We were arguing about something I don't even remember now. The week between Christmas and New Year, when the house feels too full and too empty at the same time.
The rain started slow, then hammered the tin roof above the porch. It drowned out her voice. I couldn't hear what she was saying, and I think that was a relief.
I grabbed the flashlight I keep by the back door. Not because I needed light. I just needed something to hold.
I stood there, hand on the knob, listening to the rain. The battle I was fighting wasn't with her. It was with the feeling that I'm not useful anymore. That my hands, which have hung drywall for sixty years, don't matter much now.
She came up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder. 'I'm not trying to fight,' she said. 'I just worry.'
I turned off the flashlight and set it back on the shelf. 'It's just rain,' I said. And it was. But I was the one who needed to hear it.