Driving in the Rain

I used to love driving in the rain. I loved the steady pitter-patter as water hit the car, and the rhythmic whoosh of the windshield wipers. I loved how I felt the safest in the car during a thunderstorm. Encompassed in the car’s warmth, I could listen to the rain as it pounded the roof and watch as droplets raced down the windows. I remember driving on the highway, the rain drumming so loudly that individual raindrops turned into one continuous sound, muting the sound of my family in the car. Then, for a few seconds as we drove under an overpass, it stopped. And for two long seconds, there was silence. Sweet, blissful silence that lasted for only a few moments but seemed to stretch into eternity. I loved those short seconds, that stillness where I could still hear the muted barrage of the rain outside. We’d come out from under the overpass and the rain would start again louder than before, those moments of silence a fleeting memory.

For me, life was like that. A constant assault of people and problems and pandemonium, life seemed to build to a crescendo that I didn’t know was in the score. Every day was like driving in the rain, but I was safe in the car that was my family. Life was that long beating of the rain blurring together, battering at my windows and slamming on my roof. Until it stopped. Those short seconds of silence felt sweeter than before, and I could finally release the breath I had been holding. But life was more similar to driving in the rain than I knew. Because, just like the rain, it started again.

“C’mon, honey, breathe!” I feel frantic hands beating my chest, and cold fingers pry open my mouth only to be replaced by warm lips. Air is forced into my lungs, and the muffled sound of sirens gradually becomes louder. All I can see is black, but as I regain consciousness red and blue lights flash in front of my eyelids. I gasp and open my eyes to find the relieved face of a paramedic, her warm brown eyes staring back at me.

“That’s it, sweetie. Now, I need you to sit up slowly.” I do as she says, my blurry mind trying to piece together what my eyes are seeing. I’m soaking wet and on the bank of a river. Paramedics and police run around shining flashlights into its dark water as men with oxygen tanks start wading in. The moon reflects off of the murky water, its bright white light lost in a cacophony of blues and reds. My paramedic grabs my wrist to take my pulse, then shines a small light into my eyes.

“Hon, can you tell me the last thing you remember?”

“I… I… the bridge. We were driving home from Alli’s show when, when…” My voice is clogged in my throat, and I gasp on a sob. “My dad… my dad lost control of the car. It was raining and the tire slipped and we broke through the barrier and… and…” I start to shake, and the paramedic grabs my shoulders.

“This is really important, sweetie, I need you to think. Who else was in the car with you? How many people went into the river?”

I try to think; try to clear my head of the terrible thoughts racing through my mind. “Just me, Mom, Dad, and Alli. We were driving back from the school after seeing Alli’s performance… Where are they? Where are my parents? I want my mom. Please, please just bring me to my mom.”

“Oh, sweetheart—” But shouts from the divers interrupt her.

“We’ve got a body!”

I can’t breathe. “Where are my parents? Where’s my sister? They were in the car with me. You have to find them. You have to find them! They got out of the car, I know it. I know they got out. Please, they probably swam away. Tell the divers to look downriver, tell them! Tell them!”

The paramedic shakes her head sadly. “Honey, I’m so sorry.”

And then I see her. Two divers drag a waterlogged body from the river, my little sister’s beautiful blonde hair dragged down by water. As they come past, I look into the vacant blue eyes of my sister, so like my own, and everything goes black.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Mechanical tones break the silence in the room as I slowly open my eyes. Everything is white. White sheets, white pillow, white walls. Even the machine that woke me up is white, with a black screen and a green line drawing out my heartbeat. I’m lying in a bed, and there’s a needle in my arm that’s attached to tubes. There’s a woman sleeping in a chair in the corner, her dirty blonde hair covering her face.

“Mom?” My voice comes out in a croak. “Mom! Mom!” My heart starts beating quicker and the beeps grow faster and the accident didn’t happen it was just a dream because my mom is here, my mom is alive! My mom is here and she’s with me.

My mom wakes up and I see her face. Except it’s not the face I’m expecting, it’s the face of a woman I haven’t seen in years.

When I meet her eyes, she jolts upright. “You’re awake! Oh thank God, I was afraid you’d never… you’d never…” She swallows a sob and sends me a watery smile. “Oh Kara, I’m so happy to see your open eyes.”

“Aunt Sarah? What are you doing here? Where’s my mom?”

“Kara… do you remember the accident?” I nod, not wanting to hear whatever she has to say next. “I’m so sorry. You were the only one they could find before… before…” She reaches out to hold my hand and flinches when I recoil. Because she’s lying. She has to be lying. My parents are alive. I know they are. They have to be. “Listen…” She looks like she’s going to try to take my hand again, but stops, her hand hanging limply. “I know your dad and I aren’t…weren’t… close, but I’m still his sister, and your aunt. I want to be here for you.”

