August 2, 1992
Sunday morning, regardless of one's location or level of involvement, is ingrained into many as a time of reflection and reckoning. There's clearly a reason for the rhythm we've come to know as sabbath, sabbatical, time set aside for rest. A critical eye will note that this rhythm is as old as any written history; we are stuck with it and it with us – and within us - as flies in amber.
Even when there's not much of a set routine during the week, although Nick pretty much keeps the same hours at the store, or did, he wakes up to the smell of breakfast cooking which has always been the tell of a Sunday or maybe a holiday, or in earlier years that family was staying with them.
So they enjoy pancakes and eggs around 7:30 then Nick usually ends up back in his bed, then once his folks head to church he switches on the FM or puts on a tape. Back in the day Irene once jumped his case for finding cartoons on some distant channel on a Sunday morning as they got ready, so he tries to respect the space, at least, for as long as it's shared space.
Tomorrow he starts the new gig. Sue had called and asked if he could start a week later than planned, since they realized it would be much cleaner on the books, and this was no problem, Bain wasn't going to mind. In fact, Nick is pretty sure he won't be officially off the payroll anytime soon.
There's a point in the summer where it turns into a fever dream of sorts, the conscience takes a partial shutdown, fancies and ethereal forays take over. The season has nothing left to prove, it's here and happening, we'll make things hot if we want, storm if we need to, but not always. He finds himself longing for a bike ride on a country road to visit that girl he never would have visited, she knew things, it was in her silence, she'd seen or done things she couldn't come out and say, or maybe she was trying to, just in a foreign tongue. Cat-eyed and outgoing, had a fine body, probably still does, even after a couple of kids at this point, last he'd heard, but she's someone else's mystery to solve, if ever, even if at a point in time she had shot lightning into his soul and triggered a mass eruption onto his poor mattress, on a Sunday morning.
It had all started the time he saw her across the foyer, the way she stood, looking downward with her eyes but with a hint of awareness, her face and her bosom seemed to form a teardrop of sorts, whatever she was feeling, or thinking, her countenance: a teardrop.
Things are so much mellower now, somehow, the stakes aren't as high, paradoxically. Work makes sense, it brings purpose, solving problems, and lo, some things can't be solved.
Without thinking he looks at Noreen's tender gaze from the corkboard across the room. She brings order, yet, can be crazy as a weasel at times, he feels he owes her the world. Perhaps he does. She asks so little, very independent, as is he, still...she tells him we'll take things day by day. In circuits we use this and that component to regulate voltage and current, he can say one thing, the relationship feels well regulated, maybe he should tell her so, worst case, she'll laugh.
Day by day.
Despite the lab becoming one of his favorite places in the world, this would be different, not school, no smell of fresh notepads to fill up with scribbles that will be utterly incomprehensible in just a few hours, no filling out a schedule page to have it changed during the first week. Nick has to choke back fears that this is not a good idea. The first thing will be to make the space his own, and then, well, go from there. Day by day.
He gets dressed, leaves a note on the counter,
Taking a long bike ride in the country
And so he does, and he follows the leading, despite reservations, out to Bechner road, that homestead with the barn where he'd stopped with his mom to drop something off. It's still early enough to be pleasant with the smell of dew starting the ritual bake off the lawns, then fields as he gets further out. Not many cars to deal with at least, then he sees the place.
Consciously or not he had worn a cap and shades, despite the near-total cloud cover. The house is as he remembers but the barn is somehow different, maybe that dream made it what it needed to be for its purpose. As he draws closer he sees kids playing near a small swingset, and a blond pony tail and an arm draping over the back bench swing, Nick's blood runs ice cold.
He nearly retreats but keeps going, trying to steal a subtle glance here and there, but she doesn't seem to notice him, one of the kids needs attention and she hops up, unfettered bosoms flop in a loose-fitting sundress, she's added some weight but carries it well, looks completely at home. Good for her.
Now that the spell is broken, at least for the moment, he gambles that the next road will circle him back around where he needs to go, the next task is to get home, flip on the Icom, mess with the modem, have some lunch, and go from there.