My Grandma always said happiness was like a bobcat: stunningly beautiful but notoriously elusive. She spent the last ten years of her life sitting on this very deck, hoping to get just one glimpse of the animal that supposedly roams these forests all year round. Sometimes she’d sit here into the small hours, dithering with a blanket wrapped around her, breath coiling upwards in spirals, but to no avail. Not only did she never see a bobcat, there was no sign that one had ever been in the vicinity. We checked the woods beyond our property many times, scouring the ground for signs of pawprints and even keeping an eye out for dead animals. Nothing. Not a dicky bird. Despite this, her dreams of seeing one never faded, not even when she was dying. But mine did. I saw the disappointment in her eyes after every fruitless night-time watch and I abandoned the hope I’d shared with her since I was a small child. The bobcats clearly didn’t want to be seen, and so I let them go.
It was the rain that drew me outside. One of those summer downpours with droplets so fat they ping off the decking like they’re made of rubber. My plan was to sit on the bench beneath the corrugated plastic that serves as a roof and just listen. Let the sound wash over me, driving out all thoughts of the shoddy day I’d had at work and the moronic drivers with whom I’d had the misfortune to share a commute. I poured myself a…
