Aisha Carter grew up on a red clay road outside Macon, Georgia — raised by a mother who loved fiercely but rarely out loud, and a stepfather whose stone face hid a heart soft as anything. By her thirties, she’s a functioning alcoholic in Baltimore, quietly unraveling: blackouts, broken relationships, a sister who’s stopped answering, a brother who’s kept his distance for years. It takes standing on the edge of a cliff in the North Georgia mountains — too drunk to feel the danger — for her to finally, truly stop.

Salt Water and Rain follows Aisha’s first year and a half of sobriety, from a church-basement AA meeting to the moats of Chiang Mai, the fishing boats of Hua Hin, and the wide, indifferent horizon of the Andaman Sea. It’s a story about grief that finally gets to be honest instead of anesthetized. About a sister and brother relearning how to love her — and each other. About a slow-built relationship with a Thai woman named Nok, built without a drink to hide behind. And about a mother, gone too soon, whom Aisha keeps finding — in an indigo dye vat, in a corn vendor’s hands, in the sound of rain on a tin roof — everywhere she goes.

Equal parts family story, recovery story, and love story, this is a novella about what’s left of you once you stop running, and what you find when you finally sit still long enough to look.