The redhead would have played America's Rainy Day and it would have worked but of course and that isn't what this is, now, is it?

Well I know that you're gonna cry
Tears are running from your eyes
The piece of my life you take
Is one that so often breaks

It's the kind of cold miserable morning that sees Caleb put on California Dreamin', stereo filling my ears when I'd rather be sleeping.

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way
Well, I got down on my knees (got down on my knees)
And I pretend to pray (I pretend to pray)
You know the preacher like the cold (preacher like the cold)
He knows I'm gonna stay (knows I'm gonna stay)

You don't like it? He's missed the mark. I prefer the Mamas & the Papas version with the flute over the Beach Boys (or even America's cover and I don't often put anything above that band) with it's cheesy eighties saxophone solos any day.

I frown and he turns it off, returning to the blended-family music of The Blue Stones and Missio. I already made the choice for today. I rarely can be persuaded to switch. This is one of my flaws, to be sure. God help you if you're near me and you want to listen to something different and I'm not in the mood. I can't help it. I'm sorry.

The good part is nobody actually minds, as I have good taste in music and play an exceedingly wide variety while keeping a balance of perfect old familiars.

Old family liars. That's how my brain sees that. My eyes just see Caleb, in his Tom Ford boxer-briefs, cut perfectly from the same cloth as Cole, just more refined. He's sipping coffee. He looks energized. I finished my coffee and refused a second cup. I want to go back to sleep, want to go back down the hall but he won't let me and so instead he paired my phone with his speakers and told me to play something good, but softly so I can still hear him over the music.

He likes to try and prolong the mornings, calling for a slow-waking when the usual one will do. He's very easy to fall asleep with, and stay asleep with. I don't know why that is. Maybe the familiarity (liar). Maybe the fact that he's nicest and most generous right after he's ripped me to pieces with his teeth. Maybe he's no longer hungry and can be civilized. Maybe he's just content for the moment instead of perpetually wound and unsettled.

He and August are, strangely enough, a lot alike in that respect in a way that sees a visible relaxing of their shoulders, their minds and hearts and hands directly after touching me that works in a way that fascinates me. I would never tell Caleb that, however. He likes to pretend he's the only man in the world in perpetuity. Just enough to keep my heart together a little longer, he tells me and it makes my tears threaten, burning my eyes and I have to look away for a moment, thinking about something else while he assumes I'm angry about his words and don't want to hear it anymore.

The truth is that's the fuel that keeps me coming back, thriving on his need for me, living for it as a challenge to shut everything else the fuck up. The only control I have over him (something I always, always wanted) is that I get to decide when I see him. And when he can touch me. And I live for the gratitude and tenderness he shows as a result of that permission.

It's a fucking drug.

( You want new music? Go listen to America. Sister Golden Hair, Rainy Day, Moon Song, Lonely People, etc. It's all fucking spectacular.)

I can hear the windchimes on the other side of the doors.

It's going to be a beautiful storm. We battened down the hatches ever so slightly, closing awnings and the larger patio umbrellas and stowing the inflatables. Daniel was supposed to be sure any glassware and breakables were removed from the patio and around the pool but he didn't. I've banned breakables anyway but that doesn't stop anyone who drinks from taking out beer bottles and leaving them everywhere. By 'everywhere' and 'bottles' I mean that one stupid Kokanee bottle I can see out the patio door that is sitting on the table beside PJ's favorite covered chaise lounger. It's been there since Saturday.

Shame, PJ. Shame.

I've got my storm playlist cued up. Sorry, I can't exactly share it since we don't believe in Spotify (again, not renting my music), but it's mostly a solid blend of Pachebel and Oceans of Slumber. Heavy on the heavy, I always say.

Sorry, Dalt.

He hates it when I say that.

But I'm not sorry because it's PERFECT.

Going to work on myself today and heal a bit and snuggle with Lochlan and make a delicious rare favorite for dinner (can't tell you and ruin their surprise) and maybe run out between rain and get that bottle. It's going to drive me crazy.

Fair of face.

When Caleb tracks me down with a hat-trick breakfast offer I clearly fail to impress. I am in the garden barefoot, covered with dirt up to my knees and elbows, the soil freezing and damp. I have a fistful of rosemary and one of lemon mint too and I have bright nailpolish on and hair parted nonsensically, as it seemed fine when I washed it and now that it's dry I've got a bizarre zigzag across the top of my head that somehow delineates the silver from the gold.

With a frown he asks if I'm 'busy'.

Uh. Not really?

