By Alyssa Clark, Staff Columnist

Everything was exactly as it was when the last big one came. I inhaled and could almost taste the all too familiar smell of the oncoming storm. But a storm is funny that way. The nerves still tingle the soles of your feet, no matter how many times you’ve experienced one before. Your heart beats faster and faster as you prepare yourself for the first crash of the stunning lightning bolt.

Your eyes see it happen, but they can’t fully experience the effect until at least three seconds later. When the light finally soaks into the deep pool of your eye, and your focus becomes only your reflection in the window. You’re lucky enough to watch the miracle happen right before your eyes.

The glass was cool from the shadows the old oaks cast onto that corner of our house. I’d see her there cross-legged, her fingers tapping the window, as if she was knocking to see if Night would come out to play.

The bluish-black quilt blanketed the sky now, and it was as thick as I’d ever seen it. Her little eyes couldn’t bare to look away from the empty driveway, and the darker it got, the more the hope sank from her face.

“Soon, baby,” I said, trying to soothe her.

“I don’t mind waiting,” she answered back to me.

She would wait forever. People say lighting never strikes the same place twice. I’ve never seen it happen myself to find it true, but I suppose no one could be that unlucky. Lighting is a scary thing. A sharp and erratic stream of pure uncontrollable energy, with no boundaries and no limitations, its playground an endless sky with a world below to catch it when it falls. I wish that myth could be the same with all bad luck. You can only get a speeding ticket once, only lose your wedding ring once, forget your mother-in-law’s birthday once. Bad luck has other energies behind it though, and that’s something I thought I worked hard to avoid.

“Come on, sugar.” I bent down to her eye line. “It’s getting late.”

“Five more minutes?” she bargained.

Those brown eyes momentarily abandoned their duty to the window to meet with mine.

“Please?” she said.

I would never admit it, but those brown eyes got me every time.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll go switch over the laundry.”

A slight glimmer returned to her almond eyes. “But then it’s up to bed.”

She nodded and returned to her post on the window seat.

Bless that little girl’s heart. She never was one to give up hope. She took after you in that regard I suppose, for I am all too realistic for her romantic mind. I remember on our Sunday walks you would tell me stories about the way you could hear the flowers whisper to each other in the summer, and how one day we would live on a beach, barefoot, without rent, without debt, without a care in the world.

I believed in your relationship with words. The way you could take me from one place to the next was something I not only admired but was one of my favorite things about you. I remember them all so clearly still, but those were all just stories I had gathered.

“All right, Emma.” She was already standing as I entered the room. “I’ll race you upstairs.”

I opened her bedroom window to let in the wind, heavy with the smell of the coming rain. Emma turned slightly, the moon shining on half of her sleepy face. I saw you then for a second, hidden away in the corners of her mouth and in the slight bump on the bridge of her nose. Her skin was perfectly spotted and a deep gold like yours was. I had never seen her through the light of the moon like this before.

“Mama?” she whispered.

“Yes, Emma?” I replied.

“Do you think lighting can ever strike the same place twice?” she asked me.

I paused for a long moment and looked into her eyes. I wasn’t ready for her to be bothered with the facts of reality yet. I wanted her to live in that romantic mind of hers for as long as it was possible. I wanted you to always live on through her.

“For you,” I answered, “anything is possible.”

—Alyssa Clark is an English sophomore.

—This piece of fiction does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.