The heavy August rain had left humidity hanging in the air. Steam rose from the aged black top road. The old white farmhouse sat wet on top of the shady, green hill. The porch paint seemed to peel more with the Mississippi humidity, the porch swing sitting still in the heat. It was too hot to move, to breathe, but she managed to do both, rapidly.

She ran down the hill, her face soaking with sweat, with tears. The airy cotton dress stuck to her hot back, her bare feet sloshing through the soggy grass. She ran as fast as her small feet and short legs would take her.

She was eleven, but didn’t look a day past seven. She’d always been little. Although older than her two sisters, she was the little one.  She was mother’s little helper, Daddy’s little girl. She didn’t mind being little. She knew that she was tough and could climb Oak trees better than any boy in the county. But, she wasn’t tough enough for this.

 Daddy had been working in the fields all morning. Mama told her to take him some iced tea. She was “mother’s little helper” after all. She gladly complied, the ice cubes clinking in the glass as she looked at the sky to see gray clouds quickly rolling. The thunder rumbled, and she began to run for the field, cold tea spilling to the dry earth.

  “Daddy!” she called, looking for his tall, slender body in the cotton field.

  She heard no answer, as she squinted her eyes and surveyed the massive field for the sight of his straw hat, dusty denim overalls.

 “Daddy, there’s a storm coming,” she called aloud, looking again at the dark sky, then looking back to the field for the sight of his smile, his calloused hands waving her to him.

She entered the field, humming “In the Pines”, her mama’s favorite song, a song they both sang as they rocked on that squeaky front porch swing so many times.   

 “Daddy, I’ve got tea. Mama put in lots of sugar,” she said again, wondering why she hadn’t heard her father’s comforting voice answering her calls.

As the worry began to set in, there she saw his dirty brown boot in the cotton row ahead. The glass dropped as she ran to her father.

“Daddy, are you okay? Did you fall?” The little girl knelt beside him.

Her father was lying there motionless. He was on his stomach, his head resting on his left cheek, his eyes shut, and his arms to his side.

She was only eleven, but she knew. She knew her father looked the same way Grandpa looked in that old iron bed last winter. She knew life had left his body limp. She knew her best friend was gone.   

Her head rested on his back, her strawberry blonde ponytail falling in her eyes as the tears poured. She gasped for air through her sobs, she beat the dry dirt beneath her fists and with a sudden boom of thunder, the angry rain began to pour.

She didn’t run for cover. She couldn’t leave him there. She just hovered over him, the salty tears mixing with the fresh rain water, her skin becoming cool and wet, her father never flinching.

Only a few minutes had passed before her mama began to wonder why she and her father hadn’t run in from the sheets of rain. She heard her mama calling her name, then her father’s, and before long, she felt her mother collapsing beside her, never asking what happened.

Her mama covered them both, stroking her father’s cheek, weeping in the rain. She knew it was probably a heart attack. She’d been fussing at her daddy about stress and salt and smoking that pipe for years. He’d always said he’d probably die while sweating and working those fields. No explanation was needed. They both knew.

“Baby,” her mama pulled her close, rocking in the relentless rain.

Lightning danced on the ground around them, but neither one cared. The lightning could have struck them both. At that moment, it would’ve been okay.

Once the little girl was back at the house to call the doctor, she shushed her sisters and told them to keep busy rolling the dough for biscuits. Her mother had given her strict instructions not to let on about their daddy to them yet. Thankfully the rain had camouflaged her tears and the puffiness of her face because they didn’t ask any questions. They just kept on rolling their dough and throwing flour on one another as she snuck in the back bedroom and called Doctor Ellis.

Doctor Ellis was there in less than ten minutes. The little girl stayed put in the house with her sisters, and Doc ran out to the field with his oldest son.  Not much time had passed before her mama made it back to the house, soaked in water and mud, gasping through her cries. She fell into a kitchen chair as all of her daughters looked on in shock, in horror. She motioned for them all to come to her as she tried to form words and explain what had happened.

The little girl was tough, but she couldn’t handle this. She couldn’t handle her mother slumped on the kitchen table, crying out to God. She couldn’t handle her younger sisters covered in flour and tears. So, she ran. She ran down the hill, past the field where Doctor Ellis had loaded her father into his truck– she ran to the pond where she and her daddy fished every weekend.

She sat on the tree stump overlooking the murky water, her head in her hands, and she knew her life would never be the same. The thunder roared and the meanest rain in Mississippi began to fall again.