Rosalee was thin and stubborn; I worried the wind would blow her away from me. I never mustered up the courage to force her inside though, away from something as comforting as her rain. She told me once her thoughts were only really clear when she sat in the rain; I could not dare to steal that because of irrational worries.
We barely lasted a year without a porch, she insisted on perching in a wobbly lawn chair in the mud until then. The neighbors thought it odd how the back porch was the nicest part of our house but Lee believed it was the most important part. Learning to spend rainy afternoons laying on the wood planks in damp clothes was just part of loving her.
I didn’t mind when her hair started falling out. She let me buy her candy colored hats to wear when it was cold outside. I always thought the vibrant yarn made her eyes shine brighter. When she started to shiver in the evenings she would pluck a hat from the growing pile by the bed; we would chase each other through the house shouting out. Eventually we would throw ourselves across the yard-sale couch and I would slip the cap over her pink ears. I could lie there cherishing her and giggling for hours.
The first night we came straight home from the hospital and she could not help but mumble through the crying about how beautiful the sky was.
“David, we can sleep out here tonight.” She opened her eyes in between tears and glanced up at me hopefully.
“Yeah Lee, we can stay right here,” I breathed, gently as I could. “We can stay out here as long as you want.” She leaned back slowly until she was flat on the porch, her head resting on my chest.  I took a trembling arm and squeezed her close.
“No,” she whispered firmly, “in the morning we have to get up, we have to.” She gasped for breath and fought the tears pressing to get out. “I wish it would rain.” She let go of the hot tears and we held each other so tightly neither of us could fall apart.
I only remember what she looked like the last weeks, or the ring of her voice, or the way her fingers curled so delicately around mine. I spent every minute of those weeks staring at her, while she spent the time watching everything else. The last few months I put so many windows in, just so she could keep watching. I marveled at her, caring so awfully much about everything. After it all ended, I realized how hard it must have been to care about the world when it had turned against her. She looked for desperate strays or a neighbor’s lonely child. It was hard to ignore how much pain she was in her final days and I never got over how impossible it was that she never stopped thinking about anything but herself.
It was six days when she asked me if we could stay inside. I took a recorder out that night when it was late enough to be morning and recorded the melody of the rain and the birds through an open window. The morning before, I listened to her tell the nurse about our drives in storms and her favorite place to sit on the porch. I realize now the nurse did not care much at all about Rosalee’s stories, that she was listening so I could hear her tell them one more time. I always thought it was right for her to leave in a cool afternoon rainstorm. She had always imagined death that way.
I like to think there was a reason for all of the storms that spring, though no one could understand it but Lee and me. For the seven years we were together I tolerated the cold and rain-soaked clothes to be with her, but after she was gone the rain developed a magic about it I had never noticed before.
Without Rosalee, I never would have learned to walk through life without an umbrella. The walks in the rain were always for her sake, but without her I found myself walking more often than not. I always hope we might get a little rain while I’m out, even if we have to leave it behind in the morning.