Patch

The rain was coming down hard now. It had started light and at first might have been mistaken for a small drizzle blowing through, but by now it was clearly a downpour. Those unlucky few that had been caught off guard by it were now trudging through the rain with newspapers and jackets over their heads. The sound of wet tires rolling through puddled streets were only a faint muddied sound in comparison to the drumming of the rain on the roofs of the melancholy houses and the porch of the woman sitting in the large arm chair.

After sitting with her eyes closed listening to the sound of the of the rain, she opened her eyes and was glad to see that the roads had cleared and the sounds of tires were more distant than before. The woman reached down and pulled up a very old box that had been brought back from Asia. She let her hands rest for a moment on the carving of birds and trees with flowers on them. Sliding the bottom corner of the wooden box to the right the box unlocked and she opened it slowly. All the items were as she had left them arranged neatly, fitting well, each in its own place. She took a pipe out of the box that was also engraved with a pattern that circled the bowl. Reaching back into the box she readied the pipe and packed the bowl gently with a tobacco whose name she had never learned to pronounce and had never truly cared to. The rain had let up for a moment, but only a moment and it was back again dumping more than it had before. The woman held the pipe with her left hand as she balanced the box in her lap and reached in for the embossed lighter.

Once the box was back on the small round table that stood next to the mighty chair, she took her time lighting the pipe slowly, the way she had seen him do so many times before and the way she had come to be familiar with. She would always sit in that thick arm chair, in fact she would hardly look at the cushioned rocking chair that sat on the other side of the round table. The tobacco was stale but she liked it, it had a strong taste and a warm odor. The woman breathed deeply from the pipe and sat watching the smoke bellow through the air and curl as it met the rain. When the wind was still, like it was this day, she would always sit on the porch and smoke. It was almost like tradition, only it held more weight than tradition, I think. She would lean back into the chair and sink into it as she breathed the smoke slowly and let the taste sting and fade. Then she would take a moment and listen to the rain, then breath, then listen, then breath, then listen.

Grandma would sit there for hours Peter would explain, though I was too young to remember, which is not true. I could swear of memories of Grandma on that porch in that chair and the smell of smoke in the air. Peter would assure me that I would have only been three, maybe three and a half and doubtfully remembered much of anything about her. I trusted Peter, I had no reason not to, and still the memory though faint as it was, was still there.

Peter would talk about Grandma for quite a while at times and it would make me sad because I knew it had been hard for him to let her go. I wanted it to be hard for me too. I wanted to tear up when he would start remembering her to me. I couldn't though, and really I hadn't known her at all and I never would.