Downpour

by Emma Sanchez

Claire Trevor School of the Arts, Drama Major, and prospective Creative Writing Minor

There was a downpour the morning after you left.

I was still in bed when I heard the news, under the covers and everything. The sight of both my parents standing over my bed was so foreign I wondered if I was still in a dream. Once my dad said the words out loud, my mind went into overdrive, latching on to every detail that could tell me I was still dreaming. It had to be a dream—when was the last time my parents woke me up side-by-side, or the last morning my dad hadn’t gone on about being late for work as I stumbled out of bed? It had to be a dream. But there he was, all sympathy and softness at 7:30 in the morning, even though he was wide awake and dressed for work, while my eyes were still puffy and crusted from sleeping in. Sleepy confusion set around my head like a fog, any true sadness or grief hovering above, unable to push past the haze. I got up to lean on my elbows as my mom moved to sit at the foot of my bed, a comforting hand outstretched. The words played on repeat in my head like a skipping record, as I looked around the room for any sign of hope, any sign that this was just some scene invented by my brain. My eyes finally registered the odd lighting, the sunlight twice-filtered, first through low-hanging clouds and again through my white cotton curtains. It hadn’t rained in weeks; months, maybe. Maybe it was a dream after all, the water hitting my window.

I can’t remember what I said, what they said, how or when I realized, or what words finally pushed the haze away. Memory doesn’t serve on the specifics; all I know is that whatever they said, they said it, and the fog cleared. Once it had, though, I wished for the fog to return. The truth of it settled and the grief that had been hanging above was released like a bucket of cold water on my head. Somehow, you were actually gone.

There had been an early morning meeting that day, probably the first staff meeting you had missed in 20 years. There, my dad got the news alongside all the other teachers, alongside all your friends and coworkers. It was an adjusted schedule day for the high school—teachers come in early, students come in late— but the meeting let out early and my dad drove home quickly, tires kicking up puddles to get back to his daughter, still asleep in bed.

Time had moved so slowly when he told me, but all the crying and hugging that came after flew by in a blur. After all the fuss had dissipated, I was left with a gray, empty room. The only sound I could hear was the wind rustling the eucalyptus branches out toward the street, and the rain water dripping from the roof.

The rest of the day was spent in and out of classrooms of crying students, teachers with solemn faces as they relayed the news to their first period classes, reluctant harbingers of bad news. I spent hours hearing everyone’s favorite memories, story after story of all the lives you touched, how my aunt had been a TA for your classes over a decade ago, grading papers in the back of the classroom while you taught. How you’d pulled my brother aside when he was bullied by a group of Bible-beaters back in freshman year, how you told him there was nothing wrong with him. How you told him you were like him, too.

But before all that, it was just me, sitting in the dim light listening to the rain. Just you, my favorite teacher, gone forever, nothing to be done. For that one moment, I was alone in my grief, not forced to diminish it or make space for anyone else’s. I was the only one hurting, mine was the only sorrow I knew.

After everything that morning, my father still had to go teach classes full of grieving children, and I still had to get ready for school. Makeup was a lost cause. I’ll always remember trying to apply mascara to wet lashes, trying to paint the wing of my eyeliner while tears leaked out the corners of my eyes and wet the brush. My face was a mess right from the start; no amount of subtle touch-ups at my desk could fix it for long. Whether it was tears or raindrops, every product smeared or melted: mascara dissolved against my eyelids, foundation creased in the skin around my nose, raw from tissues, cracked from the cold.

I’ve always loved the rain, but it almost felt like that day‘s drizzle was a tribute to you, to how dull and gray the world looked without you in it. When I finally made it to the last class of the day, yours, the rain had died down, lightly sprinkling as I walked across campus. The hallway that led to your classroom was just as grey as the clouds above it, rain-soaked concrete leading the way to your door. I hated the idea that you weren’t behind it. I paused midway there to lean against the wall, just a few doors left to go, delaying the inevitable. I took a few deep breaths and wiped my eyes, breathing in the smell of wet blacktop and desert rain, heavy in the air.

For a minute, I made believe you knew how much I loved the rain, made believe you sent the clouds and crisp air on that February day. Just for a minute, I made believe that I believed in things like that, in spirits and signs and souls living on or looking down on us from above. The puddles soaked through my sneakers, the raindrops and humidity frizzed my hair, and the clouds blocked the sun, but I made believe you sent it with love. I leaned my head back against the stucco, and the sky looked a little brighter.