The Rain

By Peter Bowden

The rain came steady this time, not the kind that danced and fled, but the kind that settled in like an old argument. He heard it first in the roofline, a quiet tapping above the den, and then he saw it—thin, uncertain, a bead forming on the edge of the window frame. It trembled a moment, then dropped onto the sill and soaked into the wood like ink into paper. He moved quickly. A towel, a bowl, the old quilt folded on the chair. Not panic, just motion born of knowing. This wasn’t the first time.

He knelt beside the window, watching the water gather. It was the way it always happened, a slow betrayal. The house was old, older than him in some places, and the leak had been there for seasons—disappearing when the weather dried, returning when the sky opened up again. He had caulked and patched and hoped, but still it came back. Like memory. Like sorrow. And now the rug was in danger, and the edge of the bookcase too, so he shifted them both back just enough, placing the lamp up on a box like a lighthouse above a swelling tide.

He sat a while after, towel damp in his lap, watching the soft gray outside blur the glass. The rain kept falling. A steady confession. He wondered, not for the first time, if the house was telling him something. That nothing stays sealed forever. That even solid walls can weep. But for now, he listened, and kept things safe.


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