Inside

I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for the kid.

           “That thing’s gonna be totalled,” I said to Sharona. “Water’s already almost up past the tires.”

           “Why don’t you invite them in, then?” she said, not looking up from her cookbook. Whatever she was making, it smelled bad.

           I laughed. Wrong move. She wasn’t joking.

“Invite them in our house?”

“Our driveway must be higher ground than the street. They could wait out the storm in here with us.”

“I am not inviting some randoms into my house,” I said, but I was already putting on my boots and walking to the door. It was pointless to argue with the woman.

I walked outside all suave-like and was instantly stunned. I get paralyzed like that, sometimes, when there’s so much going on around me. The sky was bright with constant lightning cracking all around, the thunder-noise never totally fading before the next one hit. It was like standing under a showerhead, the way the rain was coming down, like standing under one of those hanging buckets at water parks that flip upside down and soak you and you feel like you’re drowning standing up. My boots were filled the second I stepped out on the porch. The street was a river overflowing its banks, the shores lined with stranded pick-up trucks, rolling back and forwards impatiently as their owners refused to acknowledge their predicament. Then there was my mark, straight out in front, a little rusty red sedan that looked like it would be swept away at any minute.

I shook myself out of my shock and sloshed through our yard and over to the car. The person inside hadn’t noticed me yet, could probably barely see anything through their windows. I banged on the hood of the car and heard what sounded like a woman shout in surprise in response. Slowly, the driver’s window opened, revealing a young woman, maybe mid-twenties, sitting inside. I sighed.

“Look, my wife wants you to know that if you want you can park your car in our driveway while you wait for the storm to pass over. It’s higher ground, so it probably won’t get flooded there.”

She just stared at me. I stared back. I gave an exaggerated, “well, I tried,” kind shrug and started to turn back towards my warm, dry house when I saw her reaching for her wallet.

“Shit, you don’t need to pay me or anything. Just pull your car up if you want to.”

She pulled a laminated card out of her card out of her wallet and showed it to me.

I DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. VERY SORRY

For fuck’s sake.

I banged on her car again. She jumped.

“You move car.” I mimed twisting the key to turn on the car. She squinted at me for a second, then did it. “Into driveway.” I exaggerated pointing at my driveway. Her eyebrows shot up when she recognized what I was offering. Then she turned the car off and shook her head.

I let out a loud groan and she winced and reached for her window control. I thought about just going back inside. I was fucking cold, standing in the rain, and the noise of the thunder was clouding my thinking. But it seemed like the water had risen another inch in just the time I’d been standing out there. She’d never make it. The thought of that gave me a bad feeling in my stomach.

           “Listen, if the water rises any more—and I mean any more—your engine’s gonna go kaput. Won’t drive anymore. If it gets too much higher water might even get in your car, where you’re sitting.”

           I’m sure she couldn’t understand me, but she paused anyway. She looked at something in the backseat, and then back at me, then nodded. I let out a breath. Had I been holding my breath?

           She turned her car back on, and ever so slowly backed into the middle of the street, and then drove up into my driveway. My breath really did catch as she drove over that little dip between the street and my driveway. But the car sputtered through and soon she was up out of the flood.

           Now she was safe. The storm should blow over in an hour, maybe less; there was no way the water would rise enough to flood her engine in our driveway by then. I half-waved and then hurried back to the safety of indoors.

           “She’s up in the driveway,” I called to Sharona. “I asked if she wanted to come in and she said no.” No response. She was always mad at me about something. There was no point in trying to guess what.

           I watched the girl through the window as I attempted to towel-dry my hair with a dishrag. The big oak tree that divided our property form the neighbor’s offered the car in the driveway some protection from the downpour, and without the waterfall pouring down her windshield, I could see inside the car a little bit. She was messing with something in the back seat. I cupped my hands to the window, but I couldn’t make it out. Then she reached into her purse and pulled something out- after a second I recognized it as a sippy cup. I straightened. She passed it to the back seat, where it disappeared from her hand.

           “I think she’s got kid in there,” I called. Still no response. I pulled my boots back on without even realizing I had done it.

           Going outside was just as bad the second time. I swear she balled her hand into a fist around her keys when she saw me coming towards the car. I gently tapped on the window. She opened it halfway. Over the sounds of the storm, I could now hear a child fussing. I hadn’t prepared for this part. I had never been very good at charades, but I did my very best in that moment. I pointed towards my house and mimed hugging a blanket around myself. I pointed to the kid, mimed eating and drinking. I pointed to the sky and to my imaginary wristwatch. Just until the rain stops.

