“Are you okay?”

The question was stupid, useless. We both knew that. I glanced at him and then back out at the barren field that stretched before us. The last time I remember him ever speaking to me was about a year ago, and even that was just a simple, “Hi.”

Why talk to me now, of all times?

Without thinking, I patted the prickly, brittle grass beside me-invited him to sit.

He did, very slowly as if it caused him pain like an old man with bones that had lost their youth long before their time. He, of all people, had a reason to feel so old.

We were both silent for the longest time, without measure.

“Why did you come?”

His voice startled me. He wasn’t making sense.

“What do you mean,” I ask him.

He shrugged and killed the subject.

The chilling breeze blew mournfully through the trees. For a moment, it sounded as if it were the song of my heart. It hurt more than ever imaginable.

His eyes searched the dark, rain-heavy clouds as though they were stars that glittered in the night, but no such thing would be possible on such a hard day. “Do you think-” He broke off and tried again.

“Can he see us? You know, from up there.” He nodded slightly towards the foreboding sky.

I was silent for a moment, then said, “Maybe.”

We both stared at the thunderheads. Lightning flickered in the distance.

“Why?”

At first, I thought he wasn’t finished, but quickly realized he was talking to himself. Or to God.

Why what?

He answered me before I could ask.

“Why did he have to-”

A sob choked him off.

I didn’t want to shame him by looking. No guy would want a girl to see him cry.

So I watched the clouds roll through the sky as they made their way towards us. My legs grew cold in the cool air so I drew them to my chest and hugged them.

That’s what you get for wearing shorts in the spring…

He sniffed beside me. I glanced at him to make sure he was done crying. He was. His eyes were puffy and red and his too-big hoodie had wet streaks down the front.

For a moment, it was extremely awkward to be sitting there with him. Just sitting and no talking. But then I realized that I was glad for his being there. Something about it felt special.

I knew what my mom would think after she found out I had been sitting by him in the yard, just staring at the coming storm. I could feel her gaze already, my face turning hot.

He sighed heavily and leaned back on his hands, legs crossed. “He wasn’t related to you, you know.”

This surprised me and I thought of lashing out with a quick comeback, but thought better of it.

“I know. We had the same birthday,” I told him.

He nodded slowly and turned his head to look at me. “You loved him like a real grandpa, didn’t you?”

Tears sprang to my eyes at the mention of the word ‘grandpa.’ I nodded quickly and turned my face away from his so he wouldn’t see my eyes.

“He talked about you a lot. His birthday girl, he always said . . . ”

I set my chin on my knees and nodded the best I could. “Grandma told me”

The rain started then. It hit me in the nose first. Another trail blazed down my jaw.

I could hear the slight smile in his voice as he said, “Never thought of it before, but we’re cousins by adoption.”

This was a new concept to me. I had never imagined that I could say that he was my cousin.

When I was too little to remember, my family and I had lived too far away from my real grandparents to ever visit them. So a couple from the church my dad had been a pastor for took me and my siblings in as their grandchildren.

“Me either,” I finally said. The rain was lightly pattering my body. A chill ran through me as the water began to soak my clothes.

We weren’t really related, but we had grown up like cousins should. Together. Inseparable. Best of friends. We were until we became old enough to realize that boys were to play with the boys and girls with the girls.

Then we had to move away. My dad had been offered a job in Illinois. Six hours away.

He sniffed again and turned his face up to the rain.

“What are you doing,” I ask him.

He doesn’t answer for the longest time. So long, I wonder if he heard me or not.

Then he said, “I’m listening to God’s tears.”

He doesn’t need to explain what he means, although I don’t know what he’s talking about. The tears come all too quickly and I cry harder than I did hen I first found out that Grandpa was dying.

We sit there like that, listening to the rain and my pitiful sobs. He doesn’t say a word and I don’t try to stop the tears from coming.

The slow rhythmic beat of the rain fills the air and I’m comforted by his silence. He knew what it was like when his father died. He was only nine years old- a little boy.

I couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t crying anymore. The ache in his heart must hurt more than mine ever could at the moment, and yet, I was the one crying.

My sobs fell to soft crying as thunder shook the sky and lightning lit the clouds like a lantern, not meant to touch the earth.

When I looked at him again, he had his eyes closed and his face upturned to the sky. I wondered what he could be thinking, but he answered me before I said anything.

“God is crying with us.”

I almost scoffed at this but then wondered if it was true.

Does God cry?

Again, he knew what I was thinking and said, “What are raindrops but the tears of God?"

The rain fell harder and I sat up a little straighter to feel the water as it washed my tear stains from my face.

He stood abruptly and looked down at me, and then held out his hand to help me up.

“We’ll both get a cold,” he said.

I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. “Now you just sound like my mom,” I told him.

He shrugged and nodded.

I swiped at my wet face and glanced up at the sky. It shimmered with trapped lightning.

“Thanks,” I say.

He sniffs again and wipes his nose on his soaked sleeve.

It’s then that I notice the lone tear that traces a path down his cheek and I realize that he’s watching the house.

“We’ll have some explaining to do,” he said.

I look back at the house and see his mom standing in the sliding glass doorway. My mom is beside her. They’re both watching us, their smiles unwanted.

I glance at him. “Nothing to explain. Not really, anyway.”

He manages a soft smile and begins to head up the small incline that leads to the house.

I didn’t really want to go back into the house. It was nicer just to sit outside, even in the pouring rain. No other people were out here. They were all inside.

“So what if I get a cold,” I called after him. I sat back down in the grass, facing the field again.

Thunder shook the ground and lightning touched down somewhere in a distant patch of land.

Unexpectedly, he comes back and sits beside me.

We don’t speak.

Instead, we listen to God’s tears.