I look at the woman who’s basically a stranger, her green eyes so different yet the same as my dad’s. For most of my life, my aunt has just been a card on birthdays and Christmases. This name in a family tree is now the only family I have, because my family… my family is… The beep beep beep of the machine turns into the plop plop plop of the start of a rainstorm.

I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to leave this hospital. When I do, I’ll have to go bury my family. I’ll have to talk about how vibrant my sister was, how much she loved performing and how much everyone who knew her loved her. I’ll have to talk about my dad, his incessant jokes that I pretended to hate, how I pretended to roll my eyes when he made some inane pun. And my mom. I’ll have to talk about my mom. I’ll have to talk about her endless love for her family, how graceful she was in the midst of our chaos.

I can’t go to the funeral. I want to stay frozen on this couch, frozen in this moment of time where my family isn’t dead because my family can’t be dead they can’t be dead they can’t be dead they can’t be dead they can’t be dead they can’t be—

“Kara? Please, say something.”

My aunt’s eyes are searching, and she looks desperate for me to answer her. For me to say anything. I can’t give her what she wants. Instead, I turn on my side and pull the covers over my head, the sound of soft rain the only thing I hear as I drift back into sleep.

I was dead for a little over three minutes. For two hundred and eight seconds, my heart stopped beating and air stopped moving through my lungs. I don’t remember anything from those seconds, but I do know one thing: Physically dying is nothing compared to the pain of being left behind.

“Ms. March? I need your signature on these forms.” The lawyer’s sharp voice jolts me out of my reverie, and I realize that he’s holding out a pile of papers and a pen. His round face remains emotionless as he reduces the lives of my family to a signature on a piece of paper. My hand reaches out to grab my parents’ will, and the pen shakes as I sign my name.

“Good. Now that that’s settled, Ms. March, there are some decisions you need to make. Now, you turn eighteen in seven months, correct?”

I can hear the rain start to drizzle. “I—yes, seven months.”

The lawyer nods, and I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from his hands as pudgy fingers put papers in a briefcase. “Until you’re eighteen and legally an adult, you won’t have complete control of your parents’ trust. I understand you’re about to start your senior year of high school, and while it is not required that you finish, I highly recommend it. Now, your parents left everything to you and your sister, who is also deceased.” His hands straighten his tie as he clears his throat, and the drizzle turns into a pour. “Luckily, your parents have been putting money away for your college tuition for years, so you should be comfortable.” His worn brown suit is so ugly against the bright flower pattern of my living room couch, and I hate him. His chubby fingers and detached face don’t belong here.

“Kara.” A gentle touch on my hand and the soft voice of my aunt quiets the building rainstorm in my head, and I wish it wasn’t her voice that clears the rain. “Kara, you don’t need to decide anything right now.” She turns towards the lawyer. “My brother appointed me guardian before he died, so I’ll be moving here for the next few months to help Kara and settle my brother’s affairs. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have another appointment.” Sarah stands and runs her hands down her black skirt, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles. She leaves the room to gather her purse but the lawyer and I remain sitting, the sudden silence overwhelming.

After a couple of moments, he stands. “Well, I must be off. Ms. March,” he says, his voice softer now. “Please do accept my sincerest sympathies.” He takes my hand and gives it two awkward pats, clearing his throat again. Then he turns and finally leaves, giving me one last sympathetic glance. I don’t want to feel his sympathy; I don’t want to feel bad for hating him.

I don’t want to feel anything.

I’m sitting in my car, paralyzed. My hands are frozen on the wheel and all I can hear is rain. It’s pummeling my head and won’t stop and all I can hear is rain. Water is pounding my roof and my sister is screaming. Why won’t she stop screaming? Screams muffle the rain and I realize that I’m the one screaming, and that Sarah is banging on my car window.

“Kara! Kara! What’s wrong?” She opens my car door and I spill out, falling to the ground.

“I can’t do it. Please don’t make me please don’t make me please don’t make me,” I sob. I can’t get behind the wheel of that car. Of any car. Somewhere in the back of my mind, some rational part of my brain is trying to tell me that it’s not my fault it’s not my fault that I wasn’t the one driving but I can’t tune out the deafening rain enough to hear it. It’s only been a week since I woke up in the hospital, but sometimes I still feel like I’m in that car, like I’m still in that river.

Sarah’s trying to calm me, but I curl into a ball on the ground. I don’t know why, but just the thought of her touch repulses me. I can’t bear to be to touched by the woman who’s trying to take my parents’ place.

“Kara, please… just let me…” She sits down beside me, but I make my body as small as I can. When I don’t respond, she sighs and gets up, and I pretend not to notice when she wipes her cheeks.

I stay like that for hours, curled in a ball in the driveway. It isn’t until later that I realize I’ve been using my backpack as a pillow, and that I’ve missed the first day of senior year.

