I Walked to Work in the Rain Every Day

The rain had been falling for three weeks straight when Sarah at the reception desk gave me that look again—the one that made me feel smaller than I already felt.

“Aubrey, you’re soaked,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper like my wet clothes were something shameful we shouldn’t discuss in public. “Why don’t you just drive?”

I tried to smile, tried to make a joke that didn’t land because my teeth were chattering too hard to form the words properly. Something about enjoying the exercise. Something about being environmentally conscious. Anything but the truth.

The truth was complicated. The truth involved a family dinner three months away and a question I didn’t know was coming. The truth was wrapped up in a silver Toyota that I’d never driven, keys that should have been mine but jingled in someone else’s pocket.

But none of that was something I could explain to Sarah, whose biggest problem this week was deciding between the Maldives and Cabo for her spring vacation.

In the elevator, I wiped the fog off my phone screen and saw two messages waiting. One from my mother: Dinner at Grandpa’s this Friday. Don’t be late. Another from my sister Brooke: a selfie with a filter that smoothed her skin to porcelain, captioned first-row parking for seniors 😉 with her perfect manicure visible on the steering wheel.

My steering wheel, I thought. But I pushed the thought down where I kept all the other bitter things and watched the numbers climb: 3, 4, 5.

By the time I reached my cubicle, my sneakers were squeaking against the tile—that tiny, humiliating betrayal announcing my arrival to everyone within earshot. I kept my head down the way I’d trained myself to do over the years. Pretend nothing’s wrong. Wave it off. Be the kind of person who makes everyone else comfortable by making yourself smaller.

This is my life, I told myself. This is just how things are.

But somewhere deep down, in a place I tried hard not to visit, I knew that wasn’t true.

Let me take you back to the beginning, to the graduation day that should have changed everything.

The Graduation Gift

Three months earlier, I’d walked across the stage at State University with my degree in accounting and a job offer already waiting. Four years of working two part-time jobs while carrying a full course load. Four years of saying no to spring break trips and date parties because I had shifts to cover. Four years of watching Brooke glide through high school on our parents’ dime while I built my life out of secondhand textbooks and determination.

After the ceremony, Grandpa Walter pulled me aside in the parking lot. His face was shining with pride, his eyes a little wet in the way they got when he was feeling something he couldn’t quite put into words.

“I’m so proud of you, pumpkin,” he said, using the nickname he’d called me since I was small enough to sit on his workbench. “You did this yourself. Nobody handed you anything.”

“Thanks, Grandpa,” I said, hugging him tight. He smelled like spearmint and Old Spice, a combination that always made me feel safe.

“I got you something,” he said, pulling back to look at me. “A real graduation gift. Not just a card with a check—something you need. Something you earned.”

He walked me to the far end of the parking lot where a silver Toyota sat gleaming in the afternoon sun.

“It’s yours,” he said, pressing the keys into my palm. “Bought and paid for. Title’s in your name. I know you start that job next month, and you’ll need reliable transportation. This is yours, Aubrey. You earned it.”

I stood there, keys in hand, completely speechless. A car. An actual car. No more buses. No more begging friends for rides. No more planning my entire life around public transportation schedules.

“Grandpa, I—” Tears were streaming down my face. “This is too much.”

“It’s exactly enough,” he said firmly. “You’re going places, kiddo. You need wheels to get there.”

We took pictures in front of it, Grandpa’s arm around my shoulders, both of us grinning. I posted one to Facebook with the caption: Best grandpa in the world. Starting my new chapter with this beauty!

Within minutes, the comments rolled in. Congratulations. So happy for you. You deserve it.

And then, from my mother: So generous! We’ll need to talk about insurance and registration details. Come by the house this weekend.

I should have known then. That particular kind of interest, disguised as logistical help, was never just about paperwork.

The Slow Theft

I drove to my parents’ house that Saturday, still giddy, still floating on the high of having something that was truly mine. Dad was in his office, Mom was in the kitchen, and Brooke was upstairs getting ready to go out with friends.

“Let’s see the paperwork,” Mom said, setting a cup of coffee in front of me. “Grandpa’s wonderful, but he’s not always thorough with these things. We should make sure everything’s properly registered.”

I pulled out the folder Grandpa had given me—title, bill of sale, temporary registration.

Mom flipped through it, her manicured nails clicking against the papers. “Hmm,” she said. “This needs to be updated with our home address for insurance purposes. And we should add your father and me to the title temporarily, just for liability reasons until you’re settled.”

“Why would you need to be on the title?” I asked, something tightening in my chest.

