Dear mxnasi – Welcome to Writing.com. I am glad you are a part of this amazing writing community now. I enjoyed reading "The night it rained"  and I am glad to offer a few of the thoughts I had while reading your story.
 
  FIRST IMPRESSION
 
The casual pace and detail heavy sentences remind me of the great mystery writers of long ago like Raymond Chandler or Ross MacDonald. But instead of a hardened private eye, the central character is a girl just on the edge of realizing how imbalanced her mother is. And where is dad anyway…? Beautifully set up.
 
  THEME
 
A girl realizes her father is missing and her mother has ventured way too far out of her usual routine. There are two mysteries at work from scene to scene. Where is father? And why is mother not angry and demanding?
 
  STRUCTURE
 
The story is written in the first person past tense from the perspective of the protagonist. There is a lot of imagery at work from scene to scene with enough repetition of key facts that build up the suspense in the story.
 
  MY FAVORITE MOMENT
 
The story’s suspense builds with just enough tension and this was my favorite moment:

But I tried to behave like nothing was wrong. Other than the fact that she strayed from her usual routine, everything seemed normal, and so I calmed down. I decided to ignore the niggling voice in my head.

The suspense in the story is built on the mother’s routine. You do a masterful job of repeating, but in interesting ways, how important the mother’s routine is to the plot. While we are beginning to suspect something is wrong, it holds the reader's attention away from what might be an obvious assessment of where the story is going. I felt as I read that I thought I might know what is up, but then I thought: “lets wait and see with the girl what is really happening.”
 
 
  SUGGESTIONS
 
I like the tone and pace of the story. The syntax and sentence structures all work well for me and the story was exceptionally clear through out. There was just this one issue in the fourth paragraph:

It was a Saturday morning. I woke up at 8:30 AM. I kept checking my phone until it was nine, but since the wake-up call never came, I fall back asleep.

Since the story is written in the past tense, I believe the sentence would best read:

It was a Saturday morning. I woke up at 8:30 AM. I kept checking my phone until it was nine, but since the wake-up call never came, I fell back asleep.

Everything else in the story was great.

  IN SUMMARY
 
"The night it rained"  tells a chilling tale of a girl who discovers two tragedies on a rainy afternoon. Both would alter her life forever. The girl’s approach to the future seems stoic and matter of fact, not unlike the characters of Ross McDonald and Raymond Chandler. Life is what life is. Nicely done. Write On!
 
I hope my thoughts and impressions have been a help. Let me know if you have any questions about my review.
 
Kind Regards,

♫~ Kenword~♫
 

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You last responded to this review 12/19/2020 @ 8:33am EST

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