Memory Rain

Hey, everyone! I have a piece of short fiction to share with you all this evening. I've been mostly cooped up inside the house recently with the snowstorm that passed through, so I decided to take up my pen and employ it. Here is the result. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Memory Rain

The rain was relentless that shivering day, I don’t know how it didn’t freeze. I was alone in the cabin. It felt like I was all alone in the whole wide world. There was no one around; no people, no deer, no birds, no squirrels… Well, I suppose there was Kodi, but he had been in hiding in the doghouse all day with no intention of venturing from that tiny safe haven. He hated the rain as much as I did. It was miserable. So there I was…

            It didn’t take long for cabin fever to set in. Just three hours had passed and I had already cleaned and tidied up the entire cabin; alphabetized the books in the study; organized the spice rack; washed and dried two loads of laundry; and played 24 games of solitaire. I only won twice. I was two minuets away from going completely crazy. Just as I was about to curse the rain aloud, I stood up from my place at the coffee table in the living room and hit my head on a poorly placed shelf, knocking it off the wall. It took all my energy to keep from expressing my anger and pain on the chair I had been sitting in. I sighed deeply as I placed the shelf back where it was. I picked up all the books and trinkets and replaced them on the shelf. But as I picked up the last old tome something fell from within the pages to the floor. As I knelt down to pick it up a loud thunderclap startled me. I hate the rain.

            It was a photograph. An old photograph. A smile found its way to face as I looked over the faded photo. It was my sister and I standing next to a small snowman. We couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. We were laughing. We were so proud of our little lumpy snowman. Corncob pipe in his coal-dot mouth, stick broom in hand, and an old red hunting hat on his misshapen head. I had never seen this picture before. I laid it down on the coffee table and sat down. I looked at the book’s cover, but it was blank. I could tell it was old. There were small scratches on the soft leather covers and the yellowed pages smelled like an ancient library. So I opened the book to investigate further.

            It was a diary. My mother’s diary. There were notes scribbled in the margins, little doodles of flowers and birds, and several more pictures tucked in between the fragile pages. Once I started reading I couldn’t stop. I never knew she had kept a diary! There were a lot of things I never knew about my mother. We lost her when I was too young. But as I read her intimate notes, it felt like she was right there next to me. Most of the pages were dedicated to my sister and I and our daily activities. Many of the entries had matching photographs to go with them, bringing the words to life. I was taken down memory lane in those pictures. My sister and I riding matching tricycles, and fighting over whose trike was whose. We baked cookies together, played in the snow, finger painted, swam in the pond, we did everything together. And our mother never missed a moment. Sitting there by the fireplace I smiled, laughed, and cried as I absorbed my mother’s diary. I had never felt so close to anyone in my life than in that one moment.

            I sat there at the coffee table thumbing through my mother’s memories, making them my own. Before I knew it, it was dark outside. I looked at the clock. It was nearly 11:00! I placed the dog-eared diary back on its shelf and just sat there for a moment longer. Thinking. Then I went to bed.

            To my great pleasure, sometime in the night the rain had turned into snow, coving the landscape in a soft veil of pure white. A much more welcome precipitation in my opinion. Before I had even taken the first

sip of my mourning coffee, a knock came on the cabin door. I tied my robe and opened the door. It was my father and uncle. They had just gotten back. Behind them I could see my sister rolling around in the snow with Kodi, laughing and taunting him with a rawhide bone. He was in much better spirits today since the rain had gone. I’m not sure who was having more fun, her or the dog.

            “Morning, Sunshine!” My father said with a grin a mile wide. “Have a nice time in the cabin all by yourself yesterday?”

            I took a deep breath and sighed with a smile, looking back at that poorly placed shelf. “I sure did.”