He extends his offer, the expression on his face deepening, perhaps unconsciously into one of sheer regret.

Tomorrow would be a better day for it. I'm sorry. I'd like to be home when Henry wakes up. 

It's Henry's eighteenth birthday. He is Monday's child, and an Indigo soul. He has an emotional map copied from my very own and yet he's also a wunderkind that I never could have hoped to be. He has my perfect ashes, pine and ivory-pink coloring and that alone is astonishing. He hates it so.

But seriously. I want to be here so I can give him a huge hug and yell Happy Birthday at his retreating back when he goes to the table with his breakfast muttering something about me knowing he isn't a morning person.

YEESH, Henny. You used to be. You will be again some day if you're anything like me. I get up at five-thirty every morning of my life with a smile that slowly fades over the course of the day and by seven at night I am all but finished, mimicking Caleb's handsome frown in my own completely non-handsome way.

Caleb is a good de facto Dad to Henry though. I will give him that.

I figured we'd be back long before Henry wakes.

True.

Mute (no color, no sound).

Weightless and dark when I hit the water, ears pounding out a rhythm of pain where my heartbeat forces air through them, out into the open sea. I can't hold my breath, violently breaking the surface to suck in lungfuls of sparse clouds and pale sky. The birds ignore me, just another fish in their peripheral view, splashing quietly within the vast Pacific, pink against the heavy black teal of the waves this morning, something I didn't think I would touch until they took me from the land.

My brain drowns to silence but my ears refuse to comply, working just fine, thank you. Lochlan's voice cuts through the hard water just enough for me to catch the sound, but not the words.

What? I look up from my habitual panic-tread as I'm not strong enough to float the way the boys do, spreading their arms languidly in front of them, an easy challenge. I pant like a dog, fluster around and dip below ear-level. It's a fight I'm not sure I could win.

I said come out. He is standing on the dock in jeans and his boots. I notice he has placed his wallet and phone on the wood and his boots are unlaced. Just in case he's coming in to swim too.

Fine. I swim over to the ladder at the edge of the dock. There are four ladders in all. One wasn't enough. Now one at each side. They have to be close. The ease of swimming in the deep end of the pool all but disappears when the fear of not seeing bottom rushes in around the edges, setting my nerves on end, making it hard to breathe. From Lochlan's vantage point he can see no enemies but I don't have (and will never have) his confidence, though keeping me out of the water is hard.

He reaches a hand down and grasps my wet hand, pulling me right out and up to the dock before I can step on the ladder proper. He grabs the back of my head and plants a kiss on my forehead, before heading to the cupboard for a towel. I am wrapped up like a burrito and pronounced fine, untouched by sea monsters or sea lions (more likely than the monsters) and then ushered back up to the house for a quick shower and a long lecture, behind closed doors where PJ won't be able to referee the stern limits of a man running out of patience set on a girl running out of places to hide from herself.

I agree with everything he says because he is right. I know he's right. I play it as cooling off from the weekend's oppressive humidity and thanking the sea for yesterday's bead face-to-face but his fear speaks right over me and I agree to stick to the little swimming beach he has made far on the other side of our beach where the rocks are all but stripped away and the floor has been raked to a fine sand. When I run out of sand, I run out of freedom, he reminds me.

I know this. I just wanted to run and jump off the end of the dock. Sometimes you have to break the rules. Sometimes you gotta just be a kid. Sometimes you need to just do the thing your heart tells you to do even when your brain knows so much better. And besides, he was RIGHT THERE.

Was it fun? He whispers, pulling me in close once again, now clean and dry. Now safe.

Yeah. REALLY fun, I tell him and he grins.
 

Agains.

This is living. Holy shit. Woke up to another dim rainy almost-fall weekend. I was whisked up the road for brunch at Troll's and a walk at Whytecliff for beach glass (I FOUND A GLASS BEAD) and a view of the fat white sea lions before returning home to a a replacement gazebo roof (long story) free of charge from the company that sent us a defective one originally and we have been politely fighting with them ever since and a quickly-pulled together round of chores as tonight is Henry's main birthday party. I finished icing the cake I made. I finished decorating while I did laundry. I made a few lunches for tomorrow. I organized my lists and phone for the week. We fixed a bunch of random small things that were not working and now I feel somewhat heartened and ready to face a new week.

We're also trying something that seems ridiculous but is working great-going to bed at around ten every single night of the week and waking up early, even on weekends and it's working. I'm tired when I should be and awake perfectly without physical pain in the morning. I may be one of those insanely enthusiastic morning people at heart but I also despair when the alarm goes off in the morning because it hurts to have to wake up when I just want to sleep.

