It's our anniversary. It's special in that it's just like any other day with three kids, five pets and climate change wreaking havoc all over the place. It means something to have lived this long and made this much of a mess.
We had tropical rain in Colorado last night. It took me back to to our honeymoon when I lie awake near Tahiti thinking we were all going to die when in fact it was just an afternoon storm. I'm not unlike our dog. She doesn't like thunder.
On our Anniversary Eve, we'd all gone to bed. Well, Sarah was the only one unconscious. I was on my way. And you know what that's like, when you start shutting down, turning off your devices and your faculties. You barely have enough energy for that final piddle, but you know it's worth it so you can sleep all night. And I'm on the final stretch to the room when I get intercepted by a naked nine year old.
She tells me she's not feeling well. It's a fairly benign diagnosis, but it's scary in its vagueness. Is something going to projectile out of you? I ask with third-child compassion.
She trots past me and I find a spot on the floor while she chats with me from the toilet.
She had something important to tell me. I responded by saying that it could certainly wait if it meant we could go to bed. She shut me up and requested something quite touching: that I visit her after I die. I'd give it my best shot, I said.
"Yeah, as a ghost. But not like scary. Just come visit me," she explained with the practical preparation of the females in our family. But it was also very sweet.
"Of course, honey," I laid out like treacle across the bathroom.
And then she continued, "Yeah, cuz I want you to haunt really nice houses so I can buy them for cheap."
Oh. Of course. I swore unto her my posthumous services. A little less warm and fuzzy than I'd originally thought, but really quite sensible. I truly hope that I could come back and help her build a real estate empire. Although it presented a very good opportunity to prove my value while I'm still alive.
So the conversation and the Pepto has her unable to sleep which means she gets to take up most of our bed. She's the smallest person in our family but somehow a Dutch windmill of bedfellows. In her room she sleeps in one stoic stick. In ours, it's like when Darth Vader's little fighter ship gets shot and then spins wildly into space, but this time for seven hours. My daughter's broken gyroscope whirls her into a crossbar between my wife and my uprights. This means either fierce kicks or the even less preferred sensation of somebody stretching their toes into your rib cage. She sleeps the entire time, which makes it even more infuriating. I know this is punishment for what my wife has to go through with my snoring. She beats on me with a pillow hoping to turn it off; hoping to stop me from turning into Nosferatu.
I drift with the rain. A warmer atmosphere wreaking havoc and putting me to bed. A perfect metaphor for apathy. We've never seen rain like this in Colorado. Our house like an ancient Galleon rotting at the bottom of local meteorological disbelief.
I surface again. The gurgling fish tank down the hall had me thinking we'd sprung a leak. My daughter whips into a new position.
Our dog, the one who hates thunder, bursts into the room. She’s wide-eyed and crazy. She looks like Samuel L. Jackson pushed to the edge.
Her what the fuck motherfucker face features her eyes going in two different directions. Maybe some primal adaptation to scan for danger. It’s likely not all that comforting that it makes me laugh.
Her WTF is deep and strong.
She needs somewhere to rest away from what we call the bang bangs. And these are loud bang bangs. Gilligan’s Island bang bangs. You're gonna get lost at sea bang bangs. Lightning cracks a light on my concern. She's smart to be alert and all she sees is us doing nothing to make it stop.
We have a thundershirt for her. I can't find it. I let everyone know I can't find it by cussing about not being able to find it. Then I try and find a closet that isn't a sideways dumpster of forgettables. A desperate animal, she crashes her way in and digs around. We come up with winter clothes for children from the past, an extra vacuum hose and a roll of tape which will likely be handy at some point somewhere. BoOOoommM. The house rattles and you'd have to be an idiot not to be digging with her.
Cho Cho runs to another closet. My son hasn't quite unpacked from a recent trip and there's a dozen Ziploc additions that his mom shoved in his suitcase. Claritin, bandaids, vitamins in little baggies strewn about the space—it looks like the home of a school nurse turned drug dealer.
She goes for it. Dogpiling the detritus.
I go back to bed but the other dog has taken my place. Eliot has her leg thrown across him. Somewhere an ancient wolf cringes. I roll the dog and child to avail some space. Sarah is stone cold unconscious. I'm going to be there soon. Maybe we'll meet in our dream and watch some uninterrupted Netflix. I try and ignore the noise in the hall. It's the boys. They're up late. That's OK. Go to sleep, Jared.
"Dad!" yells the whisper.
"OMG what?" I exude with parental angst.
They want me to come outside. They've been in the rain. I should do it too.
You know when a night is so screwed you figure you should just stop trying?
"Ok. Hold on."
"Shhhhhh," Sarah's subconscious hisses.
I go outside in my underwear to enjoy the rain. The lightning has moved over the next neighborhood but is totally worth me nearly nude trying to get slow motion video of certain electrical death. This spring 80% of my phone is storm footage of various speeds and panic levels.
"Guys. I gotta go to bed," I say and not because I'm tired anymore but feel that I must inject some convention into the early morning of a weekday. Although I have no idea how. Cho Cho has fled the closet for the bed. And Bogie’s there. And my daughter and my wife. I bulldoze the sprawling bodies to the center. I get an edge of the mattress. Sarah is unperturbed. "Happy anniversary!" I chuckle a whisper into a storm of contented breathing.