When It Rains: The Umbrella Collection

Dedicated to:

Karina and Lucky for always being my umbrella when I’m stuck in the rain and need it the most.

Rights Reserved

Copyright
2013 Prudence Hayes. All books are reserved, including the rights to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. You may not distribute this book in any way.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1  
It’s Raining

Chapter
2
 
Kitchen Counter

Chapter 3
   
The Voice

Chapter
4
   
Two Peas in a Pod

Chapter
5
   
The Rose Garden

Chapter
6
    
Is That Him?

Chapter
7
   
A Peach Colored Room

Chapter
8
   
Pills and Potatoes

Chapter
9
   
Shackles

Chapter 1
0
  
Surprise Visits

Chapter 1
1
  
Ashford

Chapter 1
2
   
Tomorrow.  You’re Always a Day Away.

Chapter 1
3
  
Apologizes

Chapter 1
4
   
Who Knew?

Chapter 1
5
Screw It

Chapter 1
6
Kitchen Counter II

Chapter 1
7
Just in Case

1

It’s Raining

    I feel like raindrops have been following me my whole life. Slowly dripping, tiptoeing behind me in my shadow and at other times chasing me at a downpour, drenching me as I try and dodge the wet droplets. The rain has been incorporated in my life during times when life-changing events have happened and enclosed in my dreams; frightening me out of my sleep.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have hated the rain. Besides
, the physical pains of it all; the headaches from the pressure in the air and my bones aching, there are also the mental issues. Yes, I have plenty of them. Anxiety fills my veins as the rain begins and doesn’t leave until the clouds part and the sun shines brightly.  Sometimes, I catch it too late and that is when depression kicks in. There is something about the dreariness of the weather that sets me on a whirlwind mentally. With my shoulders slouched, my mind is dark and I feel incapable of living.  The weather infuses itself into my mind and makes it heavy.  The weight makes me sag and hang deep below my normal surface and I tend to become stagnant, unwilling to move until I am strong enough to push, yank and tear my way out of it.  Not all the time though, just the times where I don’t catch myself before I fall down those slopes.

I typically won’t lea
ve the house or wherever I am when the showers start and I plead to anyone that will listen to stay put until it ends. An unsettled feeling builds within my heart and I’m afraid that something bad will happen; scared someone will get hurt.  There are people who understand and then there are some people who say, to my surprise, that I have issues. I could have told them that.

In the small chance that I succumb to the constant whine of others and
leave the house while it rains, I carry one of my umbrellas. I have red ones, blues ones, striped ones and polka dots. I have a lots, like my frog one, from when I was a little girl and now that I’m almost 20, I choose to only break those out when I want to embarrass the person I will be standing next to.

I’ve
collected umbrellas since before I can remember. There’s a picture that I have from Christmas when I was two years old and I’m unwrapping the one with strawberries all over it and in the background of that photo are my frog, rainbow and duck ones leaning against the wall next to the front door.  So, this hoarding aspect of my character must have started before then. My closet is full of them, along with the hallway closet and it has infiltrated the attic, kicking out all the nonsense that Pops keeps. They are shoved under my bed, the trunk of my car and in boxes in the garage that has once again evicted Pops’ things. I’m still waiting for the day he freaks out on me as he pulls up in the driveway and passes all his belongings that are sitting on the curb awaiting their final trip to the landfill as I make room for my beloved umbrellas, but he seems to handle it very nicely. He practically acts as if he doesn’t notice, so I’ll continue to do it until he has had enough and screams at me. Pops is actually the one that has contributed the most to my umbrella collection. My birthday, Christmas, Hanukkah (and we aren’t even Jewish) and every other holiday you can think of, he will hand me a wrapped present in a long odd shape and it would be a brand new one.  One time, he bought me one for his birthday. I thought that was a bit odd, but I graciously accepted it.

I believe my Mom and Dad were the culprits in getting this obsession started, buying me them because of my extreme loathing of the rain. There have been many major hissy fits that have occurred due to my insistence that something bad was going to happen and the reaction I had when the moistness hit my skin. So, their solution was those umbrellas. They told me it was my shield, a shield to protect me from the pain and fear I felt and I
fell for it.  I believed them wholeheartedly. When I had one in my hand covering my body, I felt nothing could hurt me. I can’t even recall the last time a raindrop touched my skin.

When I didn’t have one, especially in the house because my Mom believed the superstition, “Open an umbrella
indoors and bad luck will rain upon you”, I would hide under my bed at the first rap of thunder and wail at the first glimpse of a small wet mark hitting the wood that made the porch. I was under my bed so often my Dad and I decked it out under there. I had shelving for my books, pictures hanging from the rails, stuffed animals galore, pink streamers for decoration, small Christmas tree lights for lighting, and pillows and blankets that I kept under there ready to go for when I needed to retreat for safety. There wasn’t much room, but it was my fortress.

