The rain lasted long enough to move the sky from dusk to hard dark, to leave the grass glistening, to flatten the ant hills out by the mailbox. Long enough for me to notice when the sound reduced itself to the monotonic drip, drip, drip from the eaves and the cones streaming from the floodlights on the corners of the house went from pale and thick to bright and golden. Just long enough to make the night an invitation.