Ruth has a job. She also has a learner's permit now and is sixteen years old. She steals all my boots and scarves and wears thigh-high socks to school and we all cringe and wonder if she can handle the attention she gets.
Yes, of course I can, she says and rolls her eyes. Because mom and dad are squares.
Or so she thinks because we've sanded down the sharp edges of life and history for her and while it's essential that she builds as much character as she can as early as is humanly possible, there's just no need to burst this perfectly round bubble that she lives in and needn't leave any time soon. Mom and dad were never squares, we just tone it down to a flat line on purpose around her in order to preserve this fairytale of childhood, the bubble, as long as possible. I don't want her learning the same lessons I learned in my early teen years but at the same time I refuse to spoil her or her brother much at all.
She loved her party. All her friends were there along with most of their parents and a few grandparents for good measure. The teenagers (Henry had a few friends over too) congregated around the pool with tables full of pizzas and music that was loud enough for them to dance to but not so loud that the 'squares' couldn't carry on a conversation up on the patio at our house, where we had other music playing anyway and tiny white lights that were static instead of the pulsing, color-changing LEDs. It was too cool to swim but I believe several of the boys pushed each other in.
(None of the boys seemed to notice how steely the stares were coming from the wall of uncles up on the patio. They maybe should have but eventually they will clue in, I suppose.)
Lochlan loved his party. His whole family came and I flew in a few familiar faces that he was so surprised and touched to see. The food was good and the cake (that I made) was better. He smiled and pretended he had energy when it waned and room when he was stuffed. He was operating at maybe eighty percent by then, I think. The antibiotics are working and he is feeling better. So is Benny, thank heavens.
The whole thing went off without a hitch. Every dish in the house was used. Lochlan is a man of few wants so he got at least fourteen bottles of scotch. He's a man of even fewer needs so he got to dance with his daughter for the first dance of the evening when we merged the parties briefly for some speeches and a joint present in the form of a large photograph of the two of them standing at the water's edge, their long red hair the same exact shade, their hip tilt when standing still a mirror image and their love of faded jeans sealing the deal in almost matching outfits, topped with green and black flannel shirts. His hand is on her back. She is looking up at him. I took it and never showed anyone until now.
They loved it. It's going in the front hall.
The speeches once the guests dwindled down to Collective-only were unbelievable. I can't even. It was amazing. He's fifty. I keep telling myself how weird this is. He's always always a teenager to me and I can't quite sort this out.
But I'm going to bed because cleanup took all of us most of the day and I don't feel so good. At least August and crew are definitely on their way home. They burned the man last night and so the boys packed up and headed out and they're in Oregon now for the night. Too square to drive all night, I guess. The family meeting is delayed until they are rested not only to defuse the whole mess but because August is the house conscience and Duncan? The bouncer.
