He stood in the rain because he wouldn't smoke in the car. He stood under a narrow ledge that hardly kept the dampness from his hair. The cigarette continued to glow. He had come to pick up the children, who are all fully grown. He wasn't allowed in the house because mother was there. His presence would provoke questions, a full scale interrogation. I didn't blame him for standing in the rain. Who wants to unwrap the sordid affairs of an infidel but those who have been cheated? So he stood in the cold rain. The water dripped down his face, which remained unchanged. As weary and as vacant as ever. A changed man challenging the tempest. A man with a passion for all that is wrong. A man seeing himself as too wise and too in control. A man in desperate need of being broken.