During forever
ARIA
“Richie! Bertie! Time for dinner!”
Brodie’s voice booms off our back porch, shouting up into the woods to call our kids, eleven and nine, home.
This is a nightly ritual, rain or shine, because barring imminent peril, nothing will keep our children out of the woods.
Often, they meet up with their cool older cousins, though Luna will be back at college soon and Halley’s always got some theater thing or another going on.
Our lives have been delightfully slow and boring, and that’s just how we like it.
Brodie and I got engaged a year after we started dating, and he moved out to this house with me. We married six months later because we were tired of waiting to have kids and we didn’t want to hear Granny’s bitching if we weren’t married.
Brodie helped me care for Granny and Richard into their final years, and he only complained when Granny was so damn mean to him that he didn’t have a good comeback. Granny passed first, but not before getting to love all over her great-grandbabies.
Their great-grandbabies, because Granny and Richard ended up becoming end of life companions.
We hauled them out to Skye’s coffee shop five days a week, where Granny convinced Mindy to make her lemon pound cake part of the shop’s regular offerings.
At their request, we took them to church on Sundays, even though several of Granny’s cronies tried to set Brodie up with other eligible granddaughters.
I’m pretty sure they went to church to stay sharp on the town’s gossip, and you know what? Everybody needs a good hobby.
Brodie and I joked that on Saturdays, we threw Richard and Granny a box of pizza and made them fend for themselves. They made it known that we should have a life of our own outside of them, and Saturdays were our days to be Brodie and Ari, and after the kids, our little family.
And of course, we named the kids after them. Though Richard wasn’t biologically related to me, he was as much part of the family as Gramps was.
Richard passed in the most Richard way possible, under his favorite granny square blanket crocheted by Myrna with his beat-up mushroom field guide on his stomach.
Richie took it especially hard, because he was old enough to have a lot of memories with him.
I still think of him when I’m in the woods, especially when I pass some of his favorite recurring mushroom spots.
And indeed, Richard did discover a new strain of mycelium after the tornado tore through the woods. I wanted him to name it after himself and he wouldn’t have it. Together, we registered it as Grifola foxborensis , commonly known as the Foxboro hen.
I still think of him and all the things he taught me when I’m in the woods, especially when I pass his favorite logs.
But just as saprobic mushrooms decay their hosts, nothing is immune to the steady march of time, including my Brodie.
I feel lucky. I knew him when his skin was unmarred and childhood plump, when he went through an acne phase, when the light acne scars left texture on his face, and now as the laugh lines are deep and the crow’s feet defined.
Silver is starting to come into his hair, which he has leaned into with his still-flourishing online presence as @silverfoxbrofire.
Sue, Mindy, and I still demand he take his shirt off for the calendar. It’s non-negotiable, a time-honored tradition.
Iris is still holding on as mayor of our little town and owner of our lone florist operation.
Wyatt had a little tango with cancer, unfortunately, and Colin and Garrett took a sabbatical from their meteorology studies to be here for him.
They managed Iris’s farm and florist business while she made sure the town didn’t fall apart and took Wyatt to all his appointments in Dayton.
Grumpy as he is, he wasn’t ready to give up yet, asking me to make him weekly batches of turkey tail tea to add a little cancer-fighting power.
He’s been in remission for several months now, but Colin and Garrett refuse to leave.
Wyatt is perpetually annoyed with all of them for making him celebrate his life each month.
Simon still makes the long commute to teach at the nearby university, the same one where Brodie played hockey. We sometimes take the kids to games so Bro can regale them with tales of the good old days. The kids are just in it for the concessions.
As for me, I teach biology at the high school and run the brain bowl team. High school will always be hard, part of the nature of the beast. But I like to think I fill a role I wish I’d had when I was there: a nerdy adult who gets it.
Of course, the students often prove to me that I am full of my own shit and need to stop lying to myself that I am some wonderful inspiration and role model. I take my wins where I can get them.
Richie and Bertie come bounding in off the back porch.
Bertie’s brown eyes are as big as saucers as she hoists her foraging basket overhead. “Mom, I found some enoki mushrooms!”
“You don’t know that,” Richie snipes. “You have to do a spore print.”
Bertie performs her signature banshee screech, making her dad put a hand to his ear and wince.
“Do not hit him,” Brodie warns in his gentle yet firm way, then winks at me. He knows that I get worked up from him doing anything dad-like.
“Mom, tell him!” Bertie whines.
I grimace. “Sorry, kiddo. He’s right. You need the spore print to make sure it’s not?—”
“The deadly galerina! That’s what I said, Alberta ,” Richie teases, and Brodie and I brace ourselves for her explosion.
“Don’t call me that!” Bertie snaps.
Meh. Just a 5/10 explosion. We’ve seen worse.
Puberty in this house is a bitch.
I wave my hands to bring some sense of peace. “Alright. Dad made your favorite chili, so let’s all wash hands and sit, and you can tell us all about it.”
They thunder off to the bathroom, giggling all the way. Bicker as they do, at least they make up quickly.
I reach into the cupboard for some bowls and Brodie’s arms circle my waist from behind. He just cut fresh herbs from our garden, so he’s been outside. I hug his forearms to me.
“Looking to drink some water out of those?” he asks, nodding to the bowls. “Because I think we already have water glasses on the table.”
I spin in his arms and puff out my lip. “Bowls are perfectly acceptable drinking vessels.”
He pouts. “You’re right. I can’t say no when you make that face.”
He holds me tight to him and I take a big whiff of his shoulder. “You smell like Outside Brodie.”
His mischievous brown eyes grow closer as he dips to kiss me. “And you feel like my Ari.”