The Rain That Falls
I’m drenched, but she’s holding up well. The beach is jumping with splashes, more lively than the sea with its waves pulled back to a whispering line. Today she’s going to be washed away by raindrops. Identical twins they called us, Alana and Rosanne, though we never were the same. Now she’s sand. I make her every day.
Not identical. Rosanne with dolls, me with finger paints. Rosanne making mudpies, me climbing trees. During holidays at Scarborough, Whitby, Blackpool, she built sandcastles while I tussled with the surf. This summer I’ve been to all those places, to form her body from the beach. I went to art school. Rosanne took a gap year. While I was in London, she was knocked off her bicycle. On the pavement outside our home, Rosanne bled away.
Yesterday, in Blackpool, the sky threw a sheen of blue across the sands. By the time the families had left the front, the tide was rushing in. She didn’t last long. I watched from the promenade where we used to eat ice cream, waited for the sea to cover her over.
Today, in Morecombe, her arms look like pitted stone. Dad said it always poured whenever we came here on bank holidays. Now her hands are going. I want to say goodbye, but it’s hard to speak, these days. The sea creeps towards us, murmuring. The clouds are so low I can’t tell whether it’s dusk. A hand on my elbow.
“You remember.” A Chinese woman, hair pasted to her face, pointing at the bay. “You remember them.”
Oh. The drowned cockle pickers.
“No. This is my sister.” The rain has blurred Rosanne’s shape. Her feet have disappeared.
The woman nods at the sea, its waves louder now. She puts her arm around my shoulders. Pulls me back towards the shore.
* Jac Cattaneo is an artist, writer and lecturer living in Brighton. Her short stories has appeared in a range of anthologies and journals. This story was first published in volume 3 of Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine from the University of Chester.
