If All the Raindrops

by Megan Melia
Illustration by Yized Hernandez

She was still eating lemon drops.

It was getting ridiculous, really. Half the jar was gone, even though she only had one hand free to keep snatching. But she couldn’t help it.

Sugary and light, their gentle bite disrupted some of the heat bearing down on her, and bathing her palm in sweat, as she gripped her snoozing grandfather’s leathery hand, drenched in Olay lotion. There was a soft pang with each pop in her mouth. A little buzz gently advising her to stop. And like a middle finger to the sky, she’d reach into the jar and eat another.

She knew she would probably regret it. But she kept eating them. Maybe it was because she knew eventually she wouldn’t be able to taste lemon without collapsing, and she knew that day was coming soon.

And as for that day... she found herself bartering daily with God about it. Some days the trade involved making the day come soon, come now. Make it stop, let him rest, let it end, she’d beg and plead to the angels while the rest of the world slept.

Other days, all she craved was time. Greedy, self-indulgent time that would do nothing to change the inevitable. But it was days like this that she would sell her soul to make sure she only had one hand free to eat lemon drops, so that the other could keep holding his.

So she sat. Next to him, as she had all summer. Stocking up on enough lemon to last her the rest of her life. The nautical notes of his cologne waltzed with the tangy lemon in the air, a sort of scented soundtrack, breathing familiarity to the slow beat of their time left. And he’d wake, and they’d talk. He seemed to be remembering the past with such clarity these days, though she could hardly say the same for his memory of last week.

But that didn’t matter because on days like this, he’d puff with pride upon recollection of the 32-inch musky he caught on the lake they loved. He’d absentmindedly rub the lonely wedding band on his hand, asking her if she remembered the story of a semiblind date at a long ago school dance, where he fell in love with a radiant girl who loved the White Sox. Of course she remembered, but she’d feign cluelessness, if only to live momentarily again in a world where her grandmother’s striking sapphire eyes had not yet closed forever without warning.

Though she wouldn’t have much practical use for it, he would instruct her in excruciating detail how to build a thatch roof house, in the middle of the Irish highlands, as he had done in his youth. He’d remind her the key is to angle the roof steeply, using a variety of weeds, straws, and grasses. Mud can be helpful for adhesion. This was very important for her to know, in the event that she found herself alone and unsheltered in the Irish highlands.

His eyes would get misty when he talked about singing in the cathedral as a boy, humming either an Italian aria or “Loch Lomond,” depending on the day. He told her that someday, she’d get to sing in places even more beautiful than that cathedral. He told her she could do anything. And he’d say it with such assuredness, such conviction, that she couldn’t help but believe him.

She’d smile and kiss his cheek and offer him a lemon drop. When she was young, he always had them stashed away in the deep pockets of his wool fisherman sweaters, ready to slip them quietly to her when her mother and grandmother weren’t looking.

Lately, it was a toss up if he would eat the offered lemon drop. Sometimes he’d take it, mouth puckering a little extra to make her laugh. Other times he’d turn it down, tell her what a shame it would be if he stole away her chance of having what could be the world’s greatest lemon drop. And she’d play along, as though she were still that little girl who believed him when he said, “I’m just too full.” But something within her splintered every time she saw he barely had the strength to eat a lemon drop anymore.

So he’d give it to her, watch her eyes radiate that mischievous glint, knowing full well it was his genes that instilled that mischief within her. Knowing full well that sweet tooth was mostly his fault as well. He basked in the element of quiet comfort of that notion. The fact that however much longer this summer stretched on, there was a place where that mischief would still reside. There would still be someone with a pocket full of lemon drops who knew where that fish mounted on the wall came from.

In this daze, it was easy for the blunt line determining reality to grow jagged. She found herself slipping into a dangerous mindset occasionally, one that sang, “see you tomorrow,” sure as a promise. Tomorrows tend to add up quickly. Almost as quickly as the pile of discarded lemon drop wrappers on the table.

She’d notice the plastic accumulating and attempt to gently free her hand from his grasp long enough to gather the wrappers, throw them away, and be back just in time for him to lazily open his eyes. He’d tease gently that he couldn’t believe she had the audacity to leave him all alone and, oh, how he’d missed her terribly.

Sometimes she’d laugh and give a curtsied apology, playfully swearing that she’d never do something so horrible again. Other days, she’d manage a smile and say no, she was perfectly all right, she had only gotten sunblock in her eyes. Because some days, even in jest, it was simply too much. The prospect of missing someone again.

It was wearing on her. Even lemon is not potent enough a scent to mask the reek of panic every time he tipped his worn Irish cap at her as they parted. The crinkle of plastic wrappers did little to drone out what was likely the last time he would hear them sing “Happy Birthday” in their infamous, multi-keyed rendition. All the sugar in the world couldn’t soothe her throat after being wept raw when her mother asked if her black dress still fit.

But there was this element of guilt eating away at her. Her body was not the one that stopped making blood, it wasn’t her mind that was an overgrown jungle of foggy yesterdays, fuzzy dates and faces. She was not the one who had to start thinking about what she would say to God when she met Him. What right did she have to allow this fear and dread bloom inside of her? Once the day came, the guesswork for her would end. She knew how this next part would go. This next part she had done before.

The world would halt for a week or two. So would her appetite, but the high of lemon drops discovered wedged between the cushions would sustain her enough to socialize while passing around tissues. She’d fall back into a routine of sleeping fitfully in her grandmother’s old jacket, waking feverishly one night to find her hand sticky from the melted remains of a forgotten lemon drop tucked in the pocket. She’d cradle her cheek when she bit down a touch too aggressively on a lemon drop after bumping into a stranger with the audacity to wear her grandfather’s cologne.

She’d keep talking to him, and she’d tell anyone who’d listen where the musky on the wall came from. And one day, she’d hear “Loch Lomond” playing in a store. Her breathing even, she’d picture the brown eyes that matched hers, and she’d smile. Not only because she knew which reeds to use while building a thatched roof house in Ireland, but because she was so very lucky to have been that man’s granddaughter and been loved so fiercely because of it.

But she knew that once the lemon drops ran out, the jar would not be refilled. Which was probably why, despite the sweat accumulating between their palms, she tightened her grip on his hand, the Olay lotion bleeding into her pores. And like a middle finger to the sky, she reached in the jar and ate another.