“You should pack your things,” I say. I pour myself a glass of water from the fridge.
He stares at me. “Where am I going to go?” he asks.
I tip my glass up and take a long swallow. “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe you could ask Sandra.” I set my empty glass in the sink and go to my bedroom. But my bedroom sme
lls like Sandra’s perfume and sex. “I want you out by tomorrow,” I say.
He nods.
I turn and leave. As I walk out onto the front porch, a clap of thunder breaks the silence of the night and a flash of lightning lights up the sky. The heavens open up and the rain comes down. I stand there and let it wash me clean. Just like the time that I’d been baptized by Gran’s preacher in the pond behind her church, I let the heavens cleans me.
I probably look like an idiot, but I stand there while the storm rages all around me, and then finally, when the wind slows, and the rain stops, I get in my car and drive to Gran’s house.
I let myself in. She sits at the kitchen table playing a game of solitaire, the old-fashioned kind with actual cards. She doesn’t look up when I let myself in.
“Can I stay here tonight?” I ask.
“You should have taken the umbrella,” she says.
“Yeah,” I reply. “I should have listened.”