Standing in front of my office, the irritation and fatigue from the long workday weighing like a few pounds on my shoulders, I’m looking for a cab to take me home from work, and my attention is drawn to the threatening sky. As I look up, a splatter of water falls on my cheek like a kiss.
Only then do I realize somebody calling out to me. In a Cab parked impatiently alongside the curb, motor still running, the driver goes “Where to?” irritation etching his face. I make my way towards the vehicle, “Fifth on the West.”
He nods towards the cab, indicating me to get in and I do. Adjusting myself into the cab, I lean against the backrest and notice that it has started to pour outside. The view from my window transports me to another place and time, the weather leading to an instant recall.
It was a sunny weekend afternoon when I was splayed on the back porch, my Sunday Brunch filled tummy falling flat over my coloring book, my mother with her Easel and seated overlooking me and my things strewn across the floor. I was in my world of innocent bliss from doing this monthly routine we shared together.
"Mom, Green or Blue next?" I voice.
Silence.
"Mom?" I say, with my eyes on the crayons, as if concentrating hard enough would help me visualize what exactly the colors of the rainbow are.
Still met with silence, I finally look up with a puzzle towards where my mother is seated, "Mom...”
I see her staring at the quickly graying sky, her paint brush poised mid-air, her face, I thought, was wearing an expression similar to mine a few moments before, a faraway look.
She came back to our porch, after a few empty seconds, turned towards me with that weird smile she wore a lot lately. She took a deep breath, and dropped her brush on the table and came to kneel over me.
"Hmm, well, it can be whatever color you want it to be"
Satisfied with that, I proceed to complete my art. "Will you look at that? My little Gabe has become a master already!" she declares, messing up my hair.
"Come on Mom, Stop!" I groan.
"Oh, why you little...." she starts tickling my side and rolls me over. While begging her to stop between fits of giggles and my unfocused vision, I probably misjudged the pained smile on her face bent over me.
As I taste a drop of saltiness on my open mouth with a "Huh...?"The thunder and fresh smell of earth greet my puzzlement.
"Mom, what is happening?" I question, getting up on my feet.
"It's starting to rain. Baby boy, get back and stay inside" she says pushing me indoor. I take a look at the sky beyond my mother’s wavy hair blocking her face, before I follow her orders.
"Whoa, will I get to see a real Rainbow???!! Didn't you say, that happens if it's sunny and raining?"
"Maybe..." she replies.
“Hey Man… Yo! Hey man…” the cab driver is in my face. “We’re here”. Back in the present, conscious of my surroundings, I pay the fare and get onto to the sidewalk now under a ceasing rain.
The rain does not hold my attention the way it used to as a child, at least not in the same way. I don’t have many memories from my childhood, but the ones that come back strongest are those of my mother and I think of her whenever it rains.
That stormy evening from my childhood, I had fallen asleep on my perch atop the Window seat overlooking my first ever rainbow. My mother did not wake up again after that, having overdosed on pills.
Without my mother around to explain me things about life, it was a few years from this incident that I learned that rainwater is not salty.