“Just temporary,” she assured me. “Until you’ve had the car for six months and established an insurance history. It’s better this way, trust me. I used to work in insurance, remember?”

She had—for about six months, a decade ago.

“I don’t know, Mom. Grandpa put it in my name specifically.”

“And it’ll stay in your name,” she said, her voice taking on that edge it got when I questioned her. “This is just paperwork, Aubrey. Don’t make it complicated.”

Dad appeared in the doorway. “Your mother knows what she’s talking about,” he said. “This is the smart way to do it. Unless you want to pay premiums that’ll eat your entire paycheck?”

I signed the papers she put in front of me. Looking back, I can pinpoint that as the moment I lost the car—the moment I chose peace over protection, the moment I trusted people I should have known better than to trust.

“We’ll handle the DMV stuff,” Mom said, tucking the papers into her purse. “You focus on getting ready for your new job. Leave the boring stuff to us.”

I left the house with my keys, drove my car home to my apartment, and felt good about being an adult with a family who helped her navigate complicated things.

I was such a fool.

The Switch

Two weeks later, I came out of my apartment to drive to work and found an empty parking space where my car should have been.

Panic flooded through me. Stolen. It had to be stolen. I called the police, filed a report, called my parents.

“Oh, honey,” Mom said, her voice dripping with the kind of sympathy that should have warned me. “Didn’t we tell you? We took it to the shop for routine maintenance. You know, new car, needs to be checked out properly.”

“You could have asked me first,” I said.

“You were so busy with training at your new job, we didn’t want to bother you. It’ll be back in a few days.”

A few days turned into a week. A week turned into two.

“Still in the shop?” I asked, calling again.

“The mechanic found a few things that needed addressing,” Dad said. “Better to fix them now while it’s still under warranty.”

Another week passed. Then another.

“When is my car coming back?” I asked, frustration leaking into my voice.

“Actually,” Mom said, her tone shifting to something harder, “we’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Brooke’s been having trouble getting to her college classes. The bus system doesn’t run to her campus efficiently, and she’s going to fail if she keeps missing morning classes.”

My stomach dropped. “What does that have to do with my car?”

“Well, it’s just sitting there not being used efficiently. You have that bus line right by your apartment that goes straight to your office—”

“Mom, no.”

“It’s temporary, Aubrey. Just until Brooke finishes this semester. Then you’ll get it back.”

“No,” I said again, louder. “That’s my car. Grandpa gave it to me.”

“And we’re the ones on the insurance,” Dad interjected, his voice taking on that authoritative tone he used when he expected compliance. “We’re legally liable for that vehicle. If Brooke needs it and you have alternative transportation, this is the reasonable solution.”

“That’s not how this works—”

“Aubrey,” Mom said, her voice sharpening, “don’t be selfish. Your sister needs help. When did you become the kind of person who wouldn’t help her own family?”

The conversation ended with me saying I needed to think about it and them acting like the decision had already been made.

The next day, I saw Brooke driving my car past my apartment, music blasting, not even glancing in my direction.

Walking in the Rain

That’s how I ended up walking to work every day.

The bus line my parents mentioned? It required two transfers and added an hour to my commute each way. Walking was actually faster—forty minutes of exercise, I told myself. Good for me.

When the rain started, I bought an umbrella.

When the umbrella broke in the wind, I bought a rain jacket.

When my shoes started falling apart from being constantly wet, I bought cheaper shoes because I was trying to save money for a car of my own, except every time I got close, something would happen—an unexpected bill, a medical expense, helping Brooke with “emergency” textbook costs that Dad said was “family helping family.”

I watched my bank account hover stubbornly at a number that meant “not enough yet.”

Meanwhile, Brooke’s Instagram filled with photos of her in my car. Coffee runs with friends. Road trips to the beach. That first-row parking spot she loved to brag about.

Once, during a particularly heavy rainstorm, I was walking to work when she drove past me. I saw her see me—our eyes met for half a second. Then she looked away and kept driving, music pulsing through the closed windows of my car.

I stood there in the rain, water running down my neck, and felt something inside me harden into a truth I’d been avoiding: my family didn’t just take my car. They took it and then asked me to be grateful they weren’t taking more.

The Friday Dinner

Three months into walking to work in the rain, Mom’s text came: Dinner at Grandpa’s this Friday. Don’t be late.

These dinners were mandatory family performances. We gathered at Grandpa Walter’s house around his massive oak dining table—the same table where he’d taught me to play chess, where he’d helped me with math homework, where he’d told me I could be anything I wanted if I worked hard enough.

I arrived on time, my hair still damp from the walk to the bus stop, my shoes squeaking slightly on his hardwood floors.

