Amber Taliancich
My mother asks about the rain.
***
When I was young, I would stand, feet bare on warm concrete and watch dark clouds roll in or hover or break open. Of my childhood, I remember the lonely days the most.
***
I moved to a place where it’s more gray, but rains less. It brings a different sort of lonely.
***
My mother asks about the rain in Ohio after it’s rained in Mississippi, as though we could be connected in this way. It’s never raining when she calls.
***
I once lived next to a house with a spray-painted X and 2. Post-Katrina—bodies found, two.
***
Earliest memory of a hurricane—dancing in the living room, small feet atop my then-father’s, room blue from the TV’s glow, music from the 24/7 weather cycle.
***
When I was young, my mother managed hotels, and we often had to stay on property during large storms. I would sneak out to the pool and watch how the rain looked from under water.
***
Katrina tossed a casino across the street, into my mother’s hotel.
***
My first spring in Ohio, the storms came. I was on the couch with my dogs when I heard a loud, distinct, whistle. Like a train. The windows near my head shook. Rain, heavy, slapped against the glass. I had a basement, but I didn’t think about basements, then, because there aren’t basements in Mississippi. I took the animals, climbed into the tub, and held them tight.
***
I’ve stood in the eye of many storms.
***
My mother left me behind after Katrina. She couldn’t handle Mississippi in August or Mississippi with no electricity or Mississippi post-storm while taking care of her dying brother. As soon as the roads opened, she and her brother left for dryer ground. I stayed for the animals. We managed alright. We were among the lucky ones.
***
When I was young, every large storm came with a ritual. Move everything inside. Lock screen doors. Form large asterisks on all windows with thick, clear tape. Put jugs of water in the freezer. Have candles and matches and flashlights and batteries out in easy to get places. Find the radio.
***
The spring storms in Ohio feel stronger, more frequent this year. This feels like home even when Ohio doesn’t.
***
Between Mississippi and Alabama, there’s a strip just past the Singing River where storms hover, pour thick sheets of rain. There’s no stopping to wait it out. You can only go through.
***
My mother asks about the rain when storms stretch across the country, from Mississippi to Ohio, the same system connects state to state on the radar for the first time in my seven years away. It wasn’t raining when she called, but it would.
***
There’s another hurricane and another and another projected for Mississippi, though the news hardly says Mississippi. We’re a land mass between Louisiana and Alabama. Perhaps we still hold a grudge. I say we, safely from Ohio as another storm projects to make landfall on the coast tomorrow.
***
When I was young, after my then-father was gone, my mother and I would stay with my grandparents during hurricanes. Their house was brick, sturdy, surrounded by tall pines that would sway with the wind. That’s how they protect themselves, my grandfather would say. I always felt the safest there.
***
It’s strange looking on, as an outsider, now.
***
The ritual is less urgent, but I move plants and fold chairs. There’s a candle or two ready, though I rarely lose power in Ohio. I leave the chime made of oyster shells and sea glass because they’re used to it.
***
My mother sends text updates—We all got through / Still rain.
***
When the storm reaches Ohio, the bands are gone, but it still brings heavy wind and rain. An empty pot falls over and the clay cracks. My dogs whine, not because of the rain but because the rain postpones us from going out. I give in when it seems it’s slowed. The trickle is nice and the storm’s cooled the heat from the day before. But then one fat drop turns to another and another until water pours down over us.
And while I know it’s not the same rain and it’s too precious to say aloud and I hate admitting when my mother is right—I feel the connection.
And I stand, rooted, like when I was young. Like when there was fear and excitement and awe for how these storms, all wind and rain and hope, shaped both the land and the people. The small one looks concerned while the other licks the water from his snout, thoughtful. Maybe they remember, too.
#
Amber Taliancich received her MFA from the NEOMFA out of Cleveland State University. Currently, she teaches creative writing, is the co-founder and Essay Editor for Sidereal Magazine, the Co-Fiction Editor for Orison Books, and the Program Coordinator for the NEOMFA. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Entropy, Hobart, The Pinch, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She lives in Cleveland, OH.