It rained all day that Saturday. In the evening Dad saw frogs in the garden and wondered where they had come from. Mom said that she had heard tell of frogs that fell from the sky. I said that frogs were the second plague of Egypt and that they invaded the bedrooms of the Egyptians. That worried Dad.
I went out with Stacey that night. It rained the whole night as we went from bar to bar giggling and laughing in the rain.
When I got home the next morning the rain had stopped. Dad was in the garden wearing his Sunday suit. He was hitting frogs with the yard broom. The frogs sat quite still as though awaiting their fate. When Dad saw me watching him through the window he threw the broom down and rushed into the house.
“You shouldn’t look at me as though I’m some kind of a fool,” he shouted and stormed out of the house to go to Mass. That’s when I saw Mum standing in the hall in her shabby old dressing gown.
I checked what food there was and went to the supermarket. I cooked a traditional Sunday dinner with apple pie for pudding. Mum tried to help but just got in the way so I made her sit and watch.
Dad patted his stomach and said what a fine dinner I had cooked and that I was a good girl. Mum pushed her food around the plate and left most of it. When I emptied her plate into the trash it had started raining again. I looked for the bodies of dead frogs but there were none and I wondered if the rain had washed them away into the soft receptive earth.
by James Coffey
James Coffey lives and works in Coventry, England.
