Chapter 12: Here Comes the Rain Again

"You're such a good little girl, May."

The voice rang from the old TV screen as I watched a home movie, filmed with an old camcorder, with my Grandpa, me, and our dog Hana the summer after my Mother left Mineral Town. How odd it was to be able to hear someone's voice after they no longer exist.

I used to think that about singers a lot. Grandpa would play old records and tell me about the singer, and I would think how incredibly neat, yet, strange, it was that that person's voice could be heard just the same as when they were alive. But they weren't alive anymore. And it wasn't really the same.

The tears had stopped long ago. I had cried so much that my eyes felt like they were swollen shut. So badly I wanted to escape into sleep, but my dreams were plagued with his voice, everything he did, all of my bright and beautiful memories of him had become jumbled into melancholy, lonely fragments. Life had become indistinguishable from my dreams, everyone just went on with their lives as if the best man in my world had never even existed. Every time I'd walk through the door now, there would be no Grandpa to greet me, to make me food, to ask me if I wanted to go to the hot spring even though I hated the hot spring. How could everything change so suddenly?

The home video ended abruptly and the VHS tape ejected from the VCR, leaving me in a dark, silent room with the flickering gray static of the TV lighting up my face. I stared ahead, unable to cry anymore.

"How am I supposed to go on?" I thought to myself, "how will anything ever be good again?"

I accepted that, from that moment on, happiness would never come to me. How could I ever know happiness again without Grandpa? Everything he ever was, and everything he ever knew, was lost. I became frustrated as I tried to replay the things he told me over in my head, forgetting the finer details. What if I forgot something he told me? I could never again ask him. I looked around the room. Everything was still save for the light from the flickering TV screen that periodically lit up the walls. Seeing his glasses and his coffee mug lying on the table only hurt more because he would never use them again. If I just closed my eyes and pretended, it felt like nothing had changed, and it just felt like Grandpa was away and he'd come back. Maybe not for a long time, but he'd come back. We'd see each other again. Right?

Knock Knock Knock

The sudden rapping on the door jerked me out of my thoughts. What if it was Grandpa? I knew it was silly, but I was liable to believe just about anything in my current state of mind. As I began making my way towards the door, I hesitated. Without Grandpa, I wasn't able to defend myself, so what if it was someone I didn't want to see? What if it was someone I didn't know and I couldn't get them to leave? I began to panic, biting my nail as the knocking continued. I lightly walked over to the kitchen and leaned over the counter to look out of the window. Once I saw who it was, I was momentarily relieved, then panicked again when I realized how awful I might look.

"Hey," he said in a less-than-happy tone, "I've been worried about you."

I smiled and then put my head down, gaze towards the floor. I didn't want him to see how much I had been crying, but he had to know. Without hesitation, he wrapped his arms around me and I just started to cry. It had only been two days without Grandpa, and I wasn't coping very well at all. I had barely eaten, but I wasn't hungry. And even though I had slept a lot, it didn't feel like it.

"Let's go for a walk," he suggested as he rubbed my back, my face still buried in his chest as I shook my head 'no'.

"I don't feel like walking..."

"Not even just a little walk to my house? I'll make dinner, and I know you haven't eaten." I mulled it over in my head, worrying that it was still bright enough outside for the neighbors to see us together. When I didn't respond, he added, "I'll carry you if you don't want to walk."

I laughed slightly. It felt so unnatural to laugh though.

"You don't have to carry me... but thank you," I looked up at him then immediately turned away, "I'm sorry I probably look terrible."

"You don't look terrible, maybe terribly sad, but not terrible," he smiled through his own sad eyes, "it's dark and depressing here, why don't you grab a few things and come over to my house with me?"

I finally gave in and made the grueling walk over to his place. He didn't try to fill the silence, which I was thankful for. The dying grass of his farmland was shaded with the dark clouds that loomed heavy over the land, sweeping out the sunlight as cold air blew down from the tall, lonely mountains. It seemed fitting, as if Mother Nature was mourning for the loss of Grandpa too.

Once we made it to his house, I immediately went to lie down in his bed. After having eaten very little for the past few days, I was weak and had a piercing headache from the short walk over to his house and wanted to lie down before I ate anything. He covered me up and kissed my forehead before going into the kitchen. The sound of the fan over the stove and the clanking of pots and pans was very soothing; it reminded me that I wasn't alone. Slowly, I began to feel warm and safe again, and it wasn't long before I drifted off into a long, heavy sleep.

