"Incandescence"
Her mother had told her that on a night before it snowed, the sky glowed yellow.
They'd lived in the east, then – the east, with its dusty hot summers and drippy wet winters, so her mother had said that she'd just have to take it on faith. She'd see it one day. So she took it, just as she took all other promises, on faith. Her mother had promised success, and happiness, and true love, and a sky smeared with yellow incandescence, and Riza trusted.
She'd been with him, the first time she saw it. Unable to get to sleep, she'd turned on her side, toward the window, and seen it, seen the clouds lit from below with a thrumming yellow light, as though the sun lurked just below her sightline. And as she sat up, transfixed, the yellow sky seemed to relax with a great sigh, and a fuzziness, a static seemed to filter down from the heavens.
She reflected as he sat up behind her, as he pressed his lips to her bare shoulder and wrapped her in the warmth of his arms, upon the truth of her mother's promises.