evening drinks

Summer nights the girl could hear their laughter, soft as the shadows sinking into the folds of her father’s suit, and the clink of ice in the minister’s glass.  Scotch, the minister always drank.  On the rocks.  The minister was what her mother called “your father’s friend.” When her mother was away, he visited her father for what he called “evening drinks.”   The first night he came, he stayed 84 minutes.  The next, 2 hours and 12 minutes.  After that, the girl lost count.  From her bedroom window, she could see them in the soft glow of the porch lights, moths fluttering overhead. She imagined they  were tiny people inside a paperweight. Her father would peel off his coat and unbutton his shirt, and the minister removed his collar before reaching for her father’s hand.  She wanted to knock or shake them, but instead she let them remain, as if on the inside of the evening with the scent of rain and heat lightning.  They were staring so hard at one another, listening so closely, she knew they wouldn’t notice the change of rhythm, the insects rubbing their wings together, or the sudden rise in temperature and barometric pressure, the outbreak of songs from tree frogs as the clouds piled higher in the sky and closed over the rooftops, and the thunder began.  First a rumble. Then a flash of lighting. Then a loud bang before the downpour began.  In the morning it would be clear again.   The minister, gone. The girl would know.  Nothing ever happened. Not when her mother was out of town.