Grandpa opened the door and pulled me into a hug. “There’s my girl,” he said, that familiar spearmint and Old Spice smell wrapping around me like armor. “How are you, pumpkin?”

“Good,” I lied, because that’s what I did. “Busy with work.”

Mom and Dad were already there, sitting in the living room with their practiced smiles. Brooke arrived ten minutes later, breezing in with that confidence that comes from never having to walk anywhere in the rain.

We settled around the table the way we always did—Grandpa at the head, my parents on one side, Brooke and me on the other. The table was set beautifully, as always. Grandpa had made roast chicken, my favorite.

The conversation flowed through safe topics: work, weather, neighborhood gossip. I pushed food around my plate and tried to look like I belonged in this tableau of family harmony.

Then Grandpa set down his fork, folded his hands on the table, and looked directly at me.

“So, Aubrey,” he said, his voice casual but his eyes sharp, “how’s the car running? Still treating you well?”

The world tilted.

My fork clattered against my plate—a sound that seemed to echo through the suddenly silent room.

Brooke’s phone, which had been in her hand as always, went still.

Mom’s smile thinned to a razor’s edge.

Dad’s jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle jump.

“What car?” I asked, even though I already knew. I heard my voice come out small and broken.

Grandpa leaned forward, his expression shifting from casual to something harder, more focused. “The Toyota I bought you for graduation,” he said clearly, each word deliberate. “The silver one. Don’t tell me it’s giving you trouble already.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

I looked from Brooke to my parents. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The air itself seemed to be holding its breath.

Finally, Dad cleared his throat, reaching for that reasonable tone he used when he needed to justify something unjustifiable.

“Aubrey doesn’t really need a car, Dad,” he said, directing his words to Grandpa but keeping his eyes on the table. “She has public transportation right by her apartment. Brooke—she’s the one with the real need. College campus, internships, networking events. She needs reliable transportation more.”

The words hung in the air like smoke.

Grandpa’s face changed. The easy warmth drained away, revealing something older and angrier underneath—something I’d never seen before.

“You what?” His voice boomed off the walls, making the glasses on the table rattle. His fist came down on the oak with a sound like a gavel. “I bought that car for Aubrey, and you gave it to Brooke?”

Mom laughed—that horrible, artificial trill she used when she was trying to deflect. “Dad, don’t be dramatic. Aubrey’s always been the strong one, the independent one. Walking hasn’t hurt her. Brooke needed it more. You can’t expect us to let Brooke struggle when Aubrey has alternatives.”

Something inside me snapped—something small and vital that had been bending for years under the weight of being “the strong one,” “the independent one,” “the one who doesn’t need help.”

I stood up. My chair scraped against the floor with a sound like a scream.

“Walking in freezing rain every morning,” I said, my voice shaking but carrying. “Walking past cars splashing mud on me. Walking while my shoes fell apart. Walking while Brooke—”

I turned to face my sister.

“While you drove right past me. How many times did I see you in my car? How many times did you look right at me standing in the rain and just… look away?”

Brooke’s face went pale. “I… I didn’t know you—”

“Yes,” I said, the word sharp and clean as a blade, “you did. You saw me. You looked away.”

The Revelation

Grandpa planted both hands on the table, his whole body radiating fury.

“You stole from my granddaughter,” he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous quiet. “My gift. My trust. You took something that wasn’t yours to take, and you counted on me not finding out.”

Dad lifted his hands in that placating gesture I knew so well. “Dad, you’re not being fair. Aubrey doesn’t need—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Grandpa said, his voice cutting through Dad’s words like they were paper. “I put her name on those papers. Her name. Not Brooke’s. Not yours. Hers.”

The room throbbed with tension. Even the old grandfather clock in the corner seemed to stop ticking.

For the first time in my life, I saw fear flicker across my parents’ carefully maintained expressions.

Dad tried again, his confidence faltering. “Dad, listen. Aubrey has always managed fine on her own. She’s the strong one. Brooke—she’s more fragile, more sensitive. She has college, social obligations, a future that requires—”

“Matters?” I finished for him, my voice rust-rough and somehow new. “A future that matters? What about mine, Dad? Does my future not matter?”

Mom rolled her eyes—an expression so practiced it looked choreographed. “Don’t be dramatic, Aubrey. You’re fine. You’ve always been fine. You always make things bigger than they need to be.”

Grandpa’s chair scraped back with a shriek. He stood, jaw set, eyes blazing.

“I won’t listen to another word of this,” he said.

He left the dining room, his footsteps heavy with purpose as he walked down the hallway toward his office.