Sunlight. A warm summer wind. Field grass. Hana runs up to me and almost knocks me over. I'm so little. Grandpa! He's in the barn, fixing a tractor maybe, or maybe he's just keeping himself occupied by caring for the animals. Grandpa! It's starting to rain outside and I'm afraid of the thunder. Grandpa! The Boom-Boom Man is coming! He laughs, his warm and soft laugh. Oh, May, the Boom-Boom Man won't hurt you, he's good, he brings the rain to help the Harvest Goddess water all the grass so the cows can eat. The cows whine and Hana's tail is between her legs as the thunder rumbles through the humid summer air. It scares me though. The sky grows darker and darker. Let's sit outside on the porch and watch the storm. Together.

But I'm scared.

I felt sick as I awoke to a warm hand wiping away the hair that was adhered to my damp skin. I remember that my eyes felt so heavy and were hard to open. Disorientation swept over me.

"May..." it's not Grandpa, "you've slept for so long, you should get up and eat."

I furrowed my eyebrows as reality washed over me. Why did he have to wake me up? I didn't want to stop dreaming. I started crying again, refusing to get out of bed and carrying on like a child.

"May, you have to get up, you're going to get sick," his voice was stern at first, but then it became worried, "I hate seeing you like this..."

Without the energy, or the will, to get up I just stared up at him through angry, tear-filled eyes.

"I just want to die! Just let me go to sleep and starve... I don't want to be alive anymore!"

"Stop it, May!"

"Why?! What does it matter? What does anything matter! I never wanted to come into this world, why am I forced to suffer like this and lose everyone I love? I'm tired of it! Just let me die!" hot tears stained my face as I spat the words out at him. It wasn't fair of me to say at all, and I knew it, but I couldn't help it.

Suddenly, I felt his hands around me, under my back and my legs. With one quick motion he scooped me up, covers and all, and carried me through the house.

"What are you doing?" I asked as I wrapped my arms around him, still crying, but not resisting.

"Showing you the light."

He took me outside and the sunlight was blinding at first, blazing bright above the land and illuminating all the puffy white clouds that decorated the early sky. The morning air still had a chill to it, but it was slightly warmer than it had been the evening before... that's when it occurred to me that I really had slept for a long time. We sat on the front porch steps, me still wrapped up in his blankets as I cried into his chest. He held me like a baby and I cried like one too. Eventually, the tears slowed and I grew calmer as I let the warm sunlight wash over me. The pine trees above rustled faintly, their massive limbs extending out towards the opal sky. I turned to look out on the fields, the animals were out grazing for one of the last few days of autumn. Their soft calls to one another were gentle and soothing, and the chickens were clucking and pecking at one another, and then there was a dog running towards us...?

"Hana!" I exclaimed both out of pleasure and annoyance as she licked my face, "Why is Hana here?"

"I went over to your place to feed the animals since you were sleeping and she followed me around the whole time, so I couldn't just leave the old girl alone...right, Hana?"

Tail pounding the floorboards of the porch rhythmically, Hana yawned and made a noise that sounded similar to an agreement which caused Jack's dog, Scout, to tackle her in an attempt to play. Scout was a lot younger though, and way more rambunctious, causing Hana to not return the energetic response.

"Thank you," I said as I looked up at him from my place in his arms, "for everything."

"I hate to see you so sad."

"But I am sad... I just don't see the point in it all anymore," I sat up on his lap as I petted Hana's snout, noting the gray fur that had accumulated around her eyes, "I can't ever be happy again."

"May, your happiest times were with your Grandpa, but during those days he was just sad just as you are now. Look, he didn't have your mom anymore, and he had lost his wife, and he has also lost my grandfather who was one of his good friends. Think about how much sadness he had to bear but he still lived on. For you. And he made you happy even though he was sad at times. You are strong like Barley, and you're gonna live on and you're gonna make other people happy too just like he did."

Hana scooted closer to me and put her paws up onto my legs which were still wrapped in Jack's bedclothes. I thought about what he said. He was right, but I had never thought about it that way before. Still though, regardless of my emotional state, there were other issues that were weighing heavy on my mind.

"What am I going to do with all the animals though? I can't take care of them all myself and what about all of his tractors that are broken and all the work that he was doing on our house... I can't do any of that stuff! And what if—"

"I'll help you," he said calmly, trying to stop me from panicking, "we'll figure it out—

Together."