Chapter 8 - The Boy in the Rain
I didn't rush down the stairs. I stood at the railing, watching him struggle against the wind. He tried to slam the hood down, but his hands were shivering so violently that he dropped the metal latch, cutting his palm against the rusted frame. He let out a dry, ragged sob, kicking the front tire in utter defeat before sinking to his knees in the muddy gravel.
He wasn't performing. There were no in-laws watching from luxury sedans, no Instagram cameras rolling, and no thirty-four-person audience waiting for a spectacle. There was only a broken man, drenched in freezing rain, kneeling in the dirt outside the only home he had ever known.
I walked back into the house, grabbed Nile’s old heavy yellow slicker and a dry canvas towel, and walked down the porch steps.
The gravel crunched beneath my rain boots. As I approached, Cullen heard the sound and slowly looked up. Water streamed down his hollow cheeks, plastering his thinning hair to his skull. His face was gray with exhaustion, dark purple circles bruising the skin under his eyes.
""Mom,"" he whispered, his teeth chattering so hard he could barely form the consonant. ""My... my alternator died. I was driving down the coast road to deliver some paperwork to Arthur... I didn't mean to stop on your land. I’ll push it onto the shoulder. I’ll walk to the gas station.""
""You won't walk anywhere in this storm, Cullen. You’ll freeze to death before you reach the crossroads,"" I said, throwing the yellow slicker over his trembling shoulders. ""Get up.""
He tried to push himself to his feet, but his legs gave out beneath him from cold and fatigue. I caught his arm—the same arm I had held when he took his first steps across this very yard thirty-three years ago—and hauled him upright with all the strength left in my seventy-one-year-old frame.
""Lean on me,"" I ordered. ""Come inside.""
He wept the entire way up the driveway. Not the loud, performative wailing he had done on the day of the deed reading, but silent, bitter tears of genuine remorse that washed the mud from his face. I led him through the blue front door, locked the storm out behind us, and pointed toward the hearth where the cedar logs were burning bright and hot.
May you like
""Take off those wet boots,"" I said. ""Sit by the fire.""
He collapsed onto the braided rug beside the hearth, wrapping the canvas towel around his shivering neck. He looked up at the mantel, his eyes locking onto Nile’s framed portrait. He didn't look away this time. He stared at his father’s face, bowed his head until his forehead touched the stone hearth, and whispered into the fire: ""I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry.""
