Her husband is asleep when she rises...when she goes to the window and stares out into the darkness. Rain spatters like tears on the glass...and she strains to look past the pattern. She knows there's nothing there. She knows. She looks anyway. It is a compulsion. A whisper of memory.

Her youth hasn't quite left her. Or maybe just the illusions that went with it. Six years. Six years and she still watches for him on rainy nights. Michael Guerin. Her first love. Her first heartbreak. Her first everything, really. A lost boy standing in a downpour...a lost man who never came home. Not to Roswell, New Mexico. Not to her.

But she still looks.

If she squints, she can imagine him there. Sixteen. Shoulders slumped with the weight of an abusive stepfather and a massive chip. His spiky hair plastered to his forehead. Water dripping off his nose. If she runs her hands along the panes, she can remember another window in another house... backing up to let him climb over the sill.

But she doesn't squint. She doesn't longingly touch the glass. Instead, she turns back to the bed. The man that fidgets beneath the sheets has never willingly stood in the rain. He has never begged to be let in. No...on the contrary...he barged his way into her life. Loud and obnoxious and honest. And human. Achingly human. He has no secrets. He has no mystery. He has nothing but love for her. And he has never left.

She does love him.

But he's never enough when it rains.

Sometimes she has the grace to feel guilty. Sometimes she makes him pancakes before he heads into the station...sometimes she doesn't complain if he falls asleep before she gets off...sometimes she calls him at work just to say, "I love you." Sometimes she lets him see her cry.

But she still looks for Michael.

Perhaps it is just habit now...six years is a long time to carry around a memory of someone who left with another woman, with another future. But she doesn't question the why. She just lets her feet take her to a window every time the clouds gather and weep.

She pretends that her husband doesn't wake up and watch her. That he doesn't feel the hollowness in the space between her vigil and their bed. And, then, of course, she pretends he doesn't sometimes slip and call her "Isabel."

He does love her.

But she's never enough when it rains.

Sometimes he has the grace to feel guilty...sometimes he brings her tea before she goes in to manage the shop...sometimes he lowers his mouth to her in the most gentle ways without her even having to ask...sometimes he calls her at work just to say "I love you." Sometimes he lets her see him cry.

But they both still look.

Perhaps it is just a habit now...six years is a long time to carry around the memory of someone who left with another love, with another future.

Isn't it?

Lightning flashes across the sky.

Rain beats down against the windowpanes.

"Are you coming back to bed, Maria?"

"In a minute, Kyle...in a minute."

It is a compulsion. A whisper of memory.

Or so they tell themselves.

September 2000.