Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 4 ~ Damn Fine

Liseli was comfortable enough to drowse where she lay, nestled up against her husband’s side, his arm around her as he slept.  But she was not asleep.

She would go for long minutes without thinking of anything, just listening to the silence, Russ’s even breathing, the faint rustle of breeze playing with the leaves of the tree outside the open west window.  The hypnotic hints of noise should have lulled her to sleep, and usually did, but tonight a faint restlessness kept her awake.  Thoughts would suddenly intrude just as she felt ready to slip away, and she’d open her eyes again.

Something felt vaguely wrong, as if there was something that was going to happen. . . .  What was it?  Elly had been acting strangely that night at dinner; but then, Elly acting strangely was not so strange a thing.  She had always been prone to staring off into space as if she could see things there others could not.  And recently she’d been doing it even more; even if you were talking to her she couldn’t seem to be bothered to live in the same universe.  Liseli thought that if she heard another, “Sorry?  What?  I wasn’t paying attention . . . ” she would scream, or shake the girl.

However that did not necessarily mean anything, and it wasn’t reason to lay sleepless.  Russ was home, and Elly adored her father, so it was a little strange that on the first day he was back she’d be more preoccupied than ever. . . .  But then, she was sixteen.  She probably had developed a crush on some boy, and what father could compete with that?  It explained the sighs that sometimes punctuated Elly’s silences.  Silly girl.

Liseli sat up, curiously unsatisfied with this conclusion.  Maybe it had nothing to do with Elly, but there was something afoot.  She had enough faith in her premonitions and vague uneases not to brush them aside, for as far as she could remember, they’d never been for nothing.

She looked down at Russ, and, not for the first time in their relationship, she was a little perplexed and envious of how he could sleep so deeply.  Russ went to bed and was out like a light, sometimes faintly snoring.  She could not remember having ever awoken from sleep to find him lying awake staring at the ceiling or tossing from side to side, as she did.  If sleeping were a sport he’d win first and she’d place dead last, Liseli thought with a wry smile.  Funny, though, how green his face looked at the moment . . . .

Sleepiness clouding her mind, Liseli frowned in confusion for a moment, then it came to her to twist around and look at the windows.  They always left one open for the breeze to come through, when it was comfortable to do so.  Tonight the moon was out and its pale light filtered through the leaves to fall across the bed.  And the light was strangely greenish.

Liseli gently moved the blankets aside and got out of bed, padding across the carpeting to kneel on the window seat.  She had always wanted a window seat, ever since she was a child, and when they’d been house shopping with Russ’s “rock money” (as she called it), the window seat in the master bedroom had been like a beacon to her saying “This is the house of your dreams.”

She leaned against the window, now, and peered up at the moon.  It was not quite full, hovering just in sight between the tree branches.  The towering oak outside their window was easily older than Liseli’s thirty-nine years . . . no forty, she was turning forty in a week, she reminded herself.  She shook her head in disbelief, as she always did these days when she remembered how old she was getting.  The second twenty years of her life had flown by so much faster than the first.

The moon looked more or less normal, the same silvery white it was in any world she’d seen it in.  She looked around at the faintly illuminated room, and wondered with annoyance why she had gotten up and what had seemed wrong.  She must have been half-dreaming and now she couldn’t remember what about.

But she didn’t go back to bed just yet.  She was drawn to the quiet, drowsing world outside the window.  It looked different at night, the respectable high end neighborhood they’d moved into as soon as they’d had the means to do so.  Their neighbors were mostly doctors and lawyers and business execs . . . it was an older community, quiet, retiring, certainly not a social hub.  They’d liked that about it.

When they’d moved in, six years ago, there’d been an anxious buzz amongst the residents.  Rumor had it that a rock star (a synonym for wildness, crime, and the degeneration of the neighborhood) had bought the stately old home on DeVine Street.  No doubt there’d be roaring parties with drugs and alcohol and blaring music going on every night till 4 in the morning.  And what if this meant there would now be paparazzi crouching in the bushes, snapping pictures idly while you went out in your bathrobe to fetch the morning paper?

