He had a soundtrack, the outside system churning through a playlist of new favorites. Wye Oak, Imagine Dragons and some acoustic Metric that he found that I loved instantly, to name a few. Old favorites mixed in for familiarity, too, as always. Bryan Adams. Boston. Kansas.
He had our big sketchbooks, my bag of pens and pencils and his metal tin of charcoal pieces.
He had the big picnic quilt and he laid everything out under the tree at the center of the dead orchard but it isn't dead just lazy in production and we don't have the heart to tear it all up, cut it down and change it. I love it. It's like a secret garden of a different kind and when you're under the tree at the very center you can't even see the house.
He had olives and bread and cheese and wine and chocolate too. He had sour patch kids and a small bag of cotton candy that we were sorely disappointed in. Loch had a plan to spend the day listening to music, drawing each other's portraits and drinking and singing and then I put all of that aside in favor of lying flat on my back on the blanket in the grass, pencils spilled into the bowl of olives, charcoal fingerprints around my ears and on my cheeks. I watched the clouds play tag across the sky and every now and again a dragonfly or a bee would come and land nearby and I would watch it until my eyes got so heavy I couldn't see anymore and finally I closed them completely.
I fell asleep in the sun, got burned and missed my phone call, shifted to today because Saturday was family day and apparently Ben was hoping I would be there, in spite of his very specific instructions that I not come because he seems to do better when he can't see my face and feel the feelings that go along with my expressions. They say it's rather devastating but I don't look in the mirror anymore so I don't know what they're talking about, honestly.
