The first thunder rolled over Prenj while Katarina was still taking the laundry off the line. The sky above Konjic turned black within minutes, the wind lifted dust from the gravel road and slammed the barn door. That morning Kosta had taken Krsto by bus to town for school sneakers, and he would not be back before night, because after the first heavy rain the Neretva flooded the road by the bridge and the bus waited until the water dropped. She sent him a message: "Stay where you are." He answered with a thumbs up.
Someone knocked while she was closing the windows. Karlo Gagro stood at the door, soaked to the skin, with a bag over his shoulder. Twenty years earlier he had gone to Germany and had not even called for the wedding, and now he had come back to sell his mother's house. "My car is stuck by the bridge," he said. "My mother's house is locked, and the key is in Mostar with a cousin." Katarina looked at him through the door. "Come in," she said, because you do not leave a person out in the rain, whoever he is.
She gave him Kosta's towel and made coffee. They sat at the kitchen table and talked about what people talk about: the road, prices, his truck on the Stuttgart to Sarajevo line, his wife Ljiljana, her son in third grade. The rain beat on the tin roof so hard that they had to lean in to hear each other. When thunder struck somewhere close, the power went out and the kitchen went dark.
"Katarina," he said in the dark. Nobody called her that, not even Kosta, who called her Kata. The last time she had heard her name said that way was on a summer night at Lake Boračko, when they were both nineteen and believed nothing ever ended. She stood up and did not know whether she would hit him or hold him. She held him. He kissed her like a man who had practiced that sentence for twenty years. She led him by the hand down the hallway and closed the bedroom door behind her, and the rain took over everything that could not be heard then.
When it stopped, the clouds parted over Prenj and a late sun came out, and the yard smelled of wet earth. Karlo stood by the gate holding his bag. "Thank you for the coffee, Katarina," he said, the way one says it to a neighbor, and set off toward the bridge. She watched him until he disappeared around the bend, then went back to the line and hung out the laundry the rain had soaked again.
Kosta and Krsto arrived on the last bus, muddy to their knees. Kosta carried a bag of cherries. "They dropped the price at the market because of the storm," he said. "I thought of you." Krsto showed off his new sneakers and promptly dirtied them in the yard. Katarina laughed, kissed her son on the forehead and fried eggs, because it was too late for anything else. "Were you scared?" Kosta asked. "A little. The power went out." "Good that you stayed inside."
Late that night the phone lit up on the nightstand. A number she did not know: "Made it to Mostar. Thanks." She read it, deleted it and turned the phone face down. Kosta was snoring beside her. From the gutter the last drops were still falling, one by one, like someone counting.