Daniel Mercer had always loved the rain.
It wasn't just the way it softened the edges of the world or made city streets feel like secret places. It was how it gave him time to think, to breathe, to remember without being overwhelmed by the weight of memory.
He lived in a small apartment above Page & Spine , a cozy independent bookstore tucked between a florist and an old record shop. His window faced east, catching the morning light and the first signs of clouds rolling in from the sea. He could tell when a storm was coming long before anyone else did.
And on those days, he prepared.
Not with coffee or candles or music — but with umbrellas.
It started two years ago, after his mother passed.
She'd been the kind of woman who believed in small kindnesses — leaving cookies for neighbors, writing encouraging notes for strangers, folding origami cranes for people having bad days. After her funeral, Daniel found a stack of unused paper cranes in her drawer, each one folded with care, waiting for someone to need them.
He took them.
And then, one rainy day, he tucked one into an umbrella left outside a café.
Just because.
That was how it began — the silent exchange, the quiet conversations through gifts and quotes and handwritten notes. He never expected anyone to respond.
But someone did.
Jo.
Her first reply — the forget-me-not and the Rilke quote — had stopped him in his tracks.
"Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth."
He read it again and again, tracing the delicate handwriting, imagining the person who had chosen that flower, that line, that message. Someone thoughtful. Someone who felt things deeply.
He wanted to know more.
So he replied.
Over the weeks and months that followed, their exchanges grew richer. She sent poems. He sent songs. She sent pressed leaves. He sent Polaroids. They never used names. Never asked for phone numbers. Just shared pieces of themselves like breadcrumbs on a path neither of them dared walk all at once.
Until one day, the rain stopped.
Weeks went by. Then a month.
Daniel kept checking. He even brought an umbrella one morning, just in case, but there was no sign of hers.
He missed it.
More than he expected.
One evening, as he sat behind the counter at the bookstore, flipping idly through a worn copy of The House at Pooh Corner , his phone buzzed.
A notification from a local community forum.
He clicked it.
Has anyone else noticed the umbrellas? Left on rainy days, with notes and gifts inside? If that was you — thank you. I miss them.
His heart skipped.
He stared at the words.
Then he typed a reply.
Two days later, Jo Jennel opened her laptop and saw the email in her inbox:
Hi J,
It was me. I stopped because I thought you might've gotten tired of it. Or moved on.
But I'm glad you missed them too.
Would you like to meet — just once — on the next rainy day?
– D
She read it twice.
Then she smiled.
And replied with one word:
Yes.