I figured it out.
I'm allergic to rain.
It figures, since I am also allergic to cold weather, snow, wind and too-hot sun. I told this to Loch before and he laughed and agreed with me. Today he just rested the back of his hand against my forehead, frowned into my eyes and then refilled the humidifier and checked to see if my juice was still cold.
It's the high point of the day now. I get fifteen minutes with my laptop to do emails and everything before he takes it and I go back to sleep for the rest of the day, which is dumb because today is our anniversary and it's supposed to be a special, exciting day out of the ordinary, a day in which we celebrate our fourth anniversary as old marrieds, except we're technically not married because that's illegal here but we don't really mind because this is a choice not a birthright like gay marriage and I doubt there are ever going to be a lot of people fighting to be married to more than one person at once because as everyone always says marriage is hard enough with one other person, let alone two.
Being sick is harder though so I'm going to try to get better. Rest. Fluids. Blah. The flu sucks. They let the Russian doctor (the old one, they don't trust the younger son in emergencies such as Our Princess Is Sick) all the way into my inner sanctum (bedroom) because I couldn't walk to the bathroom even and Ben helped me and then I couldn't pull the covers back up because my head hurts so bad so Ben did that too and he didn't like it so he called it in and nope, it's just the flu because there's a lot of people living here and I'm never a very good fighter so I just get everything and go down for the count while they generally work through it or fight through it and come out okay. Ben joked that if I doubled my weight I would probably be okay but then I pushed away the toast I couldn't eat. It's not going to happen any time soon.
But I still remember that morning on the cove when the fog was still low and it was chilly at sunrise and Lochlan took my hands and told me I was his heart and I thought good when he said that because mine had liquified and absorbed into my body and my hands shook because I thought my head might explode from happiness because it doesn't know what to do with that feeling, it's fleeting and unfamiliar but somehow we persevered when we were always fractured before, we made it through when we usually get so bogged down and we still have Ben with us and he's a gleeful sort of happy that doesn't go away easily anymore so maybe I can let my guard down for thirty seconds or so and just enjoy it while I get better. They've promised me scary movies and pizza in bed later and maybe a champagne toast if I'm still awake after that and god knows Ben can't keep his hands off me but Loch will probably yell at him for pushing too hard while I'm too sick to meet him halfway and that will be par for the course because that's how it goes and I don't mind, I'm just pinching my grey skin today and marvelling at how happy I am (and how pale too). Geez.
Here comes Loch. Fresh juice, grim face, a late rose from our garden in a vase, and the ipad because I can read it lying down. Things have changed from the days in the camper when he would steal bags of ice from the bin by campground office and pack them so tightly around me that he would have to sleep on the floor for the lack of remaining space.
God love him, we finally found some first-world problems to have. Don't think we don't know how lucky we are here.
