The next few days are more business than pleasure. School shopping. Packing to leave. Cleaning up after ourselves so Charlotte and Jack are not sorry they invited us.
On the morning we are to leave, Hil is sad. Sad that our time in this magical place has again come to an end. Sad that our time together is over. Sad that they need to return to Lars' house to clean the house themselves in preparation for her party.
I tell her I am sad, too. That I will miss her and Pat terribly. That I wish our vacation could go on forever. That I wish we could return to the cottage week after week, soaking up the magic of the place. Putting fires in the fireplace. Swinging on the porch swings. Sharing stories and board games on the porch.
Hil seems genuinely sad for me. I tell her not to be. I have a consolation prize. I have Scott to look forward to.
"What is a "consolation prize?" she asks.
I tell her it is a prize for playing the game. Not the jackpot but something to make you feel better when you've lost the big prize. A nice parting gift, as they say. Like when you don't win the new car but they give you some movie tickets.
Hil walks away satisfied with the answer. But later, when she's pulled the sheets from her bed so that I can dress it again, she says, "Mom, I don't think Scott is a consolation prize." She is very serious.
"No?" I say. "Why not."
"He's a really good prize," she says. And he is. He's makes leaving them liveable. I look forward to time with him instead of dreading time without the kids.
I smile at her and tell her that he is of course, a very good prize, really a jackpot himself, but nothing is better than time with her and Pat. The only thing I can think of that could be a bigger jackpot would be all of us together like we had been earlier in the week.
She smiles. "Yep. That would be the really big prize. The lottery."
And truth be told, that would be, but that is a long way off. I am bound to my cute little home town by a custody agreement and a money-grubbing, taker ex-husband. Any move I'd make to an address even one foot outside of the township we reside in would precipitate a most unpleasant trip to court to have the children removed from my home to Lars' home on a full time basis, with cha-ching! a bigger child support payment with which to line Lars' wallet and subsidize his fast-food, movie, alcohol and drug habits. How nice for everyone.
And Scott, however amenable to a move to my house, would not forcibly uproot his girls against their will. It had not gone over well when their mother had done it. And no one wants to send another clear and resonating message that the love of one's life might at any time make you consider compromising your commitments to your kids and make decisions that aren't necessarily wildly appealing to them. And honestly, who needs the drama? Besides, I'd forever feel guilty. About the girls and about asking Scott to leave the beach town he clearly loves. Bad karma. We'd move in together and somebody would instantly get hit by a bus.
So I am patient. I enjoy my life and try not to wish it away. I smile politely when someone brightly but naively refers to "all that 'me' time" as something delightful. I clean my house and mow my lawn. Wake up, go to work, go to bed. All the while putting one foot obediently in front of the other. But "me" time is something I have no shortage of.
I always have something to look forward to, but really, when I am not with the kids, and not with Scott, my life really is on hold. But I try to enjoy the nice background music until they return.
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