Lochlan looked at me late last night as we sat alone out front, shellshocked and porch-drunk, his glassy eyes sober and frightened and he said, In case you wondered. It's not that I didn't want this, it's that I'm scared to death I'll just fuck it up like everyone else has.
Everyone's afraid, Locket.
Are you?
Terrified.
Of me?
Of us. 'Us' was always so much bigger than everything else. Bigger than the rides. Bigger than that sky.
Still is.
I know it.
Us is what's right. Us is what's supposed to be, Bridgie.
What if I kill you?
You can't. I remember holding you and your fears, back when you were little. Your fear was so big it almost suffocated me but I figured out how to talk you out of it and eventually I would get so tired. I'd be talking and talking and in my head I'd be praying. Please, please let her go to sleep. I'm so tired, Lord. Jesus, if you can hear me just let her sleep and after a while you would stop answering me and I would look down at your face and your eyes would be closed but your hands would be clenching the front of my shirt so tightly it was as if they were still awake and I knew you were where you were supposed to be. With me. That I couldn't die or leave because it was my job to look after you. I just did a shitty job of it when I was younger. If I could take back leaving you I would.
So would I.
It might have saved all this. You never would have ended up with any of them. But we can't take things back. Maybe they do happen for a reason.
What was the reason for all of this then?
Maybe it was to teach you that out of all the men you've loved, I'm not really so bad. He laughs so hard he falls out of his chair to the porch floor and then laughs even harder.
You sure about that? I stand up and hold out my hand but when I try to pull him up he pulls me down with him and he kisses the top of my head and squeezes me really hard and asks me if I'm really ready to live in a camper again because once Caleb is through rage-quitting me we'll probably have five dollars left over.
Maybe two campers so we can have room for the kids and my easel. We can make one big articulating camper.
Or I could renovate a school bus.
Yeah you could do that.
But would you live in it?
In a heartbeat.
