Flight by Darren Hynes

the blinding rain. Still she doesn’t go in, preferring instead to linger in the same spot, letting the drops pound against her head, her face, soaking her uniform. This kind of weather reminds her, sometimes, that she’s alive.

4
    SHE TURNS THE CORNER ONTO HER STREET. The hand in her pocket has a tight grip around the electric bill, while the other hangs at her side. No need for the hood of her jacket since the rain has stopped. A piece of blue sky is visible now through the clouds, and the strong wind of earlier has abated to a lackluster breeze that’s verging on warm, almost pleasant.
    She walks slowly, her eyes focused on the tips of her sneakers. Not looking, really, so much as thinking. Mostly about Friday. Going over everything in her mind: 7:00 – Wake, 7:05 – Wake kids, 7:07 – Get money from downstairs…
    The first pangs of a headache now. Lynette’s giraffe, it occurs to her. Can’t leave without that. Lynette’ll need that more than food. More than a bed.
    She’s surprised to see her father’s Pontiac Bonneville in the driveway. In Kent’s spot.
    A knocking sound makes her look up. Her mother’s there in the front window, one of her hands pulling apart the drapes while the other struggles to hold onto Lynette.
    It’s Lynette’s little fist pounding the glass, excited eyes and a smile that’s missing one of its front teeth.
    Emily waves, then continues along the driveway and up the porch steps.
    Near the door she stops, wondering if the reason for her parents’ visit is because her mother has that ‘feeling’ again. The one she often gets whenever something big is happening in Emily’s life: the tightening abdomen, the dreams, the cold sensation in her hands and feet, all of it culminating in the voice that her mother swears is not her own yet comes from somewhere inside her, the voice that had predicted Kent’s marriage proposal the night before it happened and the boy Emily would have less than a year later. In junior high, her mother had spoken about the burst appendix before Emily had felt a single stab of pain.
    She grips the knob of the door, but still doesn’t go in, thinking how odd it is that, in all the years she and Kent have been together, her mother had not once foreseen a single slap or whispered threat or hand gripping her daughter’s neck and pinning her against the wall.
    Her mother and Lynette are just inside the door to greet her when she finally walks in.
    Lynette runs over.
    Emily’s too tired to lift her, so she crouches on her knees and gives her daughter a hug. “Mom,” she says, her chin resting on Lynette’s shoulder, “this is unexpected.”
    â€œI wish you wouldn’t leave those two alone.”
    â€œIt’s only for half an hour.” Emily lets Lynette go and then kicks off her sneakers. “Just until I get home from work. Less sometimes.”
    â€œI don’t know why you do that job anyway.”
    â€œMom – ”
    â€œIt’s not like you need the money – ”
    â€œDon’t start –”
    â€œThe poor things were starving. Jeremy’s hands were in the Fruit Loops.”
    â€œThey’re always in the Fruit Loops.”
    She comes into the kitchen. Stands in front of her mother.
    â€œNo kiss or what?” her mother says.
    Emily takes a step closer and pecks the offered cheek. Gives a weak hug.
    â€œMy Lord, you’re nothing but a skeleton underneath that raincoat.”
    Emily tries to push away, but her mother latches on.
    â€œDidn’t I say that you weren’t to lose another pound?”
    She manages to disentangle herself. “Don’t exaggerate, Mom.” Emily unzips her jacket and makes her way farther into the kitchen. There’s a bucket of take-out chicken on the table, a container of coleslaw, two boxes of fries, and a huge mound of macaroni salad. Cokes set at every place. Paper