by Rose Brown
[Content warning: This story includes themes of grief and the death of a child.]
“Are you there, God? It’s me. Help me break her heart today. And can you bring back the sun?”
But the clouds burst. I breathe in earth and taste mineral tang, wet wind whipping my face. I should’ve known not to come—should’ve stopped when the steeple down the road knifed dark clouds. But she begged, and I couldn’t refuse. Not today.
I fumble with an umbrella before the wind yanks it, tossing it against the monkey bars. I leap from the bench. Bigger kids shriek and race for shelter beneath a sycamore.
Evie doesn’t scream or run. Just waddles to the umbrella, raindrops pearling over her furrowed brow, and points. “Boken.”
She’s right. It lays there, defeated: ribs cracked, shaft bent, rain pounding the blood-red canopy. She frowns, like she never knew skies cry, or that some things don’t mend.
Rain pelts her face as she points to the clouds.
“Dibble dop! Dibble dibble dop!”
She hardly calls things by name, only sound. Same with birds. She says, “tweet tweet,” even though I forget they’re there, sailing through the canopies.
But Evie calls Hattie by name.
“Mama, Hattie?” she asks.
They share everything: germs and gummy bears, giggles and tantrums, a hatred of car horns, and a love for birds, clouds, and wind chimes.
I take her little hand and inhale, a breath that stabs.
“Hattie—” I stop myself. “Not today. It’s raining.”
Evie lifts her hand like she needs proof, even though rain’s already on her cheeks.
“Dibble dop,” she says, matter-of-factly.
We trudge past the creaking iron gate, rain pricking our skin.
“Mama, play Hattie?” she whimpers.
“No,” I say.
We step along slippery sidewalk, past the old red-bricked chapel. Bells chime, marking noon. Church used to be a lighthouse. Now it looks like a funeral home.
We pass a community pool, rain spitting over its glassy face. We breathe chlorine as Evie sticks her hand through the iron bars.
“Mama, pool?”
I squeeze her hand tight. “No. Home.”
“Mama, pool!”
God, help me. I know you’re not a cosmic vending machine that pops out miracles if I push the prayer button hard enough, but I’m pushing hard right now…
A cat with midnight fur and big, olive eyes darts past us.
Evie points. “Meeeeow,” she says, slow and serious. The cat leaps over the fence, skids past the pool, and vanishes behind a shed. Evie gasps like she’s never seen anything so wild.
She turns to me, eyes wide. “Fast!”
I can’t speak. Hattie loved cats. Back in the fall, she chased one through the park, she and Evie bouncing into each other, drifting between squeals and real tears. When the cat escaped, they moved on to dead, copper leaves. They tossed them, letting them flutter over grinning faces.
A few weeks ago they sat side by side, slobbering over gummy bears, sun baking soft, squishy arms. Hattie always shared, always offered Evie some of hers. Even the red ones. Her favorite.
It was just another Friday. Now it clings to me like my soaked shirt.
Evie points at the pool.
“Swim?”
My breath catches. “No.”
Loving Evie sinks me. I have to grieve the old her while falling in love with the new, all at once, over and over. Last year, she tumbled and tripped and bumped as she learned to use those legs.
Now she runs and wants to swim and asks about the world like she’s starving for it, like she’s begging for scraps of my time, for my willingness to bend down and explain the things I forget are glorious.
My gaze drifts to the water, still. Calm. Dread swells in my chest like a tide about to drag me under.
God, why? I shouldn’t have to do this. All I want is to shield her from suffering, from a life that will beat the wonder out of her. I want her to see You in everything. Like I used to. Now I’m a fish treading sea, desperate for the water I used to breathe.
“Mama, Hattie?!”
“No.”
A few more houses. Almost home. But Evie stops beside a neighbor’s planter box, bone-white lilies clawing through the dirt.
Hattie always picked flowers and passed them out to anyone and everyone.
Evie points at the lilies. “Hattie?”
I look away. Can’t tell her Hattie’s sweet little hand was found at the bottom of a pool, stuck in a drain. Or about the way Hattie’s mom wailed when her dad called to tell me the news. Or how I prayed all night that God would breathe into her lungs as she lay on the ventilator. How I thought maybe, if I prayed hard enough, He might hear.
Evie stares at me, head tilted, eyes knowing.
I have to tell her… I have to tell her now. Before I wait too long, and never do. Before someone else does.
But those eyes are blue and bright, a cloudless sky.
“Play with Hattie?” she asks, arms folded impatiently.
“No,” I say. “Not today.”
I don’t say more. I nod toward the house, and Evie waddles beside me. She jumps over a puddle, giggling. God didn’t bring back the sun, but her laughter warms.
The rain hits harder as we peel off soaked coats and kick off our shoes at the door. I wish it could wash it all away. I need Him to hold me close, skin and bones, bathe me. But dirt still sticks to my fingers.
Anger.
Doubt.
Confusion.
Why won’t Evie come in?
She waits, watching me.
It’s time. My mouth falls open, but the words won’t come, just stick in my throat. I have to tell her—tomorrow.
Tomorrow. Right now, she has Hattie and loves fast cats and names rain by sound. No tears. No cry so deep she struggles for air. I need this Evie just one more day.
She stands there, dripping, face tilted to the sky, and I say it:
“Dibble dop.”
Evie smiles. She opens her mouth and lifts her hands, catching rain on tiny fingers and tongue.
The sun’s still gone, but she isn’t. Not yet.
