From Creativepromptsforwriting number 862: The sound of the steady rain on the rooftop suddenly made her feel homesick.
Texas was nothing like England.
In fact, she couldn't think of two places more polar opposite.
Where England was green and vibrant Texas was yellow and dusty.
While it rained - a lot - at home, here was bone dry for most of the time.
England was temperate but Texas was hot, hot, hot!
She'd never had air conditioning at home. It wasn't necessary. She was quite certain that she would die without it here.
Lucy laughed at herself and patted her belly. This pregnancy was making her maudlin. The boys would be back soon from their ride across the ranch, so she set about making ice cream sodas for them all, like the ones her parents bought her when she was the same age.
Sure enough, not ten minutes later and her three boys appeared, and she immediately chased them out again to get cleaned up.
Horse riding in this heat was thirsty work, and her three boys drank everything down before the two youngest began talking over each other to tell her what they'd seen and done.
Her third (and oldest) boy sat there grinning at her, before pulling her onto his lap and holding on tight. Lucy tutted and slapped his arm. Jeff was the biggest boy of them all.
They were spending the summer break at their new Gran Rocha ranch. Gifted to Lucy from a distant relative, they would use this as a summer home rather than move the boys away from Kansas permanently.
And they were loving it here. And she was too, but what she wouldn't give for just a drop of rain. They had been here a week and there hadn't been any. The locals in the nearest town murmured of drought and record high temperatures.
Lucy and John wore a lot of long sleeves and sun block.
And then that night the weather broke.
They couldn't see the clouds in the night sky, but the rain was torrential and the thunder very loud. She and Jeff sat by the large window in the lounge, Scott and John between them, and watched the sheet and forked lightning and counted the rumbles of thunder. The two boys' faces shone with awe, even if John clutched her arm a little tighter than he would normally.
Even the baby in her belly, little Virgil, seemed to still and listen to the thunder and the rain.
The sound of the steady rain on the rooftop suddenly made her feel homesick. But she surprised herself. She wasn't homesick for England, where rain was almost guaranteed a weekly occurrence.
No, Lucy was homesick for Kansas, for the farmstead that she and Jeff had made their own and that had sheltered and nurtured two Tracy boys and another soon to be born.
And that's when Lucy knew.
Kansas would always be home now.