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blurry slate-colored ghost of itself that seemed
to be hunkering down, bracing against the rain.
    The street itself had
become a river, a single southbound torrent that filled the entire
four lanes from curb to curb at least six inches deep. It was even
beginning to develop its own chop and eddies underneath the
constant pelting of new rain, more rain, endless rain.
    “You know the menu already, so I won’t bore
you,” Tony said. “Genelle is your waitress. Don’t eat the salmon.”
Rose looked surprised. He put up a hand. “No, really,” he said.
“Don’t.” He nodded briskly and moved away. A moment later a
dark-eyed blonde with slightly too much hair replaced him and took
drink orders.
    For a long minute, they
were both fascinated with the view. From where they sat, the rain
was not only heavy and dark, it was right
there , a scant few inches from their faces
but still impossibly remote, falling in dull silver sheets that
simply would not stop. Ken put his fingertips against the glass; he
could actually feel the rhythm of the rain as it pounded against the
ground.
    “Freaky,” he said.
    Rose didn’t say anything.
    Genelle came back again and they placed their
orders: Caesar Salad for Rose, the World-Famous French Dip for
Ken.
    The silence grew longer and more
uncomfortable. They both watched avidly as a middle-aged woman
frog-walked down the sidewalk and almost threw herself in her car,
covering her head with a flapping fragment of newsprint that
offered no protection at all.
    The food came. Ken selected a single French
fry and steeled himself. Time for more conversation. “Pretty
strange introduction to our quaint little town,” he said with an
entirely forced lightness.
    Rose looked at him – regarded him with those
wonderfully odd violet eyes. She wasn’t simply ignoring him; it was
more as if he hadn’t spoken at all.
    “I pretty much hate you right now, you know,”
she said.
    The bottom dropped out of his stomach.
    “I mean, you’ve been okay
during this whole car wreck-rainstorm-hospital thing – better than
okay, really, but…” She looked down and shook her head. “You were a
complete shit two years ago, Dad. You were a great guy for my whole
life, right up until then, and then Uncle Patrick died and you
… broke .”
    He didn’t say a word. He just kept looking at
her, stone silent.
    “You left us. Don’t you –”
    “I know what I did,” Ken said. The food
tasted like paste in his mouth.
    Rose stopped talking and looked out the
window again. The street-river had grown even deeper, rising past
the level of the curb. Now it was an uninterrupted, roiling expanse
that began outside the restaurant’s glass wall and stretched to the
Convention Center’s brick staircase fifty feet away. Another step
disappeared under the water while they sat in silence.
    “Do you know how hard this
has been on Mom?” she asked, trying to keep her voice low, but not
entirely succeeding. “She's trying to get this real estate thing
off the ground at the worst possible time in human history. She
cleans fucking apartments to make the bills, do you know that?”
    “I know that. She won't take any money
from—”
    “ Of course she won't , and you know why! You. Left.
Us.”
    Ken pressed his lips together to keep the
truth from pouring out. “Rosie, it's more complicated than—”
    “Sure it is, Dad,” she snapped, and glared at
her meal, not at him. “Sure it is.”
    Neither of them said anything for a long
time. Ken listened to the roaring hiss of the storm and let it fold
around him.
    “You know,” she finally
said, “I’m actually glad you’re not trying to apologize.” Her voice
was very calm, very reasonable. She didn’t sound hurt; she wasn’t
holding back tears or anger. She was discussing it, the way she might
discuss a character in a movie or the problems of a distant friend.
It was that distance that hurt him the most. “It wouldn’t really
mean anything if you did. It