Following in the rain

“Can you unlock the door?” Carol shouted into the van’s window.  Her hands were full of plastic grocery bags. She held an open umbrella between her chin and shoulder. The sound of the van’s locks clicked and she pulled open the sliding side door. 

“Why are you bringing all that stuff?” Ed asked as he turned to look at her from the driver’s seat. 

“These are snacks!” she said, holding up the bags briefly.  She tucked them behind her seat, slammed the side door and jumped into the front. “This is quite the adventure” she exclaimed, buckling her seat belt. They were parked in the lower lot of Pryor Hill High School. Ed turned the knob for the wipers and they sat as the van’s black arms waved lazily back and forth. 

“Remind me again why we are leaving at midnight to follow the band bus?” Ed asked as he pointed to a school bus that had been painted knighthood blue. The words, Pryor Hill Fighting Knights, were stenciled in black paint on the side. 

“Because the football team is lending the marching band the bus and we couldn’t get it until after their game tonight. Also, the kids will sleep while we travel so it’s one less night that everyone will need to pay for a hotel.” Carol glanced over and saw that Ed had taken up both cup holders with his two mugs of coffee.  “And…..it’s a chance for us to spend time together, one on one, right?” She smiled and nudged him with her elbow. “Plus, there isn’t enough room on the bus for the larger instruments.” Carol glanced back at the wall of black instrument cases that the band director had managed to squeeze into the trunk and back seats. The headlights on the bus turned on. Ed put the van into drive and followed it out of the lot.  

“Finally," he muttered. It was an eight hour drive until their scheduled breakfast stop at the Shoney's in North Carolina.“They had better include me as a ‘driver’ and give me a free breakfast” Ed stated flatly.

“Of course they will,” Carol said. After a pause she laughed,“Remember when Ben was five and he called it ‘Show mes’? Take me to ‘Show me’s’ mama!’ he’d say.” She smiled to herself and looked at Ed expectantly. He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel and stared ahead at the road. After ten minutes, Carol turned and watched out the window. She was a little surprised by the weather. She had checked online twice and it was supposed to be clear skies. 

By the time they got onto route 81 the rain was coming down harder. Ed had the wipers on the lowest setting.  He liked to see how long he could go without increasing the speed. The distorted shapes of trees and power lines whizzing past always made Carol feel motion sick. She glanced at him but didn’t say anything. Not worth the argument, she thought. 

Ed spent the first two hours of the drive in silence. Carol listened to a true crime podcast through her generic air pods.  She only listened to episodes about crimes on the West coast.  If the stories started getting too close to home she would get paranoid, and stop talking to neighbors. When Ed started on his second cup of coffee, Carol adjusted her seat belt and reached behind her to pull out a plastic container of washed grapes.  She ripped off a paper towel and placed it on her lap.  Grabbing a handful of grapes, she handed the container over to Ed. 

“Do you know what I think is one of the most beautiful and underrated songs of the 1980’s?” she asked. “Remember that movie Ernest Goes to Camp?” 

“Is that the one where he’s electrocuted? Or the one with the smart dog?”

“It’s the one where they are trying to stop the camp from being bulldozed and Ernest keeps getting poison ivy” she says, waving her hand. “Anyway, he sings that song, ‘Gee, I’m glad it’s raining’. It’s about the rain covering his sadness because no one can see him crying.” She sings a few lines but Ed doesn’t seem to listen.

“I never understood why people found him funny,” he interrupted, “I was never a fan of slapstick comedy.  It’s just kind of….dumb.” Carol pulled off a grape to eat. She rolled it around with her tongue until it was the same temperature as her mouth. When she bit into it, the sweetness was disappointing.

She watched the kids on the bus in front of them. The lights inside the bus weren’t dimmed. The large rear window shone like a movie screen in the darkness. None of the kids appeared to be trying to sleep.  They leaned in to talk with each other across the aisle. She could tell they were laughing. She couldn’t see their son Ben. He was probably sitting at the front with the rest of the Freshmen. The kids in the last rows looked huge. Their bodies had already made that transition from awkward teens to adult sized people. 

She wondered if Ben was going to be as tall as Ed. She remembered when they first met, Ed had seemed so tall and skinny.  Her head rested exactly at his collarbone.  He called it the “perfect kissing height” because he could kiss the top of her head when she leaned against him during the school dances. She couldn’t remember the last time he had kissed her head. Out her window, two raindrops chase each other.  They came to a leaf that was plastered on the glass and separated. Suddenly, the silence was broken.

“What the crap!” Ed shouted.  He jerked the van quickly into the right lane.  The movement made Carol bump her head against the window. 

“Jeez, Edward! What’s going on?” Carol rubbed the side of her forehead. When he moved the van to the shoulder, he leaned back in her chair and gripped the overhead handle. 

“Why are we stopping?” she asked looking around, “Do we have a flat?”

“That was a turtle!” he yelled and opened his door.

“What? Where are you going?” Carol asked.

Edward jumped out of the car and took off running across the highway. Carol turned to look out after him.  Between the darkness and raindrops, she could just barely make out his shape.  His body looked jagged. He was using his phone as a flashlight.  She followed its soft glow and saw him bend down in the middle of the road.  A few minutes later, he threw open the driver’s side door and sat, letting out a deep breath. 

“Can you believe that?” he asked.  He shook his hair and a few droplets hit Carol in the face. “That was wild!” Ed looked over at Carol with a large grin. She blinked slowly and wiped her cheek with the sleeve of her shirt. He pulled a few tissues out of the box and started to wipe off his glasses.  “A turtle,” he said breathlessly, as if that was the only explanation needed.  “Don’t worry, I put him on the side of the road he was heading towards.” 

Carol stared at him in silence.

“I put him on that side.” Edward explained, pointing across the highway, “you know, so that he wouldn’t turn around and try to cross again.” Carol didn’t say anything but made the effort of looking at where he had pointed. This was just a gesture since it wouldn't have been possible to see anything in the dark.  Ed turned the keys in the ignition and switched the heat setting to defrost. He put on his left turn signal then pulled back onto the highway. 

Glancing over, he saw Carol drawing a careful circle in the condensation that had gathered at the bottom of her window. The sound of the wipers thumped out a beat, like a metronome. 

“Don’t worry,” he said, “We’ll catch up with them at Shoney’s.” 

“Okay,” she said simply and she started a new circle. The first one had become a series of drips.  Ed looked at Carol and then back at the rain.  He reached his hand over to the wiper level and turned up the speed. Carol noticed the change in rhythm. 

“It’s okay,” she said, “I think it might be letting up.” They both looked into the darkness.  The rain continued as steady as before.