Counting Cars

The morning arrived wrapped in gray, as if the sky itself had pulled a blanket over the world. Rain tapped against the nursing-home window in a steady rhythm—soft, persistent, familiar. Edna sat where she always sat now, her wheelchair angled just enough so she could see the road beyond the parking lot.

She squinted through the watery blur.

“One… two… three…” she murmured, her finger lifting slightly with each car that passed. Some were dark shapes, some bright blurs, all sliding through the rain like ghosts in a hurry. She counted them because it gave her something to hold on to—something that didn’t slip away as fast as the rest.

Four… five…

Any one of them could be Henry.

Any one of them might stop, just outside the entrance, and he’d step out with that sheepish grin he always used when he knew he was late. She could almost see him shrugging his shoulders, saying, Traffic, Ed. Terrible traffic. But I’m here now.

A car with headlights too bright glided by. Edna leaned forward, hope flickering across her face—then fading when the car didn’t turn into the lot.

She counted it anyway.

Six.

The nurse on duty, a soft-spoken woman with kind eyes, paused at the doorway. “Good morning, Edna.”

Edna didn’t answer. Not out of rudeness—just out of distance. Her mind was somewhere else entirely, peering through the veil of rain for a shape she longed for, a shape she couldn’t quite remember clearly but still needed.

Seven.

She could feel Henry, somehow. As if he existed just outside her field of vision, slipping between the raindrops, almost stepping into view. Some days she remembered he was gone. Other days the memory evaporated the moment it formed, leaving behind only the ache of waiting.

Eight.

The nurse gently adjusted the blanket on Edna’s lap. “He’s not coming today, honey.”

Edna nodded as if she understood.

But her eyes never left the window.

The road shimmered beneath the rain, each car scattering water into silver spray. She imagined Henry walking toward her through that curtain of rain, waving, calling her name like he used to across parking lots and grocery aisles.

Nine.

“Just running late,” she whispered to herself, comforting the ache without knowing why it was there.

And outside, the rain fell steadily, each drop a small, fleeting memory sliding down the glass—memories she could almost touch, almost recognize, before they slipped away.

Still, Edna kept counting.

Still, she kept waiting.