I woke up to shouting this morning. Caleb was back first thing and PJ sent out a heads up which is interesting because PJ sleeps in on Sundays and to wake him takes an army. Maybe that was it, the army's sole dissenter rode up and PJ snapped to, and before I woke up I guess some of the others tried to get him to quietly go again and he was having none of it.
Because he knew I was taking two steps forward and three back. The usual. Things seem okay, make a little progress and then turn around and let go and slide all the way back to the beginning. It's a human game of snakes and ladders and grief is the snake and life is the ladder and he doesn't want to be left behind.
Ha, like me on the stupid log in Call of Duty. That never gets old.
Jacob didn't stay. It's fine, I think Caleb learned his lesson too, I point out to Ben but Ben is watching body language and keeping me from moving forward (three steps back, Bridget) while Caleb and Lochlan get further away. They walk down the driveway and I am left wondering if Caleb is going to shove Lochlan next and maybe he'll fall and hurt his head and forget me or I'll have to feed him for six or eight weeks while he learns to use utensils again, helpless and weakened in the space of one calculated moment of overwhelming emotion.
Which is why we are always stuck right here in that before moment.
Jacob gave me a gift and I'm not squandering it, I swear but my curiosity is a lethal mistress, always and I strain to read their expressions as they return. Caleb hurries ahead of Lochlan and sweeps me into his arms in a hard hug, my feet off the ground.
I missed you, Neamhchiontach. His voice breaks. Lochlan is allowing me back early. He has some rules I can easily agree to if it means I can see you. He touches my face, my nose, my ears. I just want to know the rules.
Tell you later, Lochlan says as he brushes past me when I look to him for confirmation. I'm sure there will be another set of rules for me to listen to later when it comes to the devil but what good is an army with missing soldiers? What good is an angel without a devil to be the foil? And what the heck is the summer going to look like now that there's no countdown and a velcro-ghost, stuck like static on a fine silk shirt to my skin, inside my heart, all over my face, written like a letter I never read?