A Drop of Rain Read Online Free

street with her mother. Both are dressed nicely, rather formally.
    Other pictures taken in the next few years are more casual. Hanna (seven?) and her mother are at the seashore with friends, having fun in the water. Hanna (eight?) is standing in a garden. Hanna (ten?) and a family friend are posing in the mountains in folk costumes.
    There are no pictures of the terrible difficulties after the war. Only pictures of good things: flowers in a vase on a table, unidentified adults enjoying a picnic in the forest, unidentified family friends visiting for a few hours.
    Then suddenly Hanna is a student. How old is she? Sixteen? Eighteen? She’s at a table near a window. There are books and papers on the table, and she is writing or doing calculations. There is another picture of her a few years later. She is sitting in a field besidea saddle, looking pensive. Didn’t she want to ride the horse?
    Finally, she is a young woman. She is the same age as her mother was at the beginning of the album. She is not smiling, however. She is not looking at the camera. Her face is turned inward as she walks along. She is thinking.
Joe
    Naomi is giving Eva a hard time about Hanna being in her bedroom. Why does Eva feel guilty about having made this arrangement? Eva is unsure of herself emotionally.
    Strange how my ex-wife, Jill, exhibits so many of the superficial trappings of femininity: the makeup, the false fingernails, etc. Yet underneath Jill is cynical and tough.
    I love Eva’s freshness and fragility.
    Hanna is just a few years older than me, yet she is dying.
    My classes are going well. After twenty years of teaching, however, I am longing for a change. So many colleagues who started in the late 1960s, when the colleges first opened up, are taking early retirement now. They’re my age.
    I wonder if I can hold out for another ten years.
    Eva is enthusiastic about teaching because she has been working in an engineering firm. When I started teaching, I had been counselling young offenders. Initially, teaching was a change: a new challenge.
    Eva is almost twenty years younger than me! Doesit matter? No, we are truly in love.
    Jill wants more money for the boys. They are involved in hockey, as well as baseball. Jill says I have no idea of the price of things today. I had to make do with second-hand stuff when I was a kid, so why can’t the boys?
    I wish the boys were interested in photography, so I could do some shoots on weekends. I missed a gorgeous sun pillar the other day because I didn’t have my camera with me.
    John Van der V. says some press in Toronto wants to publish a book of his astronomical photos. I’d love to do a book on weather.
    All I need is a tornado!

Week Three
Naomi
    Saturday, September 25, 1999
    Mr. Dunlop was impressed with my mother’s notes about the Auschwitz Museum. He read them to the whole class yesterday. Then he tried to start a discussion about the persecution of the Jews during World War II. Unfortunately, what happened next was totally embarrassing.
    â€œDuring the Second World War, Jews were like people with AIDS today,” says Mr. Dunlop. “Pariahs. Outcasts. Yet they were no different from you or me.”
    â€œI thought people with AIDS were homosexuals or drug addicts,” says Bob Carter. “I don’t know about you, sir, but I’m no fairy or dope fiend.”
    â€œNo, you’re just a ree-tard jock and beer-swilling jackass,” mutters David Sutton.
    The whole class hears David’s remark and laughs. Even Mr. Dunlop smiles. Only Bob Carter scowls.
    â€œActually, you’ve got a point, Carter,” says Mr. Dunlop. “One must be careful about makinggeneralizations about groups of people. One must . . .”
    â€œI wonder if Naomi is Jewish,” says Melony Price. “Her first name is Jewish, and her last name is foreign.”
    â€œThank heavens Mapleville is finally becoming a little more cosmopolitan,”