Angel Umbrellas

I think about the Carters every day, but most of all on Saturdays. Those are the only days when the boy with giant glasses doesn’t careen past on his bike, laden with numerous copies of the Sherman County Journal and struggling to stay upright.

Mr. Carter used to read that paper every weeknight while Mrs. Carter prepared dinner, and every Sunday morning while she scrambled eggs. Sometimes Mr. Carter would mutter about “that stupid goddamned war” or “that good-for-nothing Johnson,” but mostly he kept his opinions to himself. I think he just wanted to learn what he could about Timmy, and the papers seemed the best way to do that.

Timmy’s no longer overseas, but I think it’s even harder to learn anything about him now than it was before. All I know is that on Saturday nights, regardless of the weather, he sets an umbrella at the base of the Carters’ mailbox. For some reason, no one ever took it down after the accident.

The accident, of course, occurred on a Saturday. An ordinary autumnal night in these parts, when rain cascaded from the heavens as though the angels were already crying over deaths that had yet to occur. Then again, maybe they could predict the future; it’s not like I know that much about angels.

I do know, however, that Mrs. Carter used to call Timmy an angel. Back when he was a baby, she would rock his swaddled body in her arms and coo like the doves that sat in the evergreens. “Forever and ever,” she would say, “you are my angel.” And she believed, I'm sure, that nothing would ever change that. Not when Timmy got his first F in school, and not when she found a pack of cigarettes in his desk drawer. Not even when he went off to Vietnam.  

When he returned, he couldn’t hide his internal scars any more than he could those marring his face. Sometimes he would sit on the couch for hours, frozen like an ice cube and with eyes as glassy as window panes. Other times, he struggled to complete even the simplest of tasks, as if the war had stolen not only his heart but also his mind.

Finally, after a year of nothing changing, Mr. and Mrs. Carter intervened. But while Mr. Carter worked hard to get Timmy a job, Timmy spent his earnings on alcohol and quit after two months. And when Mrs. Carter whispered to Timmy that he was still her angel, he shouted back that she was wrong, that he was now just her killer.

Until one Saturday night, with a face redder than a radish, Mr. Carter told Timmy that fine, he was a killer, but no one could do anything to change it so he’d better just get over it. After all, he himself had fought in The Great War, hadn’t he? He’d even survived the Battle of the Bulge, the deadliest battle for Americans, despite losing two fingers to frostbite and most of the men in his unit, and hadn’t he gotten over it? Hadn’t he managed to get married, have a son, and find a job within six months of coming home, not to mention keeping that job for the next twenty years?

Timmy nodded but said nothing. Mr. Carter had repeated this refrain for months, and it never inspired Timmy to do anything other than nod, with his shoulders slumped and his gaze fixed at the floor.

But this time when Mrs. Carter shuffled toward Timmy, arms open and head cocked to the side, instead of retreating to his bedroom like usual, where he would sit on the windowsill and flick his folding knife open and closed until his fingers rubbed raw, letting Jimi Hendrix drown out his mutterings, Timmy dashed off and into the night.

Mr. Carter snatched the car keys from the hook by the back door and yelled at Mrs. Carter to hurry. She raced out behind him, leaving her purse on the kitchen counter. Neither grabbed an umbrella.

Mr. Carter’s Lincoln Continental roared to life and bolted out of the garage. Rain spilled from above, each droplet gripped by the wind and catapulted sideways. More bulleted down on the roof. Water surged through the street as if it were the world’s biggest Slip ‘N Slide.

Seconds, minutes, hours ticked by on the cuckoo clock hanging in the living room. The one that Timmy used to sit in front of as a child and gaze at with youthful wonder, waiting impatiently for the bird to emerge and sing a little song. After the war though, he merely stared at it.

When the Continental neared the driveway hours later, its windshield wipers whooshed to clear the rain. But clear it they could not—at least not well enough for Mr. Carter to see the oncoming truck, swerving across the road and with no headlights on.

Mr. Carter wrenched the wheel at the last moment but the tires couldn’t grip. He rammed straight into the truck. Metal grated metal like two lawnmowers devouring each other, and Mrs. Carter launched out of her seat and smashed through the windshield. Only the pavement could stop her soaring body.  

When the ambulance came, the EMTs lifted Mrs. Carter up off the pavement. They checked on Mr. Carter, still slumped in his seat, but took their time extracting him. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Carter ever returned.

But Timmy did, later that night and every Saturday since. Like I said, he comes to leave an umbrella by the mailbox. And although I don’t know where he gets them, I don’t much care. In some small way, those rain protectors justify my existence.

You see, Mr. and Mrs. Carter built me brick by brick, room by room, and where I once contained war mutterings and newspaper riffling, omelet smells and “angel” coos, now I stand empty. Like Timmy, I know that Mr. and Mrs. Carter will never return, so like Mr. and Mrs. Carter, I can only wait for Timmy.