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The Rain Had Stopped

Liz stood at the open front door, gazing out at the rain in the morning twilight. It had been

raining all night; likewise, she had been awake all night, awaiting Larry’s arrival. He should

have been home well before midnight, but here it was, almost dawn and he had not pulled

into the garage, nor had he called. When she tried to reach him, his phone went straight to

voicemail. Where was he?

Exhausted, she closed the door, pulled her robe more tightly around her, turned and went

back to her chair at the kitchen table and the now half-cold mug of coffee. She was

worried, less so about his not arriving on time, but about his phone going to voicemail. He

always had his phone with him and even if the battery had died, he’d have plugged it into

the car. He was techie and such things were not an issue to him. He would not be out of

touch like this unless something serious had happened, and given this awful weather, that

was a frightening possibility. The small TV in the kitchen, that she had kept on all night, had

been airing weather reports of ﬂooding, downed trees and road closures. What could have

happened to Larry? What should, indeed, what could she do?

It was then that her landline phone rang. It shocked her out of her reverie, but for a

moment, she didn’t know where it was; they seldom got calls on that landline these days,

except telemarketers or political solicitors. She jumped up and went over to the side

counter and moved away an assortment of old mail and paper grocery bags. There was the

phone, but as usual, she didn’t recognize the caller ID. Who the hell would call her at this

hour on this line? She picked it up hesitantly.

“Mrs. Roebuck?” came a voice on the other end. “This is Lt. Jerry Mathers of the Litchﬁeld

Police Department.” Liz’s heart stopped...

The cold wet enveloped Larry, as his car slowly sank into the blackness of the river. He

knew that he should not have tried to cross the water-covered roadway. He’d heard stories

of people being swept away by only a few inches of rapidly ﬂowing water, and now he was

one of them. The force of the water shocked him. Before he knew it, his car was swirling

along the ﬂooded stream and the chilly water was quickly coming into the car. The pressure

of the water surrounding it, which at this point was above the door, would not allow him to

open it. The power windows would not work; the electrical system had failed. He was

trapped and no amount of screaming or beating on the windows would avail. He pounded

as hard as he could, even trying to use his cellphone, the only hard object he had at hand,

to break the window, but that only resulted in his destroying the phone. He was doomed

and he knew it.

As the water rose and the cold and the darkness deepened, Larry thought of Liz. She’d be at home, waiting for his return from what was a brief business trip. Why had he stayed there late? Why had he accepted the dinner invitation from one of his associates, knowing that it would make his return home later than he liked, especially given the weather?

That was then and now he was among those who would become a news item, a statistic, a

casualty, just another foolish person swept away by rushing water, only to be found the next day a mile down the river, perhaps hung in a riparian grove of trees along with old garbage bags and plastic bottles.

The water was now up to Larry’s neck and as much as he squirmed and beat on the

windows, even trying to get his feet up to kick, he knew it was futile. Falling back into his

seat, the water covered him and the cold embraced him. He found himself surrendering

and accepting his fate. He took his last breath of air, the water covered him and all was

black.

Liz put down the phone and stood there trying to comprehend what she had just heard. Larry’s car, with Larry’s body in it, had been pulled out of the river after being spotted under a bridge around 4:00 a.m. The sole occupant had been pronounced dead. That “sole occupant” was Larry, her husband of thirty years, her partner in life, her lover and best friend. She could not grasp the enormity of this. She went back to her chair, put her head on the table and wept, as the gray morning light of a new day came through her kitchen window.

The rain had stopped.