The old woman, Ramona, like her umbrella, was from another time, a slower, quieter time, a time she missed. Despite a tight grip, the umbrella inflated above her hoary head, twisting in howling gusts. Cold raindrops plentiful as her days pin-pricked her eyes. Her feet shifted to avoid puddles but not fast enough, and her socks were soaked, and her feet soggy and cold.

I am only halfway to the grocery store. What a day, what clima!

Oh, how I loved stomping puddles in the rain when I was a girl. I used to stand under the overflowing gutters of our house and squeal at the waterfall over my head. Feeling the memory, she stopped, closed her eyes, and only the sound of the raindrops bouncing off the fabric of her umbrella brought her back to the present.

Grocery shopping was the only task she resolved to complete today. Bypassing a store window, she glimpsed her shrunken, age spotted cheeks, and mouse-like beady eyes blinking, uncontrollably. I look like la niña enferma I used to be growing up.

Oh, ¡caramba, how shabby this old yellow dress really is. It used to be a favorite. Now I hope I’m not caught dead in it! But at least no one I know will see me. Most of my friends and family are dead or rarely venture outside their homes.

Pausing at a stoplight, Ramona felt thunder in her bones, and the lightning zigzagged like the old scar on Juan, her late husband’s cheek. While waiting, she tapped her toes for warmth and feeling, but they still felt chilly and squishy, and then her middle toe cramped, stiffened and she started circling to walk it off.

The stoplight shifted to green, and she stumbled ahead. Weaving. Only two more blocks to go. I can make it. I must make it. I have no other choice.

If I could turn back tiempo, like clock hands, I wonder if I would. Could I live through the years again? All the joys and sorrows. Would I do things any differently? The wind drowned out the constant ringing in her left ear. She nodded deeply, repeatedly. Yes, oh yes, time is like agua, flowing, rising, dwindling, evaporating and always breathtaking.

On the crosswalk, a fierce gale blew her umbrella inside out, and she trudged into the storm as if she was dividing the wind with a black squid. Suddenly, a car sped past her, barely missing her, and when she reached the curb, her heart sprinted like a fleeing rabbit.

Eyeing a bus stop bench, she sat and arranged her umbrella back into place. I remember when I bought this umbrella. It was for mamá’s funeral. She was ninety-two. After her mini-strokes and sundowners, she was a different person. She had been so cheerful most of her life but in her last year, she was gloomy, and the darker it got the more anxious she became.

But the day I bought the umbrella it was sunny. Summer. The sun was so bright I couldn’t stop blinking; it made a tear slide down my face onto the edge of my lips. Salty like the sea.  I bought the umbrella at my favorite department store downtown. Ester was the owner. She knew me by name. All her merchandise was from the East Coast. And it was the best. I bought the umbrella because rain was forecasted, but it didn’t rain at the funeral. It was just cloudy and gloomy, like mamá was in the end.

She opened and closed the umbrella. After all these years, the old gal still works. Imagine. It’s like a black mushroom that pops up after a rainy night. Lord, I wish it had rained at mamá’s funeral. I could have use it to hide my tears. It took all might to fight off the urge to crawl into the casket with her—just to hold her, one last time.

Ramona rocked to her feet, and stiff-legged down the street, with one hand on her back, the other gripping the umbrella dancing in the wind. Close by but out of sight, a seagull cried ha-ha-ha. The fishy river wafted by her nose, and enormous drops battered the pavement, the leaves, and pinged urgently in the rain gutters.

When she was within eyesight of the grocery store, she felt like leaping in the air and clicking her heels. I made it, I made it! Maybe I’m getting too much of a vieja for this sort of thing, like my daughter says. On the other hand, I’m bored with sitting on the couch all day staring at mindless TV. People should move. Not rot like old fruit. I’m still me. Still here. I’m not just useful for being a sometimes babysitter for the grandkids.

She paused and pulled out her scribbled grocery list:

I must make chocolate chip cookies for mi hijo. A cookie monster, he craves them. Tomorrow, he’ll visit. It’s been a month or so. I have to bake them tonight!

When she reached the grocery store’s front door, she pushed the button on her umbrella, but nothing happened so she pulled on the runner that slides up and down the shaft, but it wouldn’t budge. Her cheeks felt flush. Why do I feel low, triste. Today was not like the sunny day she bought it.

