Singing in the Rain

He’s being a dick. He doesn’t know he’s being a dick which makes it all the more annoying. We’re standing in the kitchen on Saturday morning talking, or rather, I’m talking. Ben is pre- tending to listen while he stretches.

“There’s a new coffee shop,” I say. “The three of us could walk there as soon as Sashie gets out of the shower.”

In running shorts, Ben’s bare legs look ridiculously long and thin. Sashie calls him Daddy Longlegs. His poker friends call him Big Ben because he’s tall and they can read his face like a clock. No one believes his bluffs. Ben holds onto the granite counter with one hand for balance, bends his knee, and pulls his foot behind him to stretch his thigh.

“Would it kill you to run later,” I ask.

I sound like a nag. Sashie sounds like Aretha Franklin if the singer were five-years-old and tone deaf. She’s really belting it out upstairs. This morning she asked if she could bring her yellow plastic umbrella into the shower. It made no sense. I told her as much.

“I saw a movie at Nana’s house,” she said as though that explained everything.

Turns out Ben’s mom found taking care of her one and only grandchild for a couple hours last week too much to handle so plopped our kid in front of an ancient VCR. Sashie watched a thirty-year old home video of Ben as a boy playing a man in a school production of a musical set in the 1950s. That concept is at least three steps beyond Sashie’s grasp of reality. In any case, she is trilling the title song from Singing in the Rain in our newly remodeled master bath because the other shower wasn’t big enough to accommodate her open umbrella. I’m singing in the rain, I’m singing in the rain, over and over, the only lyrics she can remember. The melody is nowhere to be found.

Minutes earlier, Ben and I were laughing about it, our daughter’s uncensored enthusiasm and utter lack of talent. She has a big husky voice and sounds, always, as though she’s projecting to the cheap seats. She’s like bad Broadway. My theory is that she can’t hear herself because her ears and nose are chronically stuffy from allergies. We’re always telling her to turn down the volume but she’s a full blast kind of girl.

I cut a thin slice of bread because that rustic, artisan, whole grain, loaf cost a fortune and also because I’m trying, unsuccessfully, to go gluten-free. The piece is so thin the morning sun shines right through it. If I don’t change the setting on our retro toaster, I'll end up with a bit of sandwich-shaped charcoal. I bend low to adjust the turny-knob-thing and catch my reflection in the chrome side. My nose looks broad and bulbous, my cheeks doughy. My hair is an unfunny clown wig. I blame the funhouse mirror shape of the toaster and also the fact that Sashie lost my hairbrush after using it as a microphone.

“You can run later,” I say to Ben, trying to sound upbeat and declarative.

“We can go for coffee when I get back,” Ben says, switching legs to stretch.

“We can, ” I say. “But we won’t.”

Ben runs for at least one hour every single day. Afterwards, he needs a good twenty minutes minimum to cool down. No sense showering if I’m still sweating, he says. Fair enough. On Saturdays, he likes to run long and take his time in the shower. To luxuriate, he says. Reasonable, right? Work week mornings are hectic. Monday through Friday bathing has to be perfunctory. Half the time, I’m driving to the office with wet hair, hanging my head out the window like a dog in summer, or leaning into the car heater using it like a blow dryer when winter comes.

“It will be too late,” I say and, again, correct my tone. “They’ll need the tables for lunch by then, and I’d like to sit and have a cup of coffee with my husband and kid.”

I’m still in my robe. I’m wearing fuzzy slippers for God’s sake. Ben looks at my pink clad feet as though they’re the paws of one of Sashie’s plush toys, as though I am slowly becom- ing a super sized version of what she calls her “stuffy” animals. We never correct her.

“It’s just that . . . ,” I stop.

We both hear it. Sashie’s stuck on replay, over and over singing in the rain, singing in the rain, but there’s something else. It sounds like actual rain. I look out the kitchen window; brilliant blue sky and sunshine. But the splat-splat of big fat raindrops falling is undeniable.

Ben catches on a split second before I do. He dashes into the front hall. I’m right behind him. Water is pouring from the ceiling. It’s splashing on the hardwood floor. A puddle is already forming.

“You turn off the shower! I’ll grab some buckets,” he orders as he runs for the garage.

I head for the stairs thinking a pipe burst. I’m thinking the ceiling is ruined. I’m thinking the floors are fucked. Before I even hit the landing, I’m calculating the fortune in repair costs. Sashie is still singing. The upstairs hall looks like a small indoor creek. My fuzzy slippers go squishy as I make my way toward the source. What the hell? I find Sashie sitting under her plas- tic umbrella in the shower, singing away. She’s blocking the drain with her cherubic butt. Water is everywhere.

“Out of the shower,” I scream, yanking her by one slippery arm. Sashie startles, bursts into tears. Her open umbrella catches on the shower door and falls upside down. Water starts fill- ing it like a bowl. I’m squeezing Sashie’s little arm way too hard as I reach into the shower and turn the taps to off.

Sashie stands, dripping wet on the tile floor, crying hysterically. “What I’d do? I didn’t do anything!”

“You sat on the drain,” I yell. “The house is flooded!”

She’s shivering and crying.

“I did it on accident,” she manages between sobs. “I did it on accident!”

What the hell is wrong with me? The kid doesn’t understand drains and plumbing and flooded hallways. I reach for one of the fluffy white towels from the rack, and wrap it around her fish-slippery little body. I’m on my knees holding her close, trying to absorb her cries and absolve my sins.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t yell,” she shouts at me in hiccuping sobs. “You are mean!”

She slays me with those words. I bury my face in her wet hair. She smells of Ivory soap and apple shampoo. She’s so small. What is wrong with me?

“I am so, so sorry Sashie.”

She’s not quick to forgive. She stands with the bath towel wrapped around her shoulders. It reaches almost to the floor. She looks like a tribal sage, like a wise elder carefully considering the crime, weighing my punishment. I scoop her up in my arms and kiss her face and head over and over. She allows me this.

The upstairs hall creek has all but disappeared through the floorboards. By the time we get downstairs, the indoor rain has slowed to a drizzle. Ben stands holding two stainless steel pots by their handles catching drips. His hair is a mess. He’s sliding a red plastic bucket across the floor to the far end with the toe of his left running shoe. He’s all arms and legs akimbo.

“Daddy, you look like a skinny starfish,” Sashie says.

Ben moves his arms in a manner he imagines as sea creature-like but actually looks more like a windmill or maybe a manic juggling clown. Sashie giggle-wiggles out of my clutch. She hitches up the towel and runs into her dad’s pots-and-pans hug. He almost topples over. The two of them start singing then, both of them oblivious to key or pitch. Singing in the rain. Singing in the rain. I stand with my arms useless at my sides and close my eyes, the better to see this moment forever.