Why don't you come with me little girlAnd just like that he shapeshifts back into devil-form, loathe to have anyone else connect the dots the way I can, making pictures of death where they intended a rainbow or perhaps a duckling. Caleb appeared at the kitchen door this morning, coffee mug in hand, hair slicked back with Brylcreem in his more customary corporate Cary Grant style, cleanshaven, button-down shirt and dress pants. I am used to that. He's always looked like that once he was out of law school.
On a magic carpet ride
Well, you don't know what we can see
Why don't you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Cole was the one who looked like he fell out of a repurposed sixties musical with his Trey Anastasio hair and Jim Morrison beard, leather cord around his neck until it fell off and paint-spattered jeans that forced my knees apart and made me give up any idea of defense that I could come up with, if I tried, which I didn't/wouldn't/couldn't. He would tuck his hair behind his ears and my dress would fall off.
So forgive me if I still feel like that every now and then.
Cole would have been forty-four this year. His hair would have been starting to see a few strands of grey, like Caleb's. Maybe he would have laugh lines like Caleb. Maybe he would have calmed down a little but he still would have ruled our lives, a job Lochlan took over and still resents to this day.
No one minds if I let my brain off leash. It is proclaimed to be healthy. It's proclaimed to be a good coping mechanism. Someone might be wrong on that note but hey, give me oxygen and I will breathe. Call me a duck and I'll follow you into the filthy pond in the middle of a city park and go for a swim.
It's Caleb's week to take the kids to school. We trade off mornings and afternoons. I like pick-up because I can hear all about their days and see that everything is in their backpacks that they will need to do their homework. He likes to not have to watch the clock in the afternoons when he gets buried in the odd consulting job or catching up with his old boys network or decides to practice his evil. Lochlan doesn't take the kids to school, everyone was fine with the status quo remaining the way it always was, children included, as they have input now in all sorts of things that used to be relegated to an eventual throw-down in the backyard and because of my need for a calmer house for their benefit there won't be any more of those. Lochlan's going to learn to rule his own reactions with the same self-control he runs the house with. Which is very little in all honesty but something is better than nothing.
A dirty pond is better than no river for miles and evil is better than dead.
Yes.
Evil is better than dead.