“From the Setting of the Sun to the Rising of the Moon…”

“Hold me tighter.”

She became an orphan on a morning just like this one. A day before she turned sixteen they were coming back from the grocery store and wind, rain, hale, it got the best of them. There was no drunk driver, no texting or downed trees. Her dad just couldn’t see and instead of pulling over he tried to drive thru it, they went off the side of the road. He died instantly, her mom a week later from internal injuries.

It took her awhile to share that with me, I always wondered why she didn’t go to work, didn’t go out, didn’t even leave the bed when it rained. And one night when I cut my phone off and there was a big storm she showed up at my home the next morning with red…