I'd already driven ten hours, I was exhausted and still four hours from home. Normally the drive wasn't hard for me, but tonight, I just needed to stop. Thinking about where I was, I realized that I wasn't far from the little town where my Mom was living now. My father passed some ten years ago and she'd moved out of our old house soon after.
I called ahead and she assured me that she'd have a bed made up for me. I called my wife and explained and promised to call her again in the morning.
About that time the rain hit with a vengeance and I thought that it couldn't get any worse. I tried to remember the exact route to her place, but got lost a couple times. My wife had urged me to get one of those GPS boxes but I'd been too stubborn.
"Paying for it now," I muttered. I really wasn't feeling well and the extra delay was making it worse.
Once I found the development, I had to hunt and hunt for a parking space. With the rain thumping my roof, I squeezed into the only place, about a hundred yards from her building.
I waited about ten minutes for the rain to let up and it didn't so I rushed out of the car and ran all the way. Didn't help. I was a drowned rat at her door when she opened it.
"Oh, Mark! Why didn't you..." she began but then bit her tongue and hustled me inside. I stood dripping in her foyer.
"Get those off and I'll get you a towel and a robe."
I wrestled with the wet denim and obstinate buttons until I was down to my boxers and shivering. I felt like I was getting sick.
She returned handing me a big towel. She held up a robe but it was far too small to fit me. I was far taller and bigger than either my mother or father, a source of perennial jokes around the Thanksgiving table about the tall mailman.
My body clenched up and I sneezed, hard, catching me off guard.
"Everything, little mister," she said with a grin. "Nothing I haven't seen a thousand times." I hesitated and then stripped off my boxers and continued to towel myself.