Rain and Red Umbrellas

Nicholas Carter had just turned thirty. The big three-oh. He’d driven all through the night, wishing himself happy birthday as the digital clock flipped to read 12:01 exactly six hours and twenty-two minutes ago. No one had called, sent him a present or even sent him a card. He told himself it was because he’d been on the road since 5 AM Monday morning but in the stillness of an early Thursday morning, Nick couldn’t lie to himself for long.

Being a truck driver had never been what Nick imagined as a little boy, or even what he’d thought about when his high school counselor had harped on them about choosing a career path. Nor had this profession fallen into his lap, rather it had been shoved on top of him, smothering him until he no longer knew anything but long nights and lonesome country songs playing softly on the old radio in the cab of his truck.

At one time Nick had been considered good-looking. Thick sandy blonde hair always worn just a little too long to be called short, green eyes that sparkled when he laughed, and a crooked grin that had been his trademark back in high school. That imperfect smile had pulled in all the girls, but it was his easy-going personality that kept them around. Now time and truck tires had stripped him of the carefree weightlessness of youthful innocence, wearing him down, leaving only a man slowly driving himself to death.

Rain pounded the pavement, poured down his windshield and the wipers at top speed only barely managed to clear away the water before a new wave cascaded down. His father had died on a day like this…

He’d been eighteen and out with his friends the night his mother called from the hospital. There had been an accident. His dad had lost control of his truck on the road just outside of town… The next day Nick showed up for work in his father’s place, a job that was their only source of income, and he’d been driving ever since… Nick eased up on the gas, slowing from his previous speed in consideration of the power simple rain wielded.

Like the dirt on the outside of his truck, the rain had washed his mother out of his life. She had been slowly fading away since the day she’d held her husband’s cold hand without it clasping hers in return. She had been made of sugar, too sweet for her own good, dissolved bit by bit as he had watched, helpless. The day of her funeral it had rained nonstop, as if the sky was gloating about its victory. As he listened to rain hit her coffin he had not shed a tear, defying the power of water to control him.