I sat in the orchard this morning in the cold sun and laughed at the sound of the fat fuzzy bumblebees making their way from one bloom to the next because I could hear them, loudly and clearly. It isn't often I get that pleasure but it was so quiet. No music, no planes, no sound carrying around the point from others, no arguments in the driveway, no fistfights up the back steps to the loft or to the boathouse, no lectures that go on for days to the point of boredom, to the point of sheer willfulness to do anything, everything, just out of spite by that time.
Just me and the bees. I am a bee, maybe. Though I have no black in my golden hair, and I'm not very big or very loud like these bees. I am in the trees, though these blooms are sparse and early.
I am sparse. I am early.
I'm a flower, not a bee then.
Okay.
(God, these pills are amazing.)
Sam comes out to see me, tromping through the wet grass in his mismatched suit, a smile on his face.
You're alone. The smile vanishes. It was a Friendlies Approaching smile and now he's just disapproving-minister, kind of half-in charge, half hands-off approach most of them have, as in I am here for comfort or physical affection but if this gets really freakishly complicated or violent, I'm out.
That's what Jake did, anyway.
I am not. I wave my hand up toward the hill by the water to where Lochlan sits on the tree swing, not swinging, just swaying, feet planted firmly on the ground.
Like some kind of metaphor too, I just don't know what.
He is currently fulfilling the role of super-patient, highly-annoyed and ultimately deeply-concerned husband. Because his wife is a fucked up tiny grief-monster with a massive appetite for whatever she can get her hands on to make this stop and yet it's never enough, it never stops. Nothing ever changes. Even the bees came back. Even the grief comes back. I want this to change but it's as if the moment I step out and say, hey I think I'm doing bett-
It hears me, turns and comes charging back.
It's a monster. And that makes me the monster. The little blonde monster on the point that they pass around, a hot potato who is hard to hold, difficult to handle and burning for something, she just doesn't know what until she feels that heat.
Abruptly I remember to tell myself that I got my dream. Deep, romantic love on the edge of the seaside, a life beside the ocean, in arms at all times with few daily worries past what's for dinner.
But I got so many other things too. And maybe this is the price you pay for that dream. I wanted a neat little house by the sea, true love and peace.
It's definitely quiet here, the house is far too big and love is everywhere you look. Everywhere I look, anyway. Even in the dark corners where I become someone who doesn't appreciate any of it, instead favouring the losses because they overwhelm the wins. I do appreciate it. All of it. All of them. Even though I paid and continue to pay a magnificent personal price for it. But I appreciate even Sam, who saw from afar that I wasn't in the house anymore and came out to make sure I was safe.
Just making sure, Sam says.
Thanks, brother. Lochlan says it from the swing, his voice full of emotion.
Do you need- Sam sees an opening to minister.
We're fine. Lochlan cuts him off gently.
Sam comes right over to me, kisses the top of my head, then goes to Lochlan, does the same and turns and heads back over the hill toward the house.
They care so much for you.
And for you.
We're very lucky, aren't we? We went from being the only two people in the world to this. He smiles at me.
And it breaks my heart. I'm sorry, Lochlan. I spit it out in hot, frustrated tears.
We'll be okay.
Yeah.
I promise.
And I smile, because that's a word that holds a lot of weight with this man now. And I can picture it because I'm fully high right now, but at least today, nothing hurts and that's a milestone with every single breath sometimes.
