“Come look. You have to see this,” she said.
There was a band of green on the map. And then yellow. And then orange. And red. The color splotch marched across her computer screen from east to west. It was coming right at us.
“Hey, you took my place,” she later complained when I sat where she had been sitting in the backyard on a bench facing west.
I moved over, and she sat down too, picking up the big one in her lap. I leaned over and picked up the little one. And there was sat watching the storm.
The sky darkened. The clouds seethed and roiled. Bolts of lightning flashed, followed some seconds later by rolling thunder that made the big one bark while the little one sniffed the breeze.
The sky darkened more. The clouds lost their definition as the leading edge passed over us. There was a drop of rain and then another drop. But the sky was still bright in the west, and the lightning flashes were moving to the south of us. And now the sky was not so dark. And the rain drops stopped falling.
We had such hopes, the four of us sitting out there waiting for the rain that was certain to fall. Waiting for those black clouds with bright flashing and rolling booming. Waiting for the cool front and the rain-smelling air. We had such hopes.
And it passed us, leaving us sitting there, leaving our parched yard still thirsty, leaving our rain barrels not full.