Sam put a Jesus fish sticker on my Porsche.
(Caleb was unimpressed.)
I woke up with a fourth today as the horizontal parade renews itself with some sort of merit-based system that finds the baby preacher in the big bed upstairs..more often than not. His huge wing is sort of upstairs anyway (well, halfway between the top floor and the main floor) but you have to go all the way to the other side of the top floor, through a set of french doors, down some steps and around a corner. Our room has it's own wing with closets outside the door and inside the room too and then past ours the children share a wing with yet another bathroom between their rooms.
Sam has been a security blanket since the day Jacob left and now with August away too I'm holding on so tightly he wasn't allowed to do anything but come with me. We have room. They love him too.
He mentioned something about Grace in the dark. Grace is an excuse. I keep thinking it means to act up now and make up later with no recourse because God still loves you even if you're a big jerk. He keeps telling me it means God loves you in spite of your bad choices and you should work to earn that love. To be worthy
What does that make this? I ask and he asks if we can not have this conversation right now. Instead he kisses my shoulder and puts his head down against mine. Lochlan stirs in his sleep and Sam reaches across me to rest his hand against Lochlan's shoulder. Not so much a romantic gesture, more of a spiritual one, blessing him so that Lochlan will be as open with his faith as he is with his wife and his bed.
(I'm not the prize here, I'm a means to an end. Or maybe I'm the end of his rope. I was hoping I would be the apple of his eye and then God would notice me.)
Sam's going to save everyone. I know it. It's why Jacob left him for me. It's why I can't make him leave and instead he's becoming such a huge part of my life it's hard to see past him. It's hard to separate the message from the messenger. I don't think this is a bad thing. He holds back sometimes because he thinks it is. It causes arguments and ruffles feathers and turns freaks into ascetics and vice versa but at the same time at the bottom of this hole, at the end of the long dark night it's necessary, but it's not evil in nature. It's a foundation we were looking for, one we destroyed and one we're trying to learn how to rebuild together. Even Ben likes having him here but Ben likes having everyone here as long as it makes me feel better.
Maybe he should put the Jesus fish on my forehead. It's shiny and I'd get noticed for sure and maybe even get a little Grace for myself.
You have it already, Sam says sleepily. Twenty bucks says under those lids his eyes are rolling.
Liar! I whisper.
Lochlan stirs in the new day. Shhh, Fidget. Sleep s'more.
