Cross check

It's late Friday evening when I get back from London with the youngest and hound. he's gotten so tall, my son, I can barely maneuver his body around mine to carry him up the stairs. But he snuggles into the crook of my shoulder and for a moment, I can smell that newborn scent. 'You're still gonna be my baby/ even when you're my age,' I sing softly. 

I draw a bath, call my cousin to update them on travel plans, the order of service, odds and ends. Open or closed casket? Everything requires a decision. 

'Now, Rachel, what do you want to do about laying her out? We had an open casket for about 45 minutes with Aunt Laura Mae.'

'Oh, well, then we shouldn't break with tradition.'

'Well, now, don't feel like you have to...' Which is - of course - code for 'you have to.' I laugh but it is exhausting, the variations in the English language I have to speak and process some days. 

We're just about to say goodbye when the conversation tangents and it's another 45 minutes before we get off the phone. 

These traditions aren't of me but they must be hardwired because I can slip back into this world with an ease that scares me. I didn't ask to be so adaptable, so be able to blend yet always feel slightly apart, but I've come to recognise it as a gift. To be able to improvise, on the spot, to fashion something more than workable, it isn't even a consideration, I just do. Social duct-tape.

Coffee and a chat with a furniture designer friend on Tuesday to talk through the front door. I'm a bit wound and it shows.

'You're looking well for it, though,' he says.  And he isn't wrong. For all of the strain, the humidity of the Midwest has done me well. 

'I suppose.' We catch up on the summer gossip, laughing. It feels good to laugh with a friend. The subject of responsibility comes up and I laugh. 'Five people I hold POAs for. 5.'

'You take care of everyone, kid. Who takes care of you?' He puts a hand on my shoulder. 'No, really. Who is taking care of you?'

My eyes well. 'Me,' I say, shrugging. I feel very small, all of a sudden. The mantle of self-reliance, it gets heavy. I am getting better at asking and receiving help, but it is very much a process. All I can do is learn and adapt. 

Later that afternoon, the matchmaker emails through with a prospective pairing. I read through their description, skeptical. Maybe I should put a delay on the process. I don't.delay, though, because I know what I desire. And I deserve quality sex and intimacy with a person I can be genuinely myself with, can trust. That isn't a pipe dream. And it has been far, far too long. 

By the time I get to the airport Sunday, I'm resigned to making the trip, except that I don't want to go. I am physically exhausted and that exhaustion is having an impact, I realise when I get to the check-in counter with my UK passport, my dad's US passports, with my own no where to be seen.

I think back to the last time I saw it: I was going through my tick list, but I was also trying to absorb time with the littles. Their passports still aren't renewed, so I tucked the packet with the passports and paperwork on my desk, with my US passport, nestled safely beside them.

You know, the one I need to get into the country I'm supposed to be flying out to this afternoon. I know, you're very aware of what's about to happen. 

It was so automatic, I didn't even notice that it wasn't with my British passport until I was at the airport. Because, in the same accordion file are two of my father's passports. 

I talk myself down from the panic attack, mentally track through where it could be (verifying the location with the co-parent), rebook flights and drop my bags. Headed to the train station and headed back across London to Colchester. 

It's easy to re-book a flight. Easy to sort a place to stay. I have options. I am blessed with good fortune. The bullet tends to only graze. When it hits its mark? It makes a neat hole going through me. It's easy slow my roll, for just a moment and take the long way back. Even when I don't want to go. Under the initial panic, the relief is so intense, I can only lean into it. And that makes the day easy. 

That extra time gives me a chance to catch up with the co-parent, to breathe in the smell of the kiddos' skin. To verbally run through the difficulties I am working through with someone who knows the backstory is helpful, relavatory, to write, to call my dad, do the things I want and need to do.  

To be able to sit and have tea together, to talk about the things happening in our lives with my former husband, it's refreshing It helps that I adore his partner and how they are together, that she is good to our kids children. I'm blessed, I remind myself, especially in this wake of this particular quagmire, to be able to cultivate such a relationship. I'm blessed, I say, looking to the mirror, touching recent scars. I am alive, I am loved, and I am blessed. And a blessing. I walk my walk and stay as true to my talk as I can. 

On the train back into London, I watch a family, bickering and laughing. I watch young lovers holding hands, lightly kissing in the gloaming. I listen to the sound of the rolling stock and look out over the golden of the Essex landscape. Tomorrow, I'll be in Georgia, Tuesday in Mississippi. The light will be different, the air will be different. But so much will be the same.

When I open the door to my hotel room,  I immediately think of 'Old Boy.' Will I wake up tomorrow and find the world has moved on twenty, thirty years without me?  

I have a dream this night, sleeping in the room with no windows. The Crone is sitting by my bedside, stroking my hair, my cheek.

'Remember to love as deeply as you can,' she says. How deeply, Rachel? How deeply can you love? That is what you must ask next. It would be so easy to turn into yourself now, pull up into a tiny ball of cold pain and rage. Or to shut off again. But you, you are meant to be awake and alight. You, my dear girl, you...'

Later, there is a presence beside me, tracing the length of my spine. A mouth pressed to the back of my neck. I snuggle in to its warmth, cherished.  

When I wake, I wonder that I am not more bereft, waking alone. It is something I have wondered often on this journey. How can I not be more devastated but all that is happening? But I am devastated, I suppose I've just decided not to let it define me.