The rest of us sat frozen. Dad stared at me like I’d betrayed him by speaking up. Mom’s mouth was pressed into a thin line of displeasure. Brooke looked at the tablecloth like it might offer her an escape route.

Grandpa returned carrying a thick manila envelope, the kind that’s been handled many times, that holds important things.

He tossed it onto the table where it skidded to a stop in front of my father.

“There,” he said. “Title and proof. The car was purchased under Aubrey’s name. I have every receipt, every document. You forged her signature to transfer it.”

The air left the room.

Dad’s face went white. Mom reached for the envelope like reflex, but Grandpa’s glare froze her hand mid-air.

“You thought I wouldn’t keep records?” Grandpa asked, his voice cracking with the weight of betrayal. “You thought you could manipulate me, deceive me, and I’d just smile and eat pot roast like nothing happened?”

He turned to me, his eyes softening in a way that made my throat tight.

“Aubrey, tomorrow morning, you’ll have your car back. I’ll personally make sure of it.”

The Aftermath

Mom’s voice rose, shrill with desperation. “Dad, you can’t just take it from Brooke. She’s used to having it now. She’s built her entire schedule around it. It will ruin her life.”

Grandpa’s head pivoted toward her without moving his body—the movement of a predator sizing up prey.

“And what about Aubrey’s life?” he asked, his voice quiet in a way that was somehow worse than shouting. “Did it not matter while she walked through rain and cold and humiliation? Did her suffering mean nothing to you?”

“Stop treating her like a saint,” Dad snapped, his composure finally cracking. “Aubrey’s strong. She doesn’t need coddling. Brooke—”

“Brooke is spoiled,” Grandpa said flatly. “And you made her that way. Just like you tried to break Aubrey by taking from her and calling it fairness.”

He picked up the envelope and tucked it under his arm.

“This dinner is over,” he announced. “Aubrey, you stay. The rest of you—leave my house.”

“Dad—” Mom started.

“Now.”

They left. Mom with her lips pressed tight in fury. Dad with his shoulders hunched in something that might have been shame. Brooke with tears streaming down her face—the first real emotion I’d seen from her all night.

When the door closed behind them, the house seemed to exhale.

Grandpa sat back down heavily, suddenly looking every one of his seventy-three years.

“I’m sorry, pumpkin,” he said quietly. “I should have checked on you sooner. Should have made sure you actually had the car.”

“You couldn’t have known,” I said, my voice breaking.

“I should have,” he insisted. “I know my daughter. I know what she’s like, what she’s always been like. I should have protected you better.”

We sat in silence for a moment, the ruins of dinner still spread across the table.

“The car is legally yours,” he said finally. “I have the original documents. They forged your signature on the transfer paperwork—I had a handwriting expert verify it. That’s fraud. We could press charges if we wanted to.”

“I don’t want to press charges,” I said. “I just want my car back.”

“You’ll have it,” he promised. “But Aubrey—this isn’t just about a car. You know that, right?”

I nodded, tears finally spilling over. “They’ve always done this. Made Brooke the priority. Made me the afterthought.”

“That ends now,” Grandpa said firmly. “I’m rewriting my will. Everything will be divided equally, but with protections. Trust structures that they can’t manipulate. Your inheritance will be yours, managed by trustees who aren’t family.”

“Grandpa, you don’t have to—”

“I do,” he said. “Because if I don’t, they’ll take from you again. And I won’t have that. Not while I’m still breathing.”

Reclaiming What Was Mine

The next morning, Grandpa showed up at my apartment at seven a.m. in his old pickup truck, with my silver Toyota following behind driven by his lawyer, Mr. Henderson.

“All legal,” Henderson said, handing me the keys and a folder of documents. “The transfer they filed was fraudulent. We’ve corrected it with the DMV. The title is back in your name exclusively.”

I held the keys in my hand and felt something unlock in my chest—something that had been clenched tight for three months.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Grandpa hugged me hard. “You deserved better than what they gave you,” he said. “You deserve better than how they’ve treated you your whole life.”

I drove to work that day for the first time in three months. The route that had taken forty minutes on foot took eight minutes in my car. I found a parking spot, turned off the engine, and sat there for a moment in the silence.

My car. My seat. My steering wheel.

Mine.

Sarah at the front desk did a double-take when I walked in dry and on time.

“You got a car!” she said, her face lighting up with genuine happiness.

“I got my car back,” I corrected, and smiled.

The New Normal

The fallout was predictable.

Mom called seventeen times that first day. I didn’t answer. She left voicemails that progressed from angry to pleading to angry again.

How could you do this to your sister?

You’re tearing this family apart.

Your father and I are devastated by your selfishness.

