Song's Rain

Song glanced up at the arched windows for the last time, an aching burn once again filling her chest. The bag at her side was mostly empty, and yet the weight of what it did contain gripped her shoulder with cold pangs of regret. The chance shone like a clear day by the door. She was taking it. Somehow her brain knew that, and yet her shoes stayed glued to the floor. It felt wrong to leave without any sort of tribute. There were the pews, row upon row of silent, wooden people waiting for her decision. There was the one pew that had belonged to her family at the front, and the old organ that no one but Tom had played; the poor dilapidated stairs that Peter and the other boys had abused, and that out of tune piano that sounded so much like home. The baptismal was dim and empty, and right down the center of it all was the very spot where Ezra and Catherine had made their decision and gotten married. Here were the best memories, and all the worst ones.

This church would die soon.

Without the $20,000 that was sitting like an anvil in her bag, Nelson Gibbs would get his way, and the whole thing would be crushed into one heap of dusty brick.

No, she couldn’t leave it like this.

Before she could think, her hand was reaching into that heavy, empty bag, and pulling out the black notebook. It was really an accounting ledger, one she’d stolen from Ethan’s dad, but now it was brimming with a bunch of old thoughts. Though she’d told no one, Song had kept all the scraps from Peter’s old journal, and put them in here, tucked between pages along with all the other dreams that had never come true.

Song ran all the way to the pulpit, disrupting the quiet like some late kid in the middle of a sermon. She stood there on the little raised stage for a while, then left the notebook on the baptismal ledge, right under the wooden cross that Ethan had helped his dad build. Digging into her jacket pocket, she found the pen that Athena had given her back when she was twelve. On the inside cover, she wrote,

To Elizabeth Rain,

I wish you were here.

I wish you could’ve seen them all grow up and get married.

I wish you could’ve been here to save the church before I ruined it.

Song sighed. She had no idea what she would do with the money in her bag. Only that she had to escape from all the horrible, suffocating memories of Elizabeth Rain. She hadn’t really stolen the $20,000. She had technically found it behind the plaque when they were searching for the letters. Then she had taken it, let Nelson Gibbs take the land from her dying building, and moved on. They were simple actions. Digging through what had led her to accomplish them would be harder than sifting through the pile of rubble to which this church would soon be reduced.

One day left, and then this whole place will be gone.

Let them destroy it all. And destroy that little black notebook full of ten-year-old kids’ secrets. What did she care?

“You gonna stand there forever?”

Song whirled around, her gut sinking to the bottom of the chapel downstairs. There was Ethan, still only fourteen, watching her from the doorway.

The space between them stretched with every passing second, accumulating like winter ice on the windows until it made Song shiver.

“Why are you here?”

He didn’t accuse her. It was another simple question with a complicated answer.

“I don’t really- it doesn’t matter.”

He didn’t question her further, just walked closer, his eyes flicking over every bit of familiar.

“What’s that?”

Song glanced behind her.

“Just a notebook.”

“What’s in it?”

“Oh…a lot of old stuff. Some of it’s snippets from Peter’s journal. Most of it’s just nonsense.”

He laughed, the pure sound ringing across the sanctuary. Song could almost imagine the snuffed out candles on the chandeliers bursting to life again.

“That pretty much describes everything that us kids pulled off here.”

A kind of reverent quiet settled over them. It was hard to enjoy it when the stacks of lightweight bills were burning like fire under her arm.

“I’m gonna miss this place.” His voice was a bit thick.

“It’s not the same anymore,” Song countered, her throat closing off. She needed to get out of this room to breathe.

“Well, I still think it’s beautiful.”

“It’s not that.”

She paused.

“I know it’s beautiful. Maybe it’s…too beautiful for someone like me.”

“Or maybe you’ve been spending too much time focusing on the ugly.” Ethan said.

Song stared him in the eye.

“Maybe I’ve had a harder life than you.” Her words were knives boring through the crumbling walls.

“Maybe it’s time that you stopped ignoring everyone and told us what in the world is going on!! You used to love having friends at this place, and now you’re acting like you don’t care that it’s almost gone! You’ve abandoned everything, ever since Elizabeth Rain died.”

That last word should’ve made Song cringe, but it hovered in the air instead, pressing over them like a canopy, and choking back whatever Ethan had been about to say.

“Sorry,” Ethan mumbled. “That was…I guess…I-I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. They’ll demolish it tomorrow, and then we won’t ever have to argue,” she said.

Song turned away, ignoring Ethan’s downcast eyes and striding toward the door.

“If this church is too beautiful for you, then why did you still come here?”

Song froze.

The hard knot inside her boiled up strong, and she almost wanted to shout back at him,

What doesn’t make sense is why someone like me gets to have an awesome sister and then she has to die! Now there’s nothing left of anything she did but this beautiful church that’s gonna be destroyed by some stupid old man, and all because of ME!

But, for some reason, she didn’t. Just like she hadn’t ripped up those bills when she found them, and the same way she’d stayed to stare at this haunted church instead of leaving.

“I know it’s probably wrong to leave without saying goodbye, that's why.”

Ethan stuck his hands in his pockets, his lips pressing into one straight line.

“Where are you going?”

“Somewhere that’s not here,” she replied.

He nodded, as if he already knew and understood her answer. Song watched him walk over to the baptismal and admire the smooth cross, then pick up the worn black notebook and flip through the pages. The crinkle of paper echoed around her head as he came to the end. A tiny scrap of a notecard drifted to the floor. Ethan sighed and reached down to pick it up, glancing at the scribbled words.

“Did you ever read this?”

“Hmm?” Song looked up and trudged back over to him, inspecting the folded slip of paper.

“To Song,” he read.

Everything inside her clenched up into one knotted ball of yarn. The handwriting was all too familiar, etched in her memory, and written deep into her eyes until she could recognize the author from a mile away. Song could no longer react to every complicated emotion she should've been feeling, her voice much too numb to stop Ethan from continuing to read.

“I know that there's still a little while before I have to leave for Boston, so I thought now would be the time to write to you. And yes, Song, I know that you stole this notebook from Ethan's dad. But we can talk about that later. You see, I want you to know that you don't have to be afraid of how long I'll be gone. Most of all, I need to remind you that saying goodbye happens in our lives for a reason. Actually, almost ALWAYS the things that strain our friendships are the very instances that test if they're true. Remember, it was the the difficult conversations, the mixed-up feelings, all the tears, and the loneliness that brought all of us together. It isn't the place that made me love you, or the time. You have a soul that's true, Song. And true souls, in my experience, have an unending capacity for changing people's hearts. Every Song has Rain, and that's why you have me.

Love, Lizzy Rain

Song's face stayed forward, eyes unblinking, listening to Elizabeth Rain's words. Words that had lasted longer than herself, that she had left behind to ensure someone hadn't been completely left behind. The $20,000 in her bag lightened even as her stomach flipped. Ethan finished reading, then tucked the paper back into the notebook and held it out in front of Song's still body.

"Song, I think you should keep this."

She didn't answer, just shrugged off her bag and handed it to him. Only then did she accept the little black notebook.

"You're right about one thing," she said as Ethan peeked into the bag. His eyes shone with pure shock and something else Song couldn't quite translate.

"What?"

She was already walking toward the door, filled with the glow from the windows, and replaying those words in her head like a broken tape recorder. She called over her shoulder,

"I'm going to start focusing on the true, not the now. I just realized there's a difference."

The floor beneath her creaked good-naturedly as she left.