After Rain

It had just stopped raining and people were still not quite sure if it was safe to come outside again. Children were still not out of school for the day, but passer-byes could hear the constant squeaking through the halls of the building that had its windows open. No one really cared for that sound. It was more of a nuisance than anything else.

I was sitting on a damp bench in the Meadows right in front of the Thames. No one was out yet, except for a few ducks and swans here and there, sitting on the shores and cleaning their feathers. It could have been a wonderful afternoon- the kind when people fill their stomachs with good food and then stretch themselves out on the grass in the sun and take naps. It could have been, but it wasn't, and no one seemed to notice how sad that it couldn't be a day of that sort.

I noticed, though. After all, everything seems a little more clear when one problem fixes itself. Sort of like a math problem- when one part is worked out, everything just falls into place. Sometimes it doesn't, and that's where you have to work out more problems, but this time it did.

I could still smell the rain, too. The clouds were still there- I figured it was a requirement to have clouds over England at all times. Perhaps that was why songs from the American South always seemed to talk about how "the sky is not cloudy all day." I remembered my family as I sat there, and smiled. Those were good songs. Good food, too.

After about a minute or so, I remembered why I was so sad earlier. It wasn't about the being hungry and cold instead of full and warm, or the wet bench on my last good pair of jeans, or the fact that I had three essays to write by the time the end of the week came 'round, or that I wasn't talking to my family anymore.

A couple walked by. A little old man in a tweed jacket and a nice little hat that golfers always seem to wear, holding a dark wooden cane in his right hand, and the hand of his tiny little wife in a pastel pink dress with a flowery white hat on her frosted head in his left hand. They weren't talking. They were just going along, like they always do. I decided to name the man Walter, and his wife Frieda. They had been married for almost sixty years, I thought. She had cried when he went to the War. He had cried when he got her first letter in the post. They had both cried when they found each other walking along this very way, and got married weeks later. They had children- four, who all grew up and went to Oxford like good little boys and girls, and had children themselves. A few went to America, some came back and some didn't. They always met somewhere for Christmas. Walter and Frieda live in a pretty little cottage somewhere in Oxfordshire. Frieda tends to the various flowers in her garden while Walter turns the soil so that they can have fresh carrots and potatoes and cabbage instead of that processed rubbish. Their neighbours love them.

I wanted to be Frieda, and I wanted my new husband to be Walter. He was too busy, though, to be like Walter. As I sat on that wet bench, looking at the Thames instead of my ring like I had for the past month or so, I knew that I didn't know where he was or what he was doing. It was rather like being alone again, before I even met him in the Ashmolean.

It was my birthday and everything, and he had told me that he would take me to lunch and sit with me under the weeping willow in the meadows and stretch out in the sun. But it had just stopped raining and he wasn't there. I had already eaten lunch, because that was an hour ago. He had never done that before. Even when we had first met, he never was late to anything, ever. He lived by his watch when he wasn't with me, and when he was, he always forgot he had it on... or so he said. I didn't even know anymore.

I heard Old Tom ring one o'clock and stood up. It was about to rain again; I could feel it in my bones. My knees were hurting like they always did before the sky opened up and gave away all her secrets. I started towards the New Path and felt my phone buzz in my pocket.

"Hey. Hang on a second." he said.

I waited with my phone pressed to my ear, turning in circles, looking for wherever he was.

He was wearing his rain jacket- the new one that I could never recognize- and slacks. His tie was loose around his neck, and he held the brolly I gave him for his birthday in his right hand- the one that had a beautifully carved wooden handle and a shiny tip. He smiled and put his phone away.

"Why are you sitting on a wet bench? You'll get sick that way, you know."

"You're late."

He showed me his bare wrists. He lost his watch, I thought.

He shook his head when he saw my expression, "I threw it away. It's your birthday. There shouldn't be any sort of time limit for today."

He took my hand with his left and held the umbrella over us both. "Happy birthday, dear."

I smiled. "It has been a happy birthday indeed."

As we walked under the giant trees that sheltered the New Walk, I noticed that my knee wasn't hurting anymore, and school children were being escourted to Merton Field, and more people were starting to visit the Meadows. It didn't rain again that day.