The woman always sat here, every other day. The farthest left point of the street, with the familiar blue house just barely in sight. At six, her daughter would walk down the sidewalk and enter that house. The woman never met her, just stayed in her car. She knew how her daughter would ignore her if she was seen. Still in the car, the woman tried to recite a motto she had heard on the radio. Something about never giving up, about living your life with others. When she tries to say it out loud, however, she cannot remember the words.

Trying to pass the time, she is reminded of the first time she waited here. It wasn’t on purpose – that was what she told herself, at least. It was shortly after she had spoken to her daughter, where the woman had told her, “Someday, you’ll understand. You’ll see things differently.” Her daughter hadn’t replied, but no words were needed to understand a refusal. This was the path her daughter had taken from school, and now from work. Even as an adult, her daughter remained steadfast on her routine. People didn’t change, the woman thought, not really.

By half past six, her daughter has still not arrived, her figure absent from the block. The woman furrowed her brow, her grip on the steering wheel tightening. Did she miss her? Has something happened? Why would she not be here? Perhaps her daughter saw her, the messy way she pinned her hair or the scrapes on the side of the once shiny car. Ashamed, she realized. That was how her daughter would look at her if she was seen. The footsteps of the woman’s daughter are imitated by the hail, pounding on the hood of the car. She can’t remember when the hail started. She can’t remember how she began to hear it either. It is hard to separate the sounds from everything else, the hailing, pounding, stepping, sobbing.