Read When It Rains: The Umbrella Collection for Free Online

doing. 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    4
    Two Peas in a Pod
     
     
        Darren Levington; Birthdate: July 16 th , 1973. He lives at 1463 River Road. He is a baker downtown at Carson’s Bakery. He likes to go golfing and collect shot glasses. He’s 5’9 about 170 pounds, huge beady eyes and has a mustache that he so badly needs to shave.  He has a scar above his right eyebrow from when he got in a fight with Bobby Breecher in the 10 th grade.  He drove a bright canary yellow pickup truck with a bumper sticker that read “Honk if you love pussy cats .” Classy, huh? He has a son, Dante, whom he hasn’t seen since the day he was born.
    Oh, and he is the asshole that decided to drink more than his body weight at O’Reilly’s bar and chose to get behind the wheel and slam that Big Bird of a truck into the side of my parents car killing them both instantly.  That’s the only good thing about it.  They didn’t suffer at all.  My life has been consumed by their death with every thought inevitably ending with something to do with them.  They left my life when I was 8 years old and there is a gaping hole where they are supposed to be standing.  I went to multiple therapists to help me come to terms with what happened, but the hole I have has never been able to be filled.  Maybe, they never will be.   Or maybe, I’ll find a way to putty it, so it will be superficially repaired. 
    It all happened one night when they were invited out to dinner at Giovanni’s by Dad’s friend Jack Garrison and his wife Miranda.   My Mom didn’t like him. I overheard Mom and Dad having a disagreement on multiple occasions about him coming over or Dad spending time with him. She didn’t trust him. I remember Mom being nice to practically everyone.  The only person I saw her being standoffish with was Mr. Garrison.  She liked Miranda, though, but had said that she felt there was something fishy about their relationship. 
     
    The day that it happened I heard mom and dad having a discussion. “Jack invited us?” Mom asked
    “Yes,” Dad said back.
    “I don’t like him.”
    “Here we go again.”
    “Davey, you know how I feel about him.  I don’t trust him at all and I don’t like how he treats Miranda, like she is his servant or something.”
    “Can you just push that a side for one night?  One night, I’m asking you to do this for me.  Let’s just go and enjoy ourselves.   If you start feeling uncomfortable then we can leave.  Deal?”
    Mom agreed to go.  L ater that night as she was getting ready and I was sitting on her bed reading a book about a wizard, watching as she was in the bathroom putting on her makeup.  She stood in a red colored dress with her perfectly manicured hair flowing down her back. 
    “Mom, why do you have to go tonight?”
    “Mr. Garrison invited us and we will be gone for a little bit.  You and Pops are going to have fun.  He said something about popcorn and movies.”
    “But, you said you didn’t want to go,” as these words left my mouth she turned her head in my direction.
    “Has someone been eavesdropping again?”
    “Maybe,” I said with the look of guilt written on my face.
    “What did I tell you about doing that?”
    “If you don’t want people listening to your conversations then don’t listen to theirs,” I repeated her lecture verbatim with a mocking tone.
    “Exactly.”
    I watched her closely as she put mascara onto her long brown eyelashes and applied her lip gloss one more time.   “When can I wear makeup, Mommy?”
    “When you are older?”
    “How old?”
    “30”
    “Mom! That’s too old.”  I said with a whiny intonation. 
    “Hey, I am well beyond thirty, so watch your mouth.”
    “Seriously, Mom, when?”
    “Maybe, when you are 13.   We will see,” she said as she came over to me and sat on the edge of the bed as she put on her black high heels, “Is that better than 30?”
    “Yeah, I guess.” and Dad walked through the