What they’d gotten instead was a fairly pleasant young couple with four small children.  To some that was a relief, to others the thought of having a passel of brats romping around was almost worse than if Russ had shown up dragging ten thrash metal bands behind him.

But Liseli thought that in the years they’d lived there they had gotten along well with most of the community.  Russ did some remodeling two years after moving in, converting the basement to a music room, but it did not leak much noise and so loud rock did not end up being pumped out as the neighbors had once feared.  The kids were more or less well behaved, and they didn’t get many complaints.  Eric caused the most outcry with his “the world is my playground” attitude — but then he had his father’s charm and somehow managed to wheedle his way into many people’s good graces so that they were only slightly annoyed with him rather than outraged.

Liseli shivered a little, the September air not quite as balmy now that it was nearing October.  The colder months in southern California were nothing compared to in Wisconsin where she had grown up, but at night it could still get rather cold.  Sometimes she missed the snowy winters, when all it did here was get gray and dreary and rain a lot.  But Russ had wanted to move out here years ago, drawn to it because that was where his father had lived, as if living in that area would somehow help him understand the man.  Liseli didn’t know if it had really given Russ any insight into his father, a restless, careless man, but they had stayed ever since.  It was where his younger brother and all his other bandmates lived, and their own children thought of it as home.  Liseli did not want the kids to be moved around, she felt they needed the stability of growing up in the same place, with many of the same friends from year to year.

With the shiver came unbidden a sudden thought of someone she hadn’t thought about in a very long time — the Lost One.  Liseli wrapped her arms around herself and rested her forehead against the biting weave of the window screen.  How strange to think of it again, when for the past ten or so years she had done so well to banish the memories.  When she had finally told Russ about it, feeling like it was a confession of a sin, that had somehow unburdened her.  At least, the nightmares had gradually lessened and the hallucinations had stopped completely.

Hollie was her last child — after she was born Liseli had gotten her tubes tied to ensure their litter held steady at four.  Russ had grumbled a bit; he loved children and told her they wouldn’t always be struggling to make ends meet, a surgical procedure was so permanent and what would they do if they ever wanted more?  Of course by “they” he’d meant himself, because Liseli was sure she was very content with four children.  The monetary aspect was only part of it; she didn’t like the memories and emotions that had come with each child.  The Lost One was never so much in front of her mind as when she was pregnant.

She half expected to see her again, suddenly, now that she’d thought of her.  But when she looked down at the yard she saw nothing.

Russ turned over in bed and said her name sleepily.  After she didn’t answer for a few moments he mumbled, “What are you doing?”

“The moon was green,” she said, offhand, remembering why she’d gotten up.

He didn’t say anything, but there was the rustle of blankets being pushed aside and in a moment she felt him slip his arms around her waist and pull her to his chest.  “It looks alright to me.  Come back to bed.”

He kissed her neck and Liseli smiled, turning to look up at him.  “I missed you,” she said, brushing the back of her hand down his cheek.  It wasn’t the first or even the second or third time she’d said it since she’d met him at the airport.

“You could come with me next time.  There’s room in the tour bus.”

Liseli twisted around so she could drape her arms around his neck and pull him down for a kiss.  Then she whispered in his ear, “You know I love you sweetheart but driving around with your band is my definition of hell.”

Russ sighed.  They’d had this discussion before; Liseli had visited him on tour a couple times early on, but had not found it to her liking.  She was less than impressed with the behavior of the younger bandmembers, nor some of the fans they attracted.  And she constantly worried about what the children were up to back home.  She knew Russ missed her and the kids while he was away, but an Ixion tour was not a place for children and not a place Liseli enjoyed either.

“Don’t you want to keep an eye on me?” Russ asked, half jokingly.  “Make sure I’m behaving myself?”

“I trust you, Russell,” she replied, playing with the ends of his hair.

He smiled faintly, and some of the joking went out of his tone.  “Sometimes I wish you didn’t.”

Liseli became more serious, holding his face between her hands and looking him in the eye.  “You’re home now,” she said, touching foreheads.  “Be content with that.”