           I think in the end, she accepted my invitation for the same reason I offered it—the kid. A little kid shouldn’t have to be sitting there in the middle of all the thunder and lightning and all that. She opened the door and stepped outside, wincing as her clothes were instantly saturated. She braced herself against the weather as she opened the door to the back seat and fumbled with the car seat straps. I wished I’d thought to bring out an umbrella with me. I hadn’t thought this through at all.

           Finally, she lifted the kid out of the car. A little girl, maybe three, bangs plastered to her forehead by the rain, with a sippy cup clutched in one hand and a stuffed cow in the other. She was screaming as loud as I’ve heard a child scream, evidently not happy with this turn of events. I ushered them into the house, where the three of us stood dripping. Petey scampered up to us, sniffing at the woman’s feet. She backed up until the heels of her feet pressed up against the closed door, but the child quieted and her eyes went wide. She swivelled to face her mom.

           “Perro, mama! Perro! Perro!”

The woman looked at me, a question in her face.

           “Yeah, he’s friendly,” I said. I petted him to demonstrate.

Sharona emerged from the kitchen at that moment.

“Go get some towels. You all are soaking wet.”

I bit back a smart retort to that. There was no point. I went and got three towels from the bathroom, careful to make sure that at least two of them weren’t ripped or stained. I slung the most raggedy one over my shoulders and brought the other two back into the main room, where Sharona had already offered the strangers seats. The woman perched delicately at the edge of the couch, holding the kid to her chest. The little girl had quieted, now concentrating on sucking down the last of her juice. Petey was curled up on the couch next to them, staring at her longingly. I wonder if he missed having kids around. I put the towels down next to her and backed away. Sharona reappeared, carrying three chipped mugs of hot chocolate.

I cleared my throat and pointed to myself. “Jared.” I pointed to my wife. “Sharona.” I glanced at the kid. She stared back at me, eyes wide. I pointed to the mutt. “Petey.”

The woman pointed to herself. “Josefina.” She gestured to her daughter. “Carmen.”

I picked up one of the mugs from the coffee table where Sharona had placed them and took a sip. Josefina followed my lead. I turned on the TV to the cartoons channel and went back into the kitchen, where Sharona had resumed working on whatever concoction she was making for our dinner.

           “Why don’t you ask if they’d like anything to eat?”

           “They don’t speak any English.”

           “Then just bring something out for them. If they’re hungry, they’ll eat.”

           I opened the fridge and stared inside, wondering what I could possibly feed the strangers sitting in our living room. Most of it was old, stuff that needed to be thrown out. Finally, I found a new-ish bag of grapes in one of the drawers. I grabbed it and made for the door, but Sharona grabbed my arm to stop me. I froze. She never touched me.

           “What are you doing?”

           “I’m bringing them grapes.”

           “A child that small can’t have whole grapes, remember?” I remembered. I remembered how my wife had read out the instructions from the new-parent book and we’d laughed at what a mess I’d managed to make just cutting up some grapes. I remembered how she’d stood behind me and guided my hands on the cutting board, showing me how to cut each grape into even quarters.

           I stuffed the bag of grapes back into the fridge and grabbed a box of crackers instead and went back into the living room. Carmen was sitting on the rug, transfixed by the TV, one hand absently petting Petey. Josephina was standing at the window. I joined her. The rain was letting up, and some neighborhood kids had dragged kayaks into the street and were gleefully paddling between the parked cars.

           “The rain’s stopping. It shouldn’t take long for the street to drain, and then you can be out of here.” I didn’t think she understood, but she nodded anyway and returned to the couch. We watched Tom & Jerry in silence for a while, me and Carmen munching on crackers while Josefina anxiously threw glances towards the window. She noticed a framed photo on the couch next to her, a picture of a young girl. She looked back at me, eyebrows raised.

           “She’s gone,” I said. “Dead.”

           I didn’t expect her to understand, but all of a sudden she was fumbling with a wallet again.

           “Dammit, I told you I don’t want your-” but she wasn’t pulling out money, she was showing me a picture inside, a soggy photo of a smiling family, a woman and a man and a little baby. Josephina pointed to the man standing next to her in the photo.

“Dead,” she said.

I nodded. We sat on the couch, watching Tom whack Jerry with a mallet and Jerry get electrocuted. Another episode started, and I walked back to the window. I laughed. Josephina came over to see why. There was still almost a foot of water in the street, but it was shallow enough that they should be able to get back on the main road with no problem. I pointed to the sky. “It’s sunny.”