Dad sent an email with the subject line “Disappointed.” I deleted it without reading.

Brooke texted: I didn’t know they’d taken it permanently. I thought you knew.

I responded: You saw me walking in the rain and drove past. You knew enough.

She didn’t text back.

Grandpa called every evening that first week to check on me.

“How are you holding up?” he’d ask.

“Better,” I’d tell him, and it was true.

Something had shifted. The ground had stopped tilting away from me and had started to level out. I was driving my own car. Making my own decisions. Starting to understand that “strong and independent” shouldn’t mean “expected to accept less.”

Three weeks after the dinner, I got a letter from a law firm. Mom and Dad were suing for “emotional distress” caused by Grandpa’s “aggressive and unwarranted accusations.”

Grandpa’s lawyer responded with a counter-suit for fraud and forged documents, along with a detailed timeline of their manipulation.

The lawsuit was dropped within a week.

Moving Forward

Six months later, I sat in Grandpa’s kitchen helping him sort through old photographs when he pulled out one from my graduation—me standing next to my car, both of us grinning, his arm around my shoulders.

“I remember this day,” he said softly. “I was so proud of you. Still am.”

“I’m proud of me too,” I said, and meant it.

“Have you talked to them at all?”

“No,” I said. “They sent a card at Christmas. I didn’t respond.”

He nodded slowly. “That’s your choice to make. But Aubrey—don’t let their mistakes make you bitter. You’re better than that.”

“I’m not bitter,” I said. “I’m just done. There’s a difference.”

“There is,” he agreed. “A big one.”

We looked through more photos—me as a child, always slightly to the side in family pictures, always the one looking at the camera while Brooke posed and preened.

“You were always my favorite,” Grandpa said suddenly. “Don’t tell your sister, but you were. Because you worked for everything you got. You didn’t expect the world to hand you things. You earned them.”

“That’s what you taught me,” I said.

“Then I did at least one thing right.”

One Year Later

A year after the dinner that changed everything, I got promoted at work. Senior accountant, with a salary that meant I could finally start saving real money.

I called Grandpa first.

“That’s my girl,” he said, his voice warm with pride. “Told you that you were going places.”

I drove to his house that evening—an eight-minute drive that still felt like victory—and we celebrated with takeout Chinese food and chocolate cake.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said as we finished dessert. “About starting a scholarship fund. For kids like you—the ones who work hard but don’t have family support. Would you help me set it up?”

“I’d love to,” I said.

We worked on it for months. The Walter Irving Scholarship Fund, for first-generation college students who demonstrated “resilience, independence, and determination in the face of family challenges.”

The first recipient was a young woman whose parents had cut her off for choosing education over working in the family business. She reminded me of myself—determined, scared, pushing forward anyway.

“Thank you,” she said at the award ceremony, tears streaming down her face. “This means I can stay in school. It means I have a chance.”

I watched her and felt something settle in my chest—something that had been restless for years.

This was what it meant to turn pain into purpose. To take what had been stolen and transform it into something that couldn’t be taken.

The Present Day

It’s been two years now since that Friday dinner.

I still drive my silver Toyota. It has more miles on it now, a few scratches, a coffee stain on the passenger seat that I’ve given up trying to remove.

But it’s mine. Completely, legally, undeniably mine.

I still see my parents occasionally—awkward encounters at holidays with extended family, brief conversations that stay safely on the surface. We’re polite to each other now, like acquaintances rather than family.

Brooke transferred to a school closer to home. She lives with our parents and drives their old car. We don’t speak.

Grandpa turned seventy-five last month. We celebrated at his house—just the two of us, plus Mr. Henderson and a few of Grandpa’s old friends from the shop where he used to teach.

“Best birthday I’ve had in years,” he told me as I was leaving. “No drama, no performance, just people who actually give a damn about each other.”

“Same,” I said, hugging him tight.

As I drove home that night, rain started to fall—the first real rain we’d had in months. I turned on my wipers, adjusted my heat, and smiled.

Rain didn’t scare me anymore. I had my car. I had my independence. I had my dignity.

And I had learned the most important lesson of all: that sometimes family takes from you, and sometimes the strongest thing you can do is take it back.

The keys in my ignition, the title in my name, the road ahead clear—these weren’t just things. They were proof.

Proof that I’d survived. Proof that I’d fought. Proof that I’d won.

I pulled into my parking spot, turned off the engine, and sat for a moment in the quiet.

Tomorrow I’d wake up and drive to work. The day after that, too. Day after day, mile after mile, in the car that was always supposed to be mine.

And nobody—not my parents, not my sister, not anyone—could take that away from me again.

THE END