I just feel dull today, as if someone has taken the point of my knife and ground it all along the pavement all the way out of my neighborhood, and when I hold it up to the light to see the damage it's now an icing spreader, just a rounded flat tin safe now even in the smallest of hands.
Church was ineffective. I slid into a bench between Lochlan and Caleb. Lochlan had gone through a drive-through for coffee for us on the way and once in he handed me my coffee and then took it away again just as fast while he watched Sam's sermon float right through one ear and out the other. Sam finally came over during collection and told me I should just go home and nap in the sun. That he will bring me some God later if I want. I laughed because I took it the wrong way but continued to doze standing up, eyelashes and hands fluttering, slack-jawed staring at the sky.
Jake just keeps watching me from the corner of every room. I know what it is. I brought him in. I brought him here and I keep him here and years and years have passed and I still don't understand how I fell so hard. How I mowed right over my boys for this incredible interloper who had no stake in us, no stake in the collective and no way of knowing how hard he would fall in return before he let it all slip through his hands.
You can't bring God over later. God isn't welcome here. Jacob moved right into my heart, fixed it up and redecorated and now I can't get him to leave.
I watch Lochlan as Sam mumbles. I can't even make out the words for Lochlan's curls spilling over his shoulders in lazy loops. The brilliant piercing red of early summer, before they fade to strawberry blonde, the sheer circumference of each single pop-can curl that has riddled me with jealousy my entire life, even as I can wake up in the middle of the night screaming from nightmares and ghosts that won't leave and Lochlan doesn't complain one bit as he lets me wrap those curls around my fists, falling back asleep right in his face, not letting go for hours. He does it right back, save for the screams, and it's been a thing for so long, long before Jake and now long after him.
Go away, I mouth at the man in the corner, in his rumpled invisible linen and bare feet. Leave us alone now. You've done enough.
I close my eyes and rest my head on Lochlan's shoulder and he squeezes my hands tightly in his.