The Passing Storm. Emily Rennie

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СКАЧАТЬ set my drink down on a cork coaster and chose a red album from the top of the pile.

      Pictures of Mom and my real father when they were dating and first married jumped from the pages. At first I laughed at the crazy clothes and hairstyles they had. Then tears started to form as I looked at pictures of Dad, who had died in a car accident when I was six. I remembered him putting me on his shoulders as we walked through the trees on a trail leading to the ocean. I could still feel his strong hands holding my legs, keeping me safe and steady. I could hear his deep and comforting voice asking me if I could smell the salty air as we grew closer to the water. Gabby was the spitting image of him with her blond hair and blue eyes. I took after Mom, with curly auburn hair and dark eyes. Mom called us Fall and Spring because our colors were so opposite. In the pictures, Mom looked so young and happy, unaware that her new husband would soon die tragically and leave her with two young girls to raise alone for several years.

      The next album I picked up was one I hadn’t seen before; full of pictures from Grandma’s younger years like the photo on the dresser. As I turned the pages, I got a better sense of who Grandma was. She always had a twinkle in her eye, but I could clearly see that in the years before her sister Ginny died she was truly the life of the party. Her jubilant, bubbly personality shone through in every photo she was in. The last page of the album had a large photo of Ginny. Her brown doe-eyes stared into the camera, forever frozen in time at age fifteen. With just a hint of smile she exuded a look of cool confidence well beyond her years. What I gathered from Mom and Grandma was that Ginny was the shy, quiet match to Grandma’s outgoing personality.

      Like Yin and Yang, Grandma had once said.

      Like Fall and Spring, my mother always teased Gabby and me.

      I tried to imagine what it must have been like for Grandma to lose her. As much as Gabby and I fought and got on each other’s nerves, I couldn’t imagine life without her. I was so deep in thought I barely heard my name softly spoken.

      “Yes?” I said automatically, looking up and expecting to see Grandma standing in the doorway, back from shopping.

      No one was there.

      Slow tingles crept into my legs and arms like icy tentacles, freezing me onto the couch in fear.

      “Hello?” I said, straining to hear someone in the other room. My chest rose and fell quickly as I began to breathe faster. The silence in the house was unbearable. I wanted to get up and go into the other room, or outside, but I felt rooted to the spot. After what seemed like an eternity, I set the photo album back under the table, and slowly stood up. Summoning courage I bolted into the family room and turned the TV on just to hear noise. I shivered as the nervousness slowly left me, and cautiously looked around to make sure there wasn’t someone in the house.

      The voice had been so real, as if someone standing right next to me had said it. Mom would say my imagination was running away with me. I took deep breaths and tried to concentrate on the television.

      “Anna, are you ready to go swimming?” Gabby ran inside from the garage and sped past me to put her swimsuit on, unable to contain her excitement.

      “Are we going now?” I asked Grandma, who was following Gabby through the door with her arms full of grocery bags. I headed out to the car to bring the rest of the bags in. The air in the garage was heavy and humid.

      “Well, Libby said to come over anytime after two,” Grandma said from the kitchen, “and when Gabby found out it was two-thirty she just couldn’t wait, so I said we could go now.”

      “Okay, I’ll help you put the groceries away and get my suit on,” I said, returning to the cool relief of the kitchen.

      “Make sure you put on sunscreen, both of you.”

      Libby had been Grandma’s nearest neighbor since Mom was a girl, although “nearest” was a relative term, because it took about ten minutes to walk to her house. Libby’s husband had also died, so she and Grandma saw each other several times a week. They got their hair done, played rummy, and generally kept each other company. Libby was tiny. She couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds or been taller than five feet. But her hair added about another foot. It was the biggest hair I’d ever seen. She colored it blond, and if anyone asked her about it, she protested that it was her natural color, then she’d lean over and wink and whisper that she’d been dying her hair so long she had no idea what her natural color really was.

      I couldn’t believe how hot it was walking over to Libby’s. I thought my rubber flip-flops would melt right into my feet. I wondered why Grandma didn’t want to drive, but I knew she liked to get her exercise.

      “Hotter ‘n Hell’s kitchen!” Grandma exclaimed, fanning herself with her wide straw-brimmed hat. She had long linen pants on, and I couldn’t imagine how much hotter she must be. “Oh Lord, look at my flower bed. Those flowers are as dry as a desert dune. Gabby, you put your sandals back on, girl!” she said, shaking her head. “You’ll be sorry if you step on one of those goatheads.”

      Gabby stopped dead in her tracks. “Goat heads?” she squeaked, slowly turning to look for a bloody, severed head on the dirt road.

      “Oh, shoot, not a real goat’s head, but a nasty, spiky weed that sure won’t feel good if you step on it.” Gabby’s shoulders relaxed in relief and she quickly put her sandals back on.

      After the hot walk, we were happy when Libby opened her door and let us in to the cool comfort of her air-conditioned house. “Well, my word!” she said, looking at Gabby and me. “Y’all can’t be Anna and Gabby. You’re much too big!”

      “It’s us!” Gabby protested, not understanding the joke.

      “It’s just wonderful to see you again, girls, and Ashley’s happy to have some friends to play with. I’ll get your Grandma some iced tea and y’all go ahead and find Ashley in the family room.”

      Libby’s husband had smoked, and the house smelled strongly of cigarettes even though it’d been over ten years since Mr. Watson had passed away. The house was filled with mismatched furniture, overflowing bookshelves, and plants in every corner. Grandma liked to say Libby had more crap than a cow field. Grandma was full of funny old sayings.

      “Hi Ashley,” Gabby said shyly.

      “Hi Gabby,” Ashley replied without looking at us. I waved and said hello also, and Ashley’s reply was so quiet I could barely hear her. I knew that after about only five minutes both girls would be squealing with happiness as they got reacquainted and remembered how much fun they had together.

      “Y’all wanna go in the pool?” Ashley asked.

      “Yeah, let’s go!” Gabby replied, her earlier excitement returning.

      Gabby wasn’t a very strong swimmer yet, so she had to wear floaties on her arms. I think she was a little embarrassed at first, because Ashley was younger and swam well without any help from inflatable plastic rings. But any self-consciousness was short-lived, and almost immediately the girls were splashing and playing as if they spent every day together.

      I floated on my back on a thick foam pad, drifting leisurely around the deep end away from the girls. Above the girls’ splashing I could hear Grandma and Libby chatting about the people and events that shaped their everyday world. Someone was back in the hospital. Someone else didn’t show up at church last week. Another’s grandson was graduating from military school. I noticed that Libby had a lot of flowers in her backyard. I wondered СКАЧАТЬ