Will I always be this broken?

I walk into school just as the bell rings. It’s been three weeks since the funeral, three weeks since our car went off the bridge. Twenty-one days since the rain started and hasn’t stopped. I haven’t been able to drive since my failed attempt on the first day of school, and today is my first day back. I get to my first class and try to slip in unnoticed, but as soon as people see me the whole room quiets. The thoughts of my classmates are written on their faces. Did you hear about her parents? They went over the Old North Bridge in their car. I heard that she was in the car with them. God, she’s gotta be fucked up from that.

The pounding of the rain drowns out the teacher’s voice and the drops are falling faster and faster until I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take anything anymore. I can’t take the pitiful looks from everyone, I can’t take how everyone walks on eggshells around me. I can feel the anger and the rain building and building until I hate them. I hate my dad for losing control of the car and going over the bridge. I hate my sister for having a performance on a rainy night. I hate Sarah for only showing up when I have no one else. When I have no choice. I hate my mom for not being here when I need her most. And I hate myself. I hate myself for hating them. Hate and thunder are crashing together in my head and rain is falling from my eyes, and I realize that Ms. Hart has stopped speaking and everyone is staring at me.

Ms. Hart comes over to my seat, bending down to speak quietly. “Kara, do you need to use the bathroom pass?” Her eyes are kind behind her red-rimmed glasses. I nod my head silently, not bothering to wipe the tears streaming down my cheeks. She hands me the pass and I walk out, staying in the bathroom for the rest of the period.

When the bell rings I hear the sound of the door opening. I curl up in my stall, trying to make myself invisible as I wait for whoever it is to leave.

“Kar? Kara, I know you’re in here.” The familiar voice of my best friend Emily floats through the stalls.

“Leave me alone, Em. I’m not in the mood to talk.”

“There you are.” Her brown curls bounce as her head pops over the top of the stall.

“I mean it. Leave me alone.” I push the stall door open, forcing Emily to stumble back.

“We’ve barely spoken since the…” She catches herself. “We’ve barely spoken in over a week. C’mon, Kar. Let’s cut class and go get fro-yo. You know you’re craving some of that peanut butter swirl.” She deflates when I glare at her. “Please, Kara,” she says, softer now. “Please, just tell me how to help you.”

“I’m sorry, Em. I just can’t deal with anyone right now. I just feel so angry and sad all the time, and the rain won’t stop. It never stops…” I sob into Emily’s open arms. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” She rubs my back. “Please, Kara. Promise me you’ll talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be me. Talk to Sarah, or maybe a counselor, or someone else. Promise me you’ll do it.”

“Okay, Emily. I promise.” I don’t know why I lie, but I do.

It’s funny the things you remember. I can remember the smell of my mom’s perfume as she kissed me goodnight, but I can’t remember the feel of her hugs. I can’t remember exactly what the inside of my grandmother’s house looked like, but I can remember the countless drives over the Old North Bridge on the way to her house.

“C’mon, Mommy, you have to do it too!” Alli giggles as our mom makes a show of putting her hands in the air.

“And why, my sweet girls, am I doing this?” My dad, who’s driving, looks over at her and laughs. She looks so silly, her hands in the air and her feet on the dashboard.

“Don’t you know by now, Molly? We’re going over the bridge.”

“Yeah, Mommy. You always have to put your hands in the air and hold your breath as you go over the bridge. So if the bridge falls, we’re already swimming!”

“Alright, here we goooo! Hold your breath!” Alli and I suck in big breaths as we cross over the bridge, our cheeks bursting. My mom puffs her cheeks out, and my dad just keeps driving, a smile on his face.

I would give anything to have my family back. Anything.

“So, how was school today? Was anybody dressed up in an ugly Christmas sweater?” Sarah and I sit at the kitchen counter, take-out containers spread all over the surface.

“It was fine.” I twirl lo mein around my fork but don’t lift it to my mouth. We sit in silence for a couple of minutes; the only sound in the room the scraping of Sarah’s fork and knife.

“How’s Emily? I hardly see her around anymore.”

Neither do I.

After I sobbed in her arms on the first day of school, Emily was always around. When I was too tired to get out of bed, she would come over with frozen yogurt, or a cheesy romantic comedy. When I skipped school because it hurt too much to drive and Sarah was at work, she drove fifteen minutes out of her way to pick me up. And when I sat in the car in the school parking lot, too drained to go to class, she sat with me in silence, letting first period pass by. But eventually, I think it became too much for her. I think I became too much for her. The frozen yogurt gradually came less and less; the rides to school diminished. She waves when we pass in the hall, but we haven’t talked in weeks.

“Emily’s fine.”

“Are you hungry? You haven’t been eating much.”

“Why do you even care?” I mutter. Sarah hears me, and her fork clatters to her plate. I see tears in her eyes, but I ignore them.