We're trying to fix that. I'll let you know if it works.

Hey honey.

Just home now from hosting a massive restaurant brunch. Now no one is hungry for dinner but it was such a huge success and marks a rare departure from the norm of flipped tables and bruised feelings. This time I looked after the bill and everyone sat and talked long after the poor waitstaff wished for our departure, I'm sure. Graciously they hung back and we soon moved out to the street before saying our goodbyes and taking off for home. I'm tired but content. The kids were all amazing. The budget came in far below my own estimate. The food was terrific. The boys were on their best.

What a great day. Even Caleb kissed the top of my head and told me I was a warm hostess and did a really good job.

I did, didn't I? I came down this morning in a dress, returning upstairs to match the casual of the boys in smart pants, a wraparound halter blouse and flats. I left my hair down, now past my chin and no longer a cute french bob, instead a longish pageboy. God, I hate it. Not quite sure if I should chop it all off back into a pixie or let it grow back to the point where it becomes everyone's security blanket, full of bees and peanut butter, always caught in doors, watches and plates.

Yeah, come to think of it, I never minded the bees.

Better but only kind of.

I have had three hours sleep (long story, but sadly not a fun one so let's all pass, shall we?), some leftover salad and a cursory first listen to Dope Lemon's new album and now I have to drive across town to see a man about some balloons. It's Henry's birthday weekend and I'm once again ridiculously emotional about all of it but also way better organized than I first thought. So time is short but emotions are tall, as always. Happy Friday! Also it's thirty degrees in the sun. When I get home I'm heading straight for the pool.

You know when you have a favorite shirt and you see a thread so you pull it and you figure it will come out and the shirt will be perfect again, and then it unravels slightly and you're disappointed?

That's what I feel like only the shirt is my skin and the thread is my nerves.

I told them I felt this way and they said nothing at all.

Arrivals.

We discovered that if you play Bruce Springsteen's The River one of you will sing along. The passenger will invariably start singing The Animals' House of the Rising Sun over the top of that and the girl in the backseat will be belting out Bon jovi's Born to Be My Baby before it's through. That song is a chameleon. It's a sham. It's a classic and yet it sounds just like everything else too.

***

The subject came up abruptly after dinner. I am two glasses of wine in when he changes the subject almost rudely.

I have a position in London. Actually, I have several if you truly want a change of scenery. 

London? 

Yes. Ireland is next door. You could live there and work remotely. 

Remotely.

Via computer. He is impatient. Almost rude again.

How long is this available for.

The offer? Say four or five years. 

Perfect. 

Would you consider? 

Of course. Just not now. Henry is too young. 

Alright. We'll revisit it in a few years. Can you see yourself living overseas? 

Yes. 

Good. It's something to consider. 

***

Still okay with our conversation? I get a text during dinner. He wants to make sure everything is okay. I didn't go home last night, I was with him, and so tempers have flared, singeing the edges of everything in sight. I head over but he's already on my patio steps when I come outside.

Looking at real estate. 

That sounds like you're okay to me.

I found some things. 

For all of us? 

No. I think if we left that would be it for the Collective. 

You said last week you wouldn't break it up for anything. 

Hey, I'll invite them but they have to be willing to come with us. 

You don't think they will be? 

It's a gamble. 

Life is, you mean.

That too. 

He kisses the top of my head. Don't worry about it today. 

Uh-huh. Now it's all I can think about. Congratulations, Batman. You got me to consider the future for the first time since 2007.

Can we not find a way to ban Mondays already?

Everything's fine. I just don't appreciate Mondays enough.

But it's Tuesday now and I have a huge cup of hot coffee and right now I'm listening to Koda sing a better version of Radioactive than Imagine Dragons puts out and I'm absently playing the piano on the desk while I try and reply to a hundred emails and write and get my budget done and read the news on the side, but mostly I don't want to see the news.

I mean, a grandad dropped his grandchild eleven stories off a cruise ship. CHRIST. Who wants to read about THAT? Why did they put that in? Is it a cautionary tale on why we don't balance babies precariously on windowsills?

Just don't tell me. Please. I'll live in the soundless dark with my music piped directly into my mind.

That's my next plan. Become a world-famous brain surgeon that discovers a way to bypass hearing in order to send music directly to my amygdala. Mine is so large. There is room for all of it, trust me.

I just need help passing high school biology first or I can't get into the sciences program at school. Just like last time I tried.