Tomato Rain
By Breeze Navarro
When Pop arrived late to pick me up from school, he didn’t notice my hair was wet with rain.
“My child,” he said and words poured like a river. I watched the road, trying to understand what he was talking about. His hands danced like sparrows in the wind and wonder at his new idea sparked through me, but I knew it meant he’d lost his job again.
At home, Mom stood in fresh sun with cracked garden gloves, a lopsided hat, and a frown dark as rain clouds.
I turned off the car as Pop leapt out, “I want to build a rain room!”
“No,” she shook her head and pulled her gloves off, “We’re not doing this again.”
She pointed to the house, and I lowered my head as I walked past. She wanted me to play drums. She said she never learned to keep the fire in, but it didn’t mean I had to get burned and anyway, it was nothing to do with me. Still, hard as I hit, I knew they were yelling at each other and that her insomnia would soon start asking how to pay the bills.
He started working the next day.
Mom sat with the tomatoes. They’re her favorite, because they’re bitter or sweet depending on how you treat them. I plucked toe-sized tomatoes that exploded in my mouth until my hands were smeared from wiping juice away. Mom cursed and stormed at the tomatoes.
“Mom,” I said and looked at her with stern eyes, trying to communicate without words the way she did. She looked at me with a single brow raised and I decided direct was best. “Stop yelling at them, they’ll sour.”
“They will redden,” she said, avoiding my eyes.
Pop was visible through the screen door, crouched over papers spread across the floor.
“Go on then,” Mom said, ripping a spiked weed out of the earth. It was probably safer for me to leave anyway.
Our floor was a mosaic of sketches and random objects; a compass, jar lids, spiraling orange peels. I stepped carefully until I leaned over Pop. His pencil flew across the page, drawing in the upper corner, swooping down to the middle, writing tight, unreadable, cursive notes. He noticed me when I cast a shadow over his work.
“Talk to me!” He didn’t look up, “I don’t want to get lost in my Rain Room!”
So far, his Rain Room was rain-splattered dodecahedrons tripping across the page and torn corners with wild scribbles.
“What is it?” I asked.
The only reply was rustling paper. He was already gone.
Boxes began appearing at our door, small and large and oddly shaped, and I couldn’t figure out what they held. When he started building, Mom stopped serving him dinner. Two place mats, two forks, two cups and two helpings. She didn’t eat hers. Instead, she gripped her fork and moved the food around, compacting it into smaller clumps. He didn’t notice, which seemed to upset her more. One evening she served sour, reddish green tomatoes that made me pucker. I spat them out and frowned at Mom.
She stabbed at her plate, “If your Father wasn’t working all the time, maybe I’d talk to him instead of our tomatoes.”
She started chopping wood after that, though it was only midsummer, and she usually didn’t start until fall. Daily hammering from Pop’s project and Mom’s chopping thrummed in the background until it sounded like beats. I tried to play drums alongside, but the sound was erratic and I couldn’t find my rhythm.
“Play for the tomatoes,” Mom said, “They don’t interrupt.”
I played with my window open while Mom worked the garden and Pop built his rain room and the tomatoes swelled with sweetness. When we sliced them open, juice dripped thick as honey and they were too sweet to eat.
“We should plant peaches,” Mom said, “I wouldn’t have to add sugar to my pies.”
Each day Mom picked me up from school and I asked if the rain room was finished. “Not yet,” Mom would say, knuckles snowy.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I said, soft enough we both knew it was a lie.
One night, we lay outside next to the tomatoes. We couldn’t sleep because of Pop’s hammering.
“I want to weed my tomatoes, baby,” Mom said.
“Not now, Mom,” I whispered, “Now you are taking care of me.”
We came home the next day to see the house had grown a new appendage, a spherical, reflective prism with innumerable sides. Mom grabbed her gloves and went to her tomatoes, but I approached the Rain Room. My face stared back at me from triangles and octagons and squares. I traced the ridges in search of cracks or nails but could find none, as though it had grown right out of the ground.
“Come in to see my Rain Room,” Pop said, and he was looking at me, not at his pencils or paper.
I followed him into the house and through a sheer, midnight blue curtain. Drops of water floated through the air, illuminated by flecks of light dotting the walls. Thick, lush dirt squeezed through my toes with each step and filled my nose with earthy freshness. Rain alighted on my skin as I walked, so my arms sparkled. I turned, catching drops that fell slow as summer.
Mom stood in the doorway, raindrops resting on her cheeks like tears. “I think our tomatoes are going to like it in here.”
THE END
Author Bio: Breeze Navarro grew up in Florida and received a BA in English at Florida State University. After traveling in 25 countries, they have settled as a social worker in Tasmania. If they aren’t reading or writing, they are probably hiking in search of birds, mushrooms, and stars. Find them on Instagram @breezenthroughbooks.