“Kara, please, I’m trying here. I know I haven’t been the best aunt—”

“Best? You haven’t been any aunt. You weren’t even here until you had to be.” I push away from the counter and scrape my uneaten food into the trash. When I turn around, Sarah opens her mouth, but I beat her to it.

“You’re not my mom or dad, okay? You may be my dad’s sister, but that didn’t mean you had to move here, or stay in the house with me. I’m fine. So you can just run back to wherever you came from. I don’t care.”

I have to get away from here, from her. I go upstairs to my room, not caring enough to even slam my door. Right now, Sarah’s tears disgust me. I haven’t cried since I broke down in the bathroom at school. I had cried the rain out, leaving only grey skies and rumbling thunder behind. I got my wish.

I don’t feel anything.

My alarm goes off, but I’ve been lying awake for hours. Today’s the day I become a legal adult, March 19th. Eighteen years old. What a fucking joke. I can hear Sarah’s feet croaking on the floorboards as she gets ready for work. I don’t want get out of bed, but I’m like this every morning. I do eventually get up and go to school, but I’m a ghost. I sit in class and take notes because I know it would’ve crushed my mom if I didn’t graduate, but I don’t talk or raise my hand. Sarah and I have been living in our own orbits since Christmas, the silence between us deafening. Some small part of me knows that Sarah is trying, but I can’t stop myself from being angry that she’s here and my parents aren’t.

When I don’t hear any more footsteps, I slip out from under the covers. I trip as I get up, knocking into my bedside table. The picture of Alli and me falls to the ground and the glass smashes. A spider web of cracks now covers the smiling face of my sister, and I shatter. It’s too much. She should be here. She should’ve woken me up by jumping on my bed, singing the obnoxious birthday song she’s sung since we were little kids and my mom made the mistake of sending her to theatre camp. My mom should’ve been here to put candles in pancakes and waffles, and my dad should’ve been here to make stupid jokes about how I was eighteen going on eighty.

For the first time in months, I start to cry. I sit there on the floor of my room while the swollen rain clouds of my eyes finally release the rain they’ve been holding for months. The sound of my sobs must’ve made its way to Sarah’s room, because she comes rushing in. She surprises me and doesn’t say anything, just slides down next to me. What surprises me more is how I lean my head on her shoulder, soaking her suit jacket with my tears. In this moment, I finally recognize my dad in her green eyes.

Sarah runs her hands through my hair, reminding me so much of my mom that I keep my eyes closed, focusing on the feeling of her gentle fingers running through my hair. We sit like that for what feels like hours, until then rain has turned into a drizzle and my eyes are dried out.

“You know,” she starts softly, “I was only fifteen when your parents had you. I was ten years younger than him, so we were never really close. But I was so excited to have a niece.” I open my eyes and look at her, and she smiles. “I imagined dressing you up and teaching you about boys when you were older. I didn’t think of you as a niece. I never had any sisters; it was just your dad and I. Your grandparents had a lot of trouble having your dad and me, so when I came they stopped trying. When your dad told me your mom was pregnant, it felt like I was getting a little sister.” Sarah’s eyes are far away, and I don’t want to break the spell. I close my eyes and don’t say anything.

“And then, a few years after you were born, your family moved across the country. I grew up and went to college, and your dad and I stopped talking. Nothing happened, we just drifted apart. Your mom was pregnant again with Alli, and I was focused on boys.” She laughs quietly. “It all seems so stupid now. You and Alli became names to send birthday cards to, and you both grew up without me.”

I look up and she smiles sadly. “I know we haven’t been close, but please, Kara. Please let me in. I know I’m not your mom, and I could never replace your sister, but I am your family. Let me be your family.”

I nod slowly and a lone ray of sunlight breaks through my grey sky. Sarah doesn’t say anything; she just goes back to stroking my hair. Her gentle hands and quiet breaths lull me to sleep. Right before I’m lost to my dreams, I hear a muffled whisper.

“Happy birthday, Kara.”

“Ms. Kara Jane March.” The audience claps as I make my way across the stage towards the principal. He’s waiting there with my diploma, and I try not to stumble as I walk towards him. Ms. Hart stands next to him, and hugs me when I pass.

“Oh, Kara. Good job, honey.” Her eyes are just as kind as they were my first day back at school, and she squeezes me tight. I thank her and look to where Aunt Sarah is sitting. She’s cheering the loudest, and the rain that had started falling this morning when I woke up, and realized that my parents would never see my graduate high school, slows to a stop. I don’t see the empty chairs and who should’ve been there. I see my aunt, clapping so hard I can see her hands turning red and trying to wipe away tears. I lift my face to the sky. I see some clouds, but clouds will never go away, not completely. Instead, I choose to let the sunshine wash over me.