Scanning through the glass of the front door, Ramona saw no one. The lights in the building were off, and no music swirled through the air. For a moment, a memory flashed, the sight of mamá’s small, brown hand clutching a dark beaded rosary while lying in her white casket. She screamed, shaking her fists at the sky, and they gleamed bone white in a flash of lightning. Under the storefront awning, she ducked for shelter from the rain. Why this memory now? Can’t a vieja live her last days in peace? Why?

 What does it all mean?

With the wooden handle of the old umbrella, she beat on the glass window of the grocery store door. Open! It’s not a holiday! It’s nada. It’s time. After a moment, she felt foolish and stopped. Get a hold of yourself!

Her shoulders sagging, she turned and headed back home. There was hardly a car on the street and many of the stores had signs that read, Closed. A city bus whirled by with a handful of masked faces at the windows. If I hurry, I can make it to the next stop, catch it just in time.

With the old umbrella in hand, she hurried and waved at the bus driver, but the bus never stopped. Under the bus stop awning, she sat, waited, and then eyed a waste basket. She hesitated, a drop of time as slow as dripping honey rolled out, then she dropped the old umbrella through the swinging door, and it clacked on the waste basket’s metal bottom.

Holding back her tears, tapping her toes, she resolved to return home, stepping around pink, writhing earthworms, one motionless at the bottom of a puddle and felt sorry for it. She walked as fast as possible, but after several blocks she found herself out of breath and wheezing. Hand on knees, she stopped, and once she caught her breath, she held a hand up and only a few cool raindrops pricked her palm. At least the lluvia is slowing down.

She pictured her umbrella in the waste basket wedged between discarded MacDonald’s and bagged dog feces. Shaking her head, Ramona turned back.

In a shimmering puddle, she caught a glimpse of herself in her yellow dress, just a blurring flash, but in her determined walk there was something of her old self. To hell with the bus, to hell with groceries. My hijo will understand. I tried and failed. So what. It’s not the end of the world. The visit’s the thing, not what he snacks on.  I’ll just rescue the old umbrella and go home.

With a light step, she returned to the garbage bin and smiled because the rain had finally stopped.

When she reached inside it, moved her hand around, she felt wet paper, cardboard and Styrofoam cups but didn’t feel the umbrella, so she removed the lid. She began poking around again and removing most of the trash, but the umbrella was gone.

Maybe, this is just the wrong garbage can. I’ll try another. Down the street she trudged and checked one bin after another, but it was always the same result. She imagined someone searching the garbage for can deposits who appreciated how the inverted spines of the umbrella resembled a squid in flight and decided to take it home.

Well, so be it. Perhaps someone else can make better use of it. What was I going to do with it anyway, shove it in a corner of a closet? It’s probably beyond repair. It lasted a long time, you know, those old umbrellas, like me, were made to last.

Ramona wiped her eyes but there were no tears, they were just tired. She started walking up the long driveway to her house, the cracks filled with moss. I still remember the hot August day mi hijo was born, a day so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk. The doctor said my son came out so fast he had to catch him like a football. Hey, I remember now, tomorrow’s his birthday, and you know in a way my special day too.  

Bendito día.

When she entered the dark house, something told her to look in the closet. She moved a dusty yoga mat aide, and there it was, an umbrella just like the one she had pitched. Now, I remember, if I liked something I always bought a duplicate. Who would believe it? Aquí está.

She picked it up, wiped the dust off the fabric with her sweaty palm, and smiled. Stepping outside, she pushed the open button, for her mother had told her it was bad luck or mala suerte to open an umbrella inside, and the umbrella flew open before her, dark, and shiny like a murder of crows in flight.  Then, she noticed that there was a long tear in the fabric.

Suddenly, she remembered how the wind once blew the umbrella out of her hands, and it landed in her rose bush. Despite taking her time, when she pulled it out, it got snagged leaving a slit, an emptiness. Now when she poked a crooked finger through the rip, a tear plopped on the linoleum.

The umbrella placed back in the closet, she sat down in the easy chair next to the picture window, the exact spot where her husband had died in his sleep after a massive heart attack, years ago. With eyes closed, she drifted, waded in a pool of darkness.

Tomorrow, mi hijo is coming, and I’ll tell him the saga of the old umbrella.

How we’ll laugh. But is there anything to laugh about?

Sure, there is, I’m sure he’d agree, no matter what, there’s always something to laugh about even when you feel like crying.