

“Why?”

“I guess ’cause he didn’t see it coming. Figured it couldn’t touch him a second time, not if he kept a close eye on it.” He shakes his head. “Peculiar dude.”

No lightning visible. Just a low rumble and hot rain.

Renaldo’s crew move tools and materials out of harm’s way.

“Anyway, we’ll be back … two hours…” He finishes the beer, crunches the can, and expertly tosses it into a garbage bin located near the front door.

“I … will be right here.”

He looks at me and then over his shoulder, at the open carport six feet away. “Yeah, sure.”

Renaldo and the crew split into two groups and depart. A clattering van covered in Bondo fillers and a shiny pickup truck with an extended crew cab. I lost my virginity in the backseat of a pickup. Farmer’s daughter. Very assertive gal. All hope lost had it not been for her charitable guidance.

Lost and never found.

The rain strengthens. I finish the first beer, drop the can, and retrieve another. A strong shower hammers the ground for ten delightful minutes. Once it’s moved past, I scan the sky for the bow in the clouds—God’s handshake between heaven and earth.

Ruel is quiet, likely huddled in the shoddy excuse for a doghouse I’d fitfully constructed during that now strangely remote first year, when communication had seemed so effortless.

My brother won’t take Ruel. Not a chance. Perhaps I can include him with the house. No extra charge…

There! Banded colors arc just above the low-hanging clouds.

Playfully stamp feet in puddles awash in beery foam.

Thunder rumbles. Too far away to raise unwelcome hackles.

Spared?

I recline, contentedly steaming beneath a majestic midday sun.

Thomas Vogt is an aspiring poet, photographer, and city planner in Sacramento, California. He enjoys capturing the ‘every day’ through a pen, a lens, or behind a mug at your local coffee shop.