fourth

Her supremely pleasant nature suddenly arisen in our time together has me wondering if another shoe will drop. We take our girl to visit my friends three quarters hour south, bbq, shootthesheet. Our wives hit it off; she’s pregnant. We play some music in the den. The dogs are raucous, but well enough intentioned. Our sweetheart is in awe of the german shepherd that tries to sniff her and even lands a lick by the end of the day. Her giddiness is so pure i am awestruck and bewildered by her sweetness yet concerned for her curiosity and the danger she can find. Keep the baby away from the german shepherd. I think I heard it somewhere. We eat and talk and I break 5 months of no drinking with a couple beers. It feels like something for a moment, but nothing worth stumbling back into. Things were so bad for us back then. even if it wasn’t the reason. I give my buddy a book on husbanding during pregnancy. He’s told me before its not been easy for him, psychologically. I try and get him to see its normal, but everyone has their own mountains to conquer. It seems right to pass on the token.
She has to work so look for the paintball gun to get some shots off. I realize then I’ve forgotten the hopper. My pal smells the ball of new paint: the smell, he says, oh man the smell takes me back.

We split by four and get home with time for dinner and kisses. It seems like something has been restored. The news of her miracle healing? Did it change her, for good? God?

Neighbors start the blasts when the sun goes down at ten. The most darling angel keeps herself asleep through most of it but a few spurts of indian res grade explosives spring her awake. When I go in to put a hand on her she’s even more perturbed. It’s mama she wants, even though she isn’t saying it this time. Well enough she’s sleepy and drifts away to my humming. In my office it sounds like things are landing on the tin roof, but I reckon its an auditory illusion. I think, this is what they deal with in two wars, except it’s real ammo, not this ego contest. When I go to check on the very best of babes later to adjust the sound machine there’s bursts of light reflecting off her window, some neighbor’s explosive display playing on the pane. By one am someone hits the last finale.

Morning comes with groggy teeth brushing and mama’s home early. Things are fine until I take on a simple task for our incoming rental guests on my lunch break. Working from home i have no escape from her rancor as she screams at me cursing with the most inexplicably gorgeous and delightful nineteen pounds of human flesh ever conceived bouncing in balance with the opposing hand’s emphatic gestures in the crook of her elbow. I tell her I’m closing the door because she’s screaming and cursing with that lovey dovey chubby bubby just soaking it all in. Which triggers a downpour of vitriol like gas to the flame and when she finally does go back down the hall to call her mother I call the pastor and tell him the story. He says it’s confusing and illogical if there’s nothing I did to deserve the reaction. i agree. But there’s something that’s set her off and in this state the call to the Pr is a gamble. I get back to work. Thank God and the medical establishment thereunder for this ability to restabilize. get things in order upstairs and on the screens and maybe eat a protein bar for the next four hours. No one answers my support emails and I have tutorials on the back log so I get what I can exported from the files I am able to access and begin to learn the intricacies of a new software package. At five she tells me there’s someone coming to haul away the garbage, giant old logs half rotten and sitting along the driveway. I recall her requesting her brother in law to bring it all there years ago, and now somehow she’s twisting it so i’m the main reason it sat for seven years. I take our lil’universally renowned itsy bitsy spider enthusiast for a walk around the yard and hit the sprinkler. It’s eighties out and clear. The waters nicen’brisk and she almost grasps the concept, standing under a shower with her jamoniberiquito of a forearm outstretch to catch the drops in her perfectly wrought maninita.

After the haulers leave she takes off the top of her uniform and I find her with the baby shaped sack of potatoes on her tit with a scorn for me. I tell her if it’s okay I will finish cleaning up after the fellas while she nurses before she has to leave, but even that simple favorish chore is met with consternation and no reply. She has an appointment before departure that she takes from the car when I return. I play with sweetpea and have a ball at hide’nseek, her new favorite pastime with daddy. (It all started when I moved from the backyard cottage to the ikea futon in the TV room and she could hide behind the foot of the bed while I hid behind the head of it with each of us popping up like whacamoles. We played this quick-round version for a few days until she became official finder and took to counting in some unknown number system to some unknown quantity before popping up to search for yourstruly across the room first then soon the whole of the babyproofed floorplan.)

The exhiliration of the chase with a fifteen month old who’s taken to running over walking and can’t seem to stop the corners of her smile with the fat of her cheeks when she’s truly entertained makes me sweat and love her all the more and though the house is still hot and stuffy by eight pm, she takes to sleep alright at the normal time, milk in one hand and water bottle in the other until they plop to the floor beneath her limp grasp one by one and I pray and place her in the crib again. You healed her God: heal us.