Lucinda Brenner hit our mailbox again with her Porsche.

I’m in the driveway, robe-clad, scooping up damp letters from the sprinkler cycle. The robe—once a sexy pink number—now looks like a greying dog toy cinched around my waist. I clop inside in my slippers before the high school bus rounds the corner. I need coffee before being judged by anyone on a heavy pharmaceutical cocktail of Adderall and Accutane.

Inside, the Accutane Creatures are already awake. Crawling under things to find other things, dragging messes from one room to another, taking simple tasks at a glacial pace. Louisa May Alcott described daughters putting on plays and braiding each other’s hair. Mine punch each other in the face with soccer cleats and baptize Algebra homework in the dog’s water bowl. Lucky, a Christmas present now under maternal management due to “neglect,” glares at the scene from beneath the coffee table.

Annabelle appears mid-sip, sobbing—orange foundation streaks across her cheeks, and now my robe. I’d hoped the robe would last until lunch, when I change into formal sweatpants, but boyfriend drama has its own weather pattern.

“Anna, baby, what’s wrong?” I ask, obligatorily, wishing I’d put a little more motherly oomph into it.

I hug her tightly, press my chest to her mouth, which seems to either soothe her or obstruct her airway—I’m not sure which—and take a sip of my coffee. Lucky comes over and rubs his head against my thigh. He thinks this is group therapy. Kate pulls a piece of toast straight from the toaster as it pops up, gliding by on her skateboard like she’s in a fruit punch commercial.

“Kate! What did I tell you about—"

“Mama? Mama?” Allie tugs at my robe. “I can’t find my homework.”

Ever since Allie was old enough to talk, she’s been old enough to lose things and make them my problem.

“Everyone, get your shoes!” I shout.

This command triggers the usual tornado warning: shrieking, slamming, a stampede to the minivan.

I glance at the clock on the oven—an hour off, still, because I never reset it after daylight savings time. If I wait long enough, it’ll be right again, and I won’t have to dig out the manual.

I gave the tornado warning a little too early, which leaves me exactly four minutes before one of my older daughters returns from the car to list the ways I’m ruining her life. My coffee is cool enough to half-chug while I check the mail. A few bills, a glossy real estate flyer, and a letter from the school district: another warning about missing dentist excuse notes, which, according to them, has triggered an “extensive truancy investigation.”

Good. With any luck, one of these lunatics will be taken away by the state.

At the bottom: a letter from the Federal Bureau of Weather.

Dear Mrs. Marie Weatherwax,

We regret to inform you that your husband, Leonard Brian Weatherwax, is now a weather system. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Best regards,

T.B. MaGillicuddy
Federal Bureau of Weather

Jeff and his fraternity buddies have pulled some stunts, but this feels...advanced.

Before I can dwell, a harpy in a Minecraft hoodie screeches from the hallway.

“Mom! We need to go! Candice and Lily are already waitiiiiiingggg by the fountainnnn for me!”

“Kate, you need to chillllll,” I say.

“Yeah, Kate. Chill,” Allie echoes, reminding me I have six short years until she takes beastly form.

Seventeen minutes later, we pull up to school. I offer the moms in the drop-off line a series of small waves and thin-lipped smiles—women I know vaguely from soccer sidelines or PTA fundraisers. I wave more enthusiastically at Vicky, who drinks $38 rosé from a Yeti tumbler at children’s sporting events. She rolls her eyes at me in solidarity.

I glance down and re-open the letter from the Federal Bureau of Weather as we inch forward in the carpool lane. It did look official. The letterhead was stunning—tasteful serif, watermark. Jeff’s friends would’ve had to really commit to the bit.

I wave goodbye to the girls, who make a point of pretending they’re not related to the woman in pajamas holding up the carpool lane, yelling “I love you!”

Text Jeff.

Message not delivered.

Call.

Call could not be completed as dialed.

Like a switch, I hear my mother—half-yelling into the kitchen wall phone, Dad was “off doing God knows what.” Her catch-all.

But Jeff wasn’t that guy. Jeff was here. Predictable. Practical. Low-maintenance socks.

But come to think of it...

When was the last time we did “God knows what?”

Weeks?

Months?

Years?

At home, I rage-fold laundry. The girls toss clothes into their hampers that I know aren’t dirty, just strategically abandoned to avoid folding. I yank out Annabelle’s blue top, stained with the popsicle she wasn’t allowed to have, and suddenly I’m fuming. As I’m mid-rant, ready to text the family group chat about respecting the laundry system, my phone buzzes.

New Forecast Notification:
Your spouse is currently in Cirrus Training.
Please avoid emotional contact during cloud formation.

I step outside, dodging dog turds Kate was supposed to clean three days ago. The sky looks soft. Grey. Neutral. If it’s Jeff, he’s probably asleep.

