Show me a house with a windowAll of the fire has fallen and we have returned to the deepest greens of the ocean against the blues and greys of the sky. I missed color. I missed pine needles. I missed water and I missed maple leaves. Weirdly how grateful the familiar sights can make me feel, as if it makes up for everything being strange all the time, every waking moment and every sleeping one too.
One with a garage and five bedrooms
Form me a line so I can judge you
Call me a name if you want to
Show me a way to the exit
Look at my hands, see them shaking
Tell me apart from my shadow
Find me a life for this shadow
This morning I am not paying attention as someone asks me about the circus as I am trying to make sure Henry has his lunch bag inside his backpack. I'm responding automatically and Lochlan abruptly points out to them that there's no difference between a sideshow and a freakshow. I stop and stare at him, because usually he's completely oblivious and today he is downright rude about it. I smooth it over and then on the way home I ask him why the outburst. Why then. Why just as people are beginning to see that I'm not such a freak and maybe we can start to fit in.
He doesn't respond until later, when he abruptly breaks out once more that he doesn't like the way that Caleb greets me every morning by putting the hood up on my coat and surreptitiously checking for my hearing aids, something almost everyone's been doing lately so they can talk as I walk in front of them or maybe not repeat everything four times.
Which part bothers you? The hood or the checking, Lochlan?
The hood. Both. Why does he have to try and pull that shit? You're an adult.
You have always put my hood up when it's windy.
You were eight fucking years old.
You never stopped.
You were mine.
Oh, Jesus, here we go.
Yeah. Oh, Jesus. Let's go, Bridget.
I don't know how much more I can give you. Is there anything left?
Sure there is. You never wrote about the envelope. I feel like I'm throwing blind here.
You hate it when I write about you.
I don't know how you feel anymore otherwise, Bridget! You never open your goddamned mouth! He gets to own everything until you put it down. Put it down. Let the world see. Tell me how you feel about it. The suspense is killing me.
It was sacred, I wasn't going to write about it.
You got pretty close.
Yeah and then I changed my mind.
Change it back.
You'd like that wouldn't you?
He stares out over my head at the bare trees and the goddamned leaves everywhere. Up to our knees. Huge sweeping drifts of them coating the walkway in fire. Yellow and red and everything in between and he frowns and he looks so annoyed and serious and handsome and direct I would agree to almost anything. He looks back at me and nods, gently at first, then more vigorously and he smiles.
Yeah. I would.