Crashing.

Angela, as she does now, came in without knocking and then opened the curtains and windows. She does this despite me still being in bed on the sofa. She makes me get dressed under the duvet, and says the smell of boys makes her sick, so she fumes the place up with coffee before she eats breakfast. It’s not clear if she hopes to change me, or if she only wants to claim a chair in the room.

I had started to go through the bag of papers from Miranda’s, sorting them into useful and junk, but broke off to ask her-

“What did you get up to last night?”
“Norman and I… It doesn’t matter.”
“Huh.” I said, not interested really.
“It isn’t what you’re implying. We performed a ritual.”
“Like magic?”
“No. Not like magic. A ritual meditation.”
“Like hippies.”
“No, not like hippies. It was a ritual of acceptance, for Norman.”
“Acceptance of what?”
“Well, you remember he had a wife?” Said Angela. “And how she died?”
“Huh.” I said. I’d hoped it was more interesting.

I understand being upset, and wishing things weren’t the way they are, but the world is the world, more now than ever. There’s a difference between being upset and denying what’s happened. After all, we all die somehow don't we.

Norman provided lunch, as though suspended in a bubble of cleaner air. His smile was calm and to himself, and before each mouthful he considered the food on the ed of his fork like a special gift of providence.

In the afternoon I moved the TV from the attic and put it back in my own room. Irrespective of Samuel’s dislike of TV, things need to go back where they belong. All of these accommodations make it feel like a permanent arrangement.

An hour ago, Samuel came home. He fell through the front door into Norman’s arms – he was cut and bleeding. He’s bruised black, with his face swollen and his red eyes shining like deep wounds. Angela is tending to him now. A silver crucifix was embedded in the flesh of his arm. I thought that meant the church had done it, but Angela tells me the crucifix is his. He can’t talk yet.

There is no acceptance, not in truth. There is only a recognition that things are different. There is only that.