Midnight Rain

“It’s been a while since I’ve driven in a rainstorm like this,” Hector said with a soft chuckle as he white-knuckled the steering wheel of his suburban. Rain pelted the windows. Hector could barely see through the torrential downpour. He supposed he was lucky there were few cars on the road at this time of night.

Rain had finally come to the County. The summer had been warm and dry, the kind of summer which turns grass a dusky brown and flowers wilted. The rain was long overdue, and Hector was glad to see it, although he wished it was when he was at their destination, rather than in the driver’s seat at the back end of a seven-hour car ride. Dark woods extended on either side of the road.

“It’s not that bad,” his wife, Lucy, said. She sat in the passenger seat, checking her reflection in the pull-down mirror.

“You look fine. Great, actually,” Hector said, as his wife began to rummage in her bag. She extracted a tube of lipstick and began to apply it.

Lucy laughed without humor. “Your mother will have choice words, I’m sure.” She tilted her head, her face pale and ghostlike in the bright lights of the vanity mirror. Hector found the lights a distraction as he tried to focus on driving, but he wouldn’t tell Lucy.

“She should be in bed.”

“She knows we’re coming. She’ll be up waiting.”

“It’s not as if we were gone long.” Hector eased his foot on the gas as the rain slammed down on the car hood. It was as if buckets of water were falling from the sky. He could barely see the yellow line of the road. They had at least another hour of travel to go, longer if the rain didn’t let up.

“She considers a week to be too long. She’ll be devastated when you get the job.” She smiled a viper’s grin, her teeth bright white against the dark red of her lips. She snapped the mirror closed, along with its vanity lights, casting the car back into darkness punctured by the golden orange glow of street lamps and the occasional passing car headlights.

Hector supposed Lucy was right. He and Lucy had spent the week away in Boston, where he had a job interview at a tech startup company. He had believed the interview had gone well, and he would be making double what he currently made. They had chosen to spend the entire week in Boston as Lucy had arranged for their kitchen and living room to be renovated. She had been speaking to a real estate agent who believed their house would sell at a higher price if they implemented some updates. They had even looked at some homes in the Boston suburbs.  

Unfortunately, the renovations of their current home were not complete and they would be spending a few days at his parent’s.  

“She better not ask about a baby again. I’m getting sick of it,” Lucy said, folding her arms.  

Hector and Lucy had been married for three years, but neither of them was eager about the prospect of becoming parents.

“And if she tells me I’m getting old, I may shove her against the wall. Thirty-five isn’t old.”

Hector sighed and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’ll ask her to stop with the baby talk.”

“Will you?” She raised an arched brow. “Because sometimes I think you’re afraid of that woman. Afraid of a lot of things actually.”

“I’m not afraid of my mother.”

Lucy raised a brow but said nothing. Instead, she leaned back in her seat. Hector cast a side glance at her, wondering when she would begin talking again. He knew she was right, somewhat. He had many fears, disappointing his mother chief among them, but he had always thought he hid them well. It was easy to hide them when he had someone strong like Lucy in his life to take care of issues. He was lucky to have her in his life. For all her quirks, she was all he wanted.

“You flinch when she talks to you sometimes. When she starts to lecture you on how you will never live up to your father’s reputation.”

Hector flinched and cursed himself for doing so. His father was a sore subject. His father had been a pillar of the community. He had run the town office for years, until his sudden passing. Hector had been a fresh college graduate at the time. It seemed like his mother was always comparing him to his father.

“I don’t want to be my father. I don’t want to be stuck in this town like he was.”

Lucy nodded curtly as if she were satisfied in his performance of a required stunt. “Good. Tell your mother that the next time.”

“You know how she is about the man.”

“Pretending he didn’t pass over ten years ago? Yes. It’s not just your mother though. You flinch when there’s a sound outside the window. You wince when someone rings the doorbell. You can’t sit through a horror film.”

Hector looked at his wife. “Lucy, I –,” Hector broke off as his headlights flashed across two figures on the edge of the road. Spotting them out of the corner of his eye, he swerved the steering wheel, sending the car across the yellow line, nearly clipping a passing vehicle.

Hector stopped the car, breathing hard, gripping the steering wheel as if his life depended on it. He listened to the steady swish sound of the windshield wiper blades on their fastest setting and the rain continuing to pound in steady droplets against the roof of the car, trying to calm his heart.

“Were those hitch-hikers?” Hector asked.

“You almost killed them!” Lucy nearly screamed, recovering from the shock of their near-crash, and near double homicide.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Let’s offer them a ride.”

“Are you serious?”

“Completely.”

“They could be serial killers. Psychopaths.”

“Are you afraid?” she said, her eyes bright with a challenge in the orange glow of the streetlamps.

“No,” Hector said, flustered, his cheeks reddening. He had to wonder though, the kind of people out on a deserted stretch of road in the middle of the night.

He began to back the car up slowly. The two dark figures approached the driver’s side window. Hector rolled down his window, wincing as the windswept cold rain droplets onto his face. “Sorry about back there,” Hector said, his voice raised over the rain. “Can I offer you guys a ride?”

He couldn’t make out their faces in the dark, they were two slim shadows in the dark.

“That would be great,” a male voice said. He sounded young.

With only the slightest bit of hesitation, and with a glance at Lucy who was shooting him a ‘get on with it’ look, he pressed down the unlock button. With a resounding click, he unlocked his car to two rain-slicked strangers.

He would not be afraid.