Under the rainbow or under the umbrella?

The day was cloudy, damp, and difficult, and I never expected it to end on a colorful note.

Though threatening, it hadn't rained all day ... until it did. It was early evening when the clouds broke, the sun blazed through ... and finally, it rained.

When it stopped, the rainbow came.

There were clouds to the left of us, sun to the right, and there it was, a rainbow.

We opened the front door and stepped outside to get a better look. The longer we looked, the brighter it became. It started low in the sky to the left, reached higher and higher until it crested, and dipped lower, lower, and lower still, until we could see through the still-bare trees where it touched the horizon.

Might there be a pot of gold at the end? Seemed like it.

And then it started sprinkling.

I ran inside to grab an umbrella so we could stay outside and keep looking, but when I went to open the big black umbrella, I couldn't do it.

How could I open and stand under a big black umbrella when the rainbow above filled the air with light and color ... and something that seemed like a promise at the end of a gray day.

I couldn't.