Chapter One: Her Father's Gift
Maya stood in the doorway of her childhood home, her arms crossed in front of her, the wet wind blowing strands of hair across her face.
Three days had passed since the funeral. Three days since she'd watched them lower her father into the ground while a relentless rain drummed against black umbrellas.
The mourners had scattered like startled birds afterward, leaving only polite condolences and casserole dishes that now crowded her refrigerator, untouched.
The house felt hollow without him. Every creak of the old floorboards seemed to echo his absence. The shadows in the corners whispered of conversations they used to have.
His reading glasses still sat folded on the kitchen table next to a crossword puzzle, half-finished. His sweater, that smelled like the sage he brushed against in the garden, hung on his chair.
She had washed all the dishes and put them away, leaving out his coffee cup. Pretending that he might come down the stairs, get a cup of coffee, and finish the crossword puzzle.
But it was the pelting rain that was forcing her to confront something she had tried for years to forget. Her father's constant request that she could never satisfy. She had tried, and tried, and tried. And failed every time.
The worst attempt had been during her twelfth birthday party. Her father had insisted she demonstrate for her friends, so confident she was ready. "Today's the day, Maya. I can feel it," he had whispered, his eyes bright with expectation.
She had stood in the backyard while eight classmates watched from the covered patio, the rain coming down in torrents. She could hear her friends whispering behind their hands about how "weird" Maya's dad was. Maya had closed her eyes, tried to feel the spaces between the drops the way he'd taught her, and stepped forward with absolute faith in her father.
She'd been soaked to the skin in seconds, shivering and humiliated, while her friends giggled behind their hands. Her father had wrapped her in a towel, his face stricken with something that looked like fear. And disappointment.
"I'm sorry, Maya. I thought... the timing must not be right yet."
But the timing had never been right. Eventually, she decided that as much as she loved her father; he was crazy. At least, that’s what she told herself. Except she couldn’t explain how he could do what he asked of her. Because it was impossible.
The rain splashed onto her jeans, bouncing up from the concrete steps. She was getting wet. That was the point. Rain made you wet.
As she stood in the doorway, watching the rain drown the neglected garden, she heard her father’s voice, as clear as if he were standing beside her.
“Walk between the raindrops. Try again.”
She knew he couldn’t be there, but still she answered out of habit.
“No, I can’t. I won’t.”
But he was as relentless as the rain, as he always had been.
“My daughter, remember, you don't need a raincoat or umbrella. They're completely unnecessary. Learn to do this and you’ll know who you are and what you are here to do.”
She'd been seven when he first told her this, standing in this very doorway during a thunderstorm that had knocked out the power for six blocks.
While other parents were bundling their children in yellow slickers and galoshes, Thomas Reeves had simply stepped outside, his arms spread wide to embrace the deluge.
And he hadn't gotten wet.
Not a single drop had touched him.
Maya had convinced herself it was a trick of the porch light, or maybe he'd moved so quickly between the drops that she'd missed seeing the water hit him. Children believed in magic so easily then—why shouldn't her father be able to dance between raindrops?
But as she grew older, she'd dismissed it as childhood imagination, the way she'd stopped believing in monsters under the bed and fairy godmothers who might grant impossible wishes.
Yet the memory persisted, sharp and strange: her father coming in from the storm completely dry, his dark hair and clothes smelling like sunshine.
"Soon, my daughter. Soon you'll see."
"See what?" She'd ask. He'd smile as if there was all the time in the world for her to find out what he meant.
He was wrong. She never did see. She still got wet in the rain. And time had trickled away like water down a drain.