When I was about 6 years old, I stole a storage box from my Dad’s bar down in the basement. The box contained little umb
rellas from a Luau themed barbecue that my parents threw one summer. I remembered their friends walking around with them hanging out of their drinks all night long. I took my markers and colored each one differently, then took duct tape and fastened the newly designed umbrellas to each one of my stuffed animals’ hand, so they would be safe, too. We all lay huddled together underneath my bed for hours.  I didn’t just keep my paranoia to myself. I pushed them upon everyone and everything close to me. When my parents would leave for work, or anywhere for that fact, I would shove an umbrella in their hand. Sometimes, they would nonchalantly place them down somewhere where they would think I wouldn’t notice, but I always did and gave them an ear full when they returned. Pops, on the other hand, took them with great pleasure and without hesitation. When he knew I was watching out the window as he headed towards his truck, he would open up the umbrella proudly, even when it wasn’t raining and the sun shined bright. It’s kind of funny to see your grandfather sporting a bright pink umbrella with a smiley face imprinted on it above his head while clutching a case of his favorite beer in the other, headed for a get together with his old-time war buddies.

It’s not as horrible these days to exit my house while the rain falls down.
  I’m older now and I know it won’t physically hurt me, but I rather not.  And, that is exactly what I was thinking as I was staring at the chipping paint on the bottom of my magenta colored dresser, while laying on my side across my bed listening to the sound of droplets hitting the tree outside my window.  My long brown hair was strewn across my face making it so that the dresser was the only thing I could see besides the opening to my closet.  My knees were brought into my chest and my hands were tightly squeezed around them.  My mission was to make myself as little as I possibly could, trying to be nonexistent to everyone especially myself.

I get in these moods a lot.
  It seems that the frequency of their happenings comes and goes in their intensity and longevity.  Sometimes, it will be a week or two before the switch takes place.  Other times, it’s within minutes.  The switch being my mood swings.  The high-flying upswing of those is a breathlessly beautiful with my face hurting from the endless amounts of smiles emitting from my face.  The downward end of the moods, the back swing, are where the trouble lies in wait, awaiting to pounce on me and wishing with its fingers crossed that I won’t be ready.  The less preparation and fight I give the easier and longer it suffocates me.

I
felt like shit for a while now, hiding it the best I could from my family, but the back swing swung higher today and I wasn’t prepared at all.  Hence, why I have encased myself in this position on my bed, undecided on whether I want to breathe again.  I knew I had to get up any second because Pops wants his hair cut for his date tonight.  He has enlisted me in this job ever since I’ve lived with him and we have the same spat every time because we differ on mishaps.  Being that I am not a professional, it’s understandable that a mistake will occur, but his point is that I’ve done it for so long now that I should have mastered it being that he has had the same haircut forever, the typical old guy one.  His hair parted on the side and combed over the top.  He likes me to fix a mistake I made on his hairline and I just say “Eh, just shave it.”  He always wins that battle though because he says he has a dent on the top of his head.  The fact that I have one to match his makes me relent in my stance and mend my mishap. 

I lay in my spot waiting to hear his bellowing voice and his fist banging on the wall, enamored
by the choice in paint color the previous owner had chosen for the dresser.  Granted, I didn’t like the baby pink I picked when I was little. But, that orangey-green puke color that was peering through under the chipping magenta and light pink made me question other people’s sanity.  

My mind was flip-flopping between the nonsense of the dresser, to disappointment that air was entering my lungs, to my hair getting i
n my eyes.  My head does that on purpose. It tries to snap me out of my funk by focusing on mundane things such as chipping paint; the sane part trying to grab my attention away from the devil lurking inside.  There was a rap of thunder coming from the heavens above that made me jump a few inches off my bed and land in the same spot and reconnect with the paint again.

“Nora, Let’s go!” Pops had just yelled for me shocking me out of my comatose stare.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I grumbled as I sat up groggy from lying there and maybe from the pill that I took a little before.  I’m not sure what it was, it was small and white.  I grabbed it from Pops’ medicine cabinet while he was at the store earlier.  That’s my biggest secret, stealing pills from everyone.  Pops, my uncles, cousins, and from everyone else’s house I just so happen to be in.  My uncle Mike is one of my biggest suppliers.  He conveniently and unknowingly delivers them to me to my doorstep.  He has heart problems, stress problems, mental problems, anger problems, kidney, stomach, sleep, back, and knee problems and he is prescribed a pill for each.  He carries them around with him wherever he goes in a blue backpack that he leaves by the front door when he comes over. 

 
I took a quick peek in the mirror to wipe off the mascara that fell beneath my eyes to hide the fact that I was melted into my bed a moment before.  I put my slippers and black hoodie on and headed down the steps, skipping the third one from the bottom that Pops has named “Diablo” because, for as long as I can remember, it made a high pitched creek when pressure was placed on it. Pops said it was a sound only the devil could make.  So, we all avoid it as much as possible.

“What’s the big hurry? You have
a hot date or something?” I asked with a hint of laughter as I landed on the floor at the bottom of the steps in front of him because I already knew the answer.

“Yes, I do as a matter of fact and you know how she gets when I’m late and I would rather not have to hear it, so come on. Let’s go,” he had a towel around his shoulders to block the hair from getting on his clothing, his typical attire, flannel shirt that was tucked into a pair of jeans and brown loafers.