Remember the Rain

I could see it—the curtain of rain draped over the bay like a veil of secrets. I stood at the edge of the pier, eyes straining for a sliver of light to break through, a glimpse of the boat beyond the mist. But there was nothing. Just the endless downpour and the whisper of the waves.

"Beth, you have to remember the rain," he used to say. He said it often. But would the rain remember him?

A gentle tug at my skirt pulled me from my thoughts.

“Ma, is he coming or not?” Little Han’s voice was small, uncertain.

“Yes, darling, your daddy is coming,” I murmured, more to myself than to him. He promised. My eyes never left the curtain of rain.

“Ma, will he tuck me in when he comes?” Han tugged at me again, his voice laced with hope.

I scooped him into my arms, holding him close. “He’ll tuck you in with your favourite bedtime story, my love.” My voice must have been convincing because he sighed against my shoulder, his tiny arms tightening around me.

Then—there it was. The low, distant moan of a ship’s horn.

Little Han stirred. His head shot up, searching the stormy horizon. I searched, too, but the rain was thick, a wall of mist and uncertainty. Then came the voices—men shouting, orders barked over the roar of the sea. Boots thudding against the wet wooden planks.

I moved toward the sounds, pushing through the crowd, Han clinging to me as I brushed past rough shoulders.

“Watch it, lady.”

“Fishing port’s no place for a dame.”

I ignored them, my heart pounding as I scanned every face for my Darren.

Then—

“Mrs. Felice-Beth Hughes?”

I turned.

Two men stood before me. One burly, the other slender. The burly man held a box. His box. My breath hitched. My body knew the truth before they even spoke.

“Not in front of my son,” I whispered, my voice unsteady.

And just like that, the world fell away. The rain, the shouts, the boots on wet wood—all of it faded, swallowed by the echo of Darren’s voice in my head.

"Beth, you have to remember the rain."

“Mrs. Hughes?” The slender man’s voice broke through the haze.

I blinked, reality crashing back.

“Our deepest condolences,” the burly man said.

“I said not in front of my son.” My voice was stronger now, harder. Weathered.

The rain had stopped. The fog had thinned. And then—

“Felice.”

A voice. Familiar. Alive.

I turned sharply.

“Ma, look.” Han’s small hand pointed. “It’s Daddy.”

My breath caught. “Darren?”

I looked back at the two men. “What is this? Why do you have his box?”

But before they could answer, Darren was running toward us, rain-slicked and real.

“Felice.”

The slender man stared, wide-eyed. “Captain Hughes?”

The burly man frowned. “What the hell—?”

Darren’s gaze dropped to the box in the man’s hands. “Why do you have my treasury box?”

The slender man hesitated. “Captain… your first mate reported an incident. We were told you perished in the storm.”

“We sent a rescue squad to your boat,” the burly man added. “They brought back your belongings.”

Darren and I exchanged a look.

“There was no incident,” Darren said slowly.

Little Han yawned, then wriggled free from my arms, climbing into Darren’s. He nestled into his chest, already drifting off.

“Then how do you explain your treasury box being in our possession… and the body our medics just loaded into the police hearse?” the burly man asked.

The air stilled.

Darren—or the man claiming to be him—stood frozen, one arm wrapped around Han, the other hand twitching at his side. He glanced at the box again, then at the hearse parked ominously just beyond the dock. The mist curled around it like fingers trying to pull something back.

“I don’t know anything about a body,” Darren said at last, slowly, like each word was being chosen from a fading memory.

I stepped forward, fists tight at my sides. “Darren… what happened on that boat?”

The slender man turned, glancing toward the road. A voice crackled over his radio—urgent, garbled. Both men exchanged a look, stiffened.

“Wait here,” the burly one said, already moving. “We’re not done.”

They turned and headed off, brisk steps echoing down the pier as they disappeared into the curtain of mist and engine hum.

I was left standing there with… him.

Han shifted slightly in his arms, still asleep—soft and oblivious, like none of this was real. His little hand twitched once, then settled again.

I looked up at the man holding him. “Darren,” I said again, low. “Talk to me. What happened?”

He looked at me then—those eyes. Darren’s eyes. Blue like deep water, flecked with grey like the sky before a storm. But they didn’t see me the way his used to. It felt like I was staring into a memory instead of a man.

“There was no storm. Not like they’re saying,” he said. “There was rain, sure, but… it came from everywhere. Like it had intent.” He shook his head a little, like trying to shake loose the memory. “I remember going out to fix the satellite line. Then… a voice.”

“A voice?” I echoed.

He nodded. “It was calling to me. Not shouting—just repeating. It sounded like… Felice. You. Calling from inside the cabin.”

My breath caught.

"What did it say?” I asked.

He hesitated. “It said, ‘Come back inside. You’ll catch your death.’ Over and over again. That’s all I remember. Next thing I knew, we were heading back to port. And now I’m standing here. On this dock. Soaked.”

The silence after that felt unnatural. Too long. Too still.

I stared at him, my voice barely above a breath. “Darren… what’s my middle name?”

He blinked. Just once. “You never liked talking about it.”

Wrong.

I suddenly felt out of place around him. “No. You used to tease me about it. Every time we met someone new; you’d introduce me with it just to watch me get flustered.”

A flicker passed behind his eyes. Confusion, maybe. Or guilt. Or calculation. But it was gone too fast.

My voice tightened. “You said something once. Back at the cottage, the summer the storms kept knocking out the power.”

He tilted his head slightly, like a dog hearing a whistle it couldn’t place.

“You said, ‘The sea keeps its secrets, but the rain tries to confess them. Beth, you have to remember the rain,’ Do you remember that?”

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t flinch.

Didn’t blink.

Just stared.

“No,” he said, flat as stone. “None of that makes sense, Felice.”

I exhaled, and it felt like the air itself turned colder.

“You’re not him.” My breath hitched. “He always told our son stories about the rain people that came in the storm.”

The rain began again. Not hard, but steady. A whispering curtain, falling between what was and what pretended to be.

He looked down at Han. “He needs his father.”

“He had one,” I said. “I remember him. You killed him, didn't you?”

He raised his head—face expressionless —and for the first time, I saw it: the nothingness behind the eyes. The mimicry was good, but not perfect.

“You shouldn’t have remembered,” he said.

I backed up, pulling Han gently from his arms. He stirred against me but didn’t wake. The weight of him was a comfort, grounding me.

“And you shouldn’t have taken him,” I said.

Thunder cracked in the distance. Sharp and sudden.

The fog thickened behind us.