Figures.

I spend thirty-five minutes looking for a pair of cheer shoes that may or may not be at Teresa’s house. I sniff various gallons of milk, pouring the sour ones slowly down the drain.

I make our bed. Or what I think of as our bed. Jeff is probably up there sleeping on a cloud mattress—cool, soft, weightless—with some rain sorceress whose boobs have not been pancaked by three kids, while I grow old and achy on a stained queen we bought off the back of someone’s pickup truck.

Outside, the air changes. I can smell it—that damp, vegetal breath before the sky opens. The breeze shifts direction. I sit on the porch swing, robe still clinging to me like a needy ex, and watch the yard surrender. A single raindrop lands on Lucky’s head as he sulks by the flower bed.

The girls are still at school. The house is still for once. No shrieks, no stomps, no toast on skateboards. Just me and the rain, and maybe Jeff, if that’s him inching over the yard in wispy, indecisive streaks.

The rain picks up. Not a downpour, but a steady patter, like fingers drumming on a countertop. It hits the baby pool, the sandbox, the dead little rosemary bushes.

I text him again.

Message not delivered.

Of course not.

The rain is coming down harder now. The gutter near the porch makes a hollow gulping sound. I pull the robe tighter.

And then the wind shifts again.

The swing creaks. The rain smells like Jeff’s aftershave.

I stand up, robe sopping wet, and head back toward the house. The screen door groans, and slams shut behind me.

A crack of thunder rolls through the sky, low and guttural. The rain shifts to a full-body assault. I wipe my feet on the mat—futile, really, since my slippers are soaked. Inside, the house greets me with the scent of damp dog.

I look out into the backyard, drinking a Coke. The ice in the glass clinks softly, a gentle reminder that I’m in here, and the storm is not. Outside, the abandoned baby pool sags in the middle of the yard, half-collapsed. The sandbox is now a mud pit, soon to become a magnet for poor decisions and clogged drains. I make a mental note to throw a tarp over it before the kids discover it and turn bath time into a full-contact sport.

I work on prying pink glitter Slime off the bristles of Kate’s brush. The kitchen lights flicker once, twice, then give up completely. A soft hum of nothing settles me. The power’s out. Our neighbor’s generator kicks on.

I check my phone. Two percent. Naturally.

I open a new message and let my thumbs do what my brain’s been chewing on since the clouds moved in.

Jeff, this is really messed up of you. You have daughters. You can’t just float away. If you want to get divorced, then fine. Nobody’s stopping you. 

I hit send.

Not delivered.

Of course not.

I stare at the message for a moment, then copy and paste it into a fresh text addressed to: Federal Bureau of Weather

Because honestly, what do I have to lose?

The storm escalates.

Not in polite increments, but all at once—like someone upstairs hit the “unleash hell” switch. Windows rattle in their frames. Shingles lift clean off the roof and frisbee across the yard.

CRACK.

Lightning arcs down the staircase. The toaster glows an unholy blue. The TV flashes on and off, continuing to play the theme from Zootopia. The Roomba has become semi-sentient and chomps at the table legs.

Lucky lets out a guttural howl at the ceiling fan, now spinning in reverse at warp speed. I duck just as a kitchen drawer bursts open, flinging into the drywall. A steak knife embeds itself directly into the family chore chart: Jeff: Water the Plants.

So, Jeff did wake up. Great.

The window’s gone, but I yell anyway. “Nice of you to finally do something, Jeff.”

I glance at the drowning garden beds.

“And when you’re done with this whole mid-atmospheric crisis, you need to come pull these dead plants. It’s honestly irresponsible to take up a hobby in the sky when there are weeds waist-high!”

CRASH.

The front door blows open. The doormat peels away and launches into the sky, flapping madly.

I run outside, barefoot and bewildered, my robe now plastered to my body.

He’s definitely not in Cirrus Training anymore.

He’s throwing a tantrum. Or making a statement. Or—God help me—trying to impress someone.

I laugh once—sharp, involuntary. Then it catches in my throat like everything else I’ve tried to swallow this year.

I stare up into the sky—boiling, electric, chaotic—and something breaks loose in my chest.

“Jeff, are you fucking kidding me?”

I stomp into the yard, punching at the air like Scrappy Doo, and step directly in dog shit. I can see Lucinda Brenner filming me for the HOA, but I don’t stop.

“I’m not offering you fishing, Jeff!”

“If there’s someone else, then go!”

My throat tightens. Rain lashes my face, or maybe it’s tears. I can’t tell anymore.  

“I haven’t loved you in a long time!”

Every word feels both true and untrue. The sky goes black.

No wind. No rain.

Just me, standing ankle-deep in mud and regret.

I whisper.

“You promised you’d take the trash out Thursdays.”

The sky doesn’t answer.

Of course it doesn’t.