81: The Flow

Compared to the rather wild birthday night with Pam, Jennifer's twenty-second birthday the next Saturday was pretty calm. Of course she wanted some loving, but it wasn't like the impassioned reaming of her behind that marked her twenty-first. She didn't even want us to spend the night in the master, but preferred making love in the big room with all our hearthmates.

Baby Eleanor's birthday on Monday came with a little more excitement. We invited Casa de los Caballos to our house to celebrate. Doreen, Matthew, Sugar, and Leon joined us, too. The little ones had a lot to say to each other and seemed to get along great. They were building a pretty good vocabulary and were signing words they couldn't say yet. It was keeping all of us on our toes to learn more sign language. Of course, Leon was a year younger than Matthew, so he was still just getting vertical. He was determined to keep up with his older cousins, though. Ellie and Matt seemed to always be near him when he stumbled or needed to be helped up. They weren't leaving the littlest behind.

"I suppose it's obvious to everyone, but since we haven't really said anything, I guess we'll make it official," Theresa said. "I am not getting fat. I'm having another baby."

"Yay!" I said. "When? We need to schedule you on Chick Chat!"

"No way!" Theresa laughed. "Eleanor was practically born on camera. Matthew was born on camera. I think this one will have a nice normal start to life. That's why we adopted the village midwife into our casa." She hugged Dawn and then kissed her. Larry, Josh, and I all had tighter pants by the time they were done kissing. "Well, that wasn't the only reason," Theresa sighed.

"So how far along are you?" Dani asked. She stood beside the much shorter Theresa and compared their tummies. Theresa might have had her beat, but Dani was definitely 'showing.'

"Twenty-one weeks, according to the doctor."

"Our kids will be close in age! I'm seventeen weeks. We know it pretty exactly. We're just four weeks apart," Dani said.

"Maybe closer. My due date is set by the traditional thirty-nine weeks from the end of my last period. Yours is set from actual conception, which is closer to 37 weeks. That makes it only two weeks difference. It would be entirely possible that we could deliver at the same time," Theresa said.

Dani decided she would rather continue in school than spend the fall semester waiting to get big. She, Courtney, Samantha, Addison, and I suddenly had no college bills to pay. The anonymous donation was paying all our tuition, books, and living expenses as long as we wanted to continue in school. Dani definitely wanted to go for her master's, even though she anticipated taking the spring term off with a newborn. I was a full-time student pursuing a degree, and I felt guilty about taking advantage of the school like that. Unless I'd had a nightmare the night before. At least then I didn't feel bad about taking the money.

Classes started on Monday the twenty-third. Dolly and Debbie decided that they needed to focus on the business. What business? Our little village was acquiring a business district. Construction was almost finished on the grocery store. Next door to it would be the Heartthrob Café. Of course, Dani was also a part owner in the family restaurant, and she was spending a lot of time with her sisters working on menus and concepts. It was pretty cool to see. Debbie and Dolly were absolutely doting on their younger sister. Everyone was surprised when I didn't go to class on Monday. Instead, I made a nice dinner to celebrate the return to classes.

A lot of people were going to be surprised when they found out what my graduate school plans were. I'd dreamed of a career in chemistry since I was in fourth grade. Maybe before. Then a really sweet eighth grade girlfriend had given me a Christmas present that changed my life. A cookbook. It was what had drawn us together. It started my television appearances. It started us in broadcasting. It was, in the long run, what had brought our entire clan together.

When I worked on chemistry, I was alone. No one else in the clan had an interest in it. Brenda had awakened a real love for math in me by introducing her method of 'studying.' Sora and I had intense sessions studying German literature. I looked around the ranch and could see that my cousins all shared their passions with other people in the clan. When it came down to it, there really wasn't anything else I wanted to do. I didn't want to be a hermit.

Dr. Morris in Chemistry handed me off to Dr. Z in Telecommunications to launch my graduate work. Dr. Z would, in turn, pull together my advisory committee and introduce me to my Business advisor. I was going to be a student for a long time yet as I completed a combined MS in Telecommunications and MBA in Business. It was six semesters of classwork before I ever got to the point of writing my thesis.

But it was very different than undergrad work. I'd always front-loaded my classes so I was finished by noon or as soon thereafter as I could get. But with my new program, my four classes were held on Tuesday and Thursday from three in the afternoon until eight-thirty at night. And they were all in one classroom.

I brought out dessert, a cake decorated to look like a typical yellow school bus. It was a test run for my Labor Day show to celebrate the return to school.

"Okay, Brian," Rose said. "Don't you have any Monday classes? Why didn't you go in today? You aren't quitting are you?" She was trying to be stern and had a little crease between her eyes from scowling. I reached over and smoothed the crease.

"Grad school is different," I said. "My classes are all late on Tuesday and Thursday. And don't worry, I'm taking my full twelve hours. I have to be there by three and won't get out until eight-thirty. I'm sure that after my first class, I'll be spending the other three days of the week trying to keep up."

"That's cool," Dani said. "Classes in Public Health are scattered all through the day, even in grad school. I managed a schedule that would consolidate what I need for this term into a pretty uniform block in the afternoon, though. That way I can work on the show in the mornings."

"My classes would be like Brian's except they actually have me teaching a unit of Introduction to Computing," Courtney said. "Monday, Wednesday, Friday at nine a.m." We looked at Angela. She was the only other one of us in the casa that was in grad school this fall.

"This might be the last supper," Angela sighed. "Med school is four years. It includes classroom and practical experience. I'll be working part time at Methodist Hospital. After one day of class, I have so much reading that I won't be able to finish it this week. And even after I graduate, I still have to do a residency and choose a specialty. That will take another two years. Residents seldom even see their families. I might never see you again!" Angela had tears on her cheeks as the weight of her chosen profession crashed down on her. There was a general move to comfort her.

"You know that you have all our love and support, Angela," I said. "Any time you need help, tell any one of us. We'll do whatever we can. Just tell us what you need."

"Maybe somebody could convince me to have a nice career in gardening," she sniffed. "Thank you. I love you all."

I expected that Angela would be spending a lot of nights at her mother's house instead of in the big bedroom. Being on that intense a course of study might be difficult if she was constantly being distracted in the big bedroom or was afraid she'd wake everyone when she stumbled in at two in the morning.

I'd escaped from the first conversations without revealing my course of study. Everyone still thought I was going into chemistry.

"Can I ride with you?" Rhonda asked. I was always happy to have her along.

"Sure, but I don't get out until eight-thirty. Can you come back to get me?" I asked.

"Oh, I won't be ready to leave till then either. I'm going to meet with Lonnie and then start a class he wanted me to take."

"Really? What class?" This could be very interesting.

"It's called Media Organizations. It should be interesting. Instead of focusing on the production and design like the other classes I've taken, this one focuses on financing, production, and management from an organizational perspective. We've been doing okay on that, but it's been more luck than sense. I agreed that we needed more business savvy than what we've got," she said.

"Well ... um ... That's good. We can ... um ... study together."

"What?"

"I think we're classmates," I said. It was hard to suppress a grin. This was going to be more fun than I thought.

"What does media management have to do with chemistry?"

"There are a ... uh ... lot of organizational structures in chemistry. You know."

"Brian?"

"Honey, I'm not getting my degree in chemistry."

"What? Why not?"

"Because my love, my family, and my career are all tied to television. It's silly not to become as good at it as I can be," I said. I smiled at her and was shocked to see tears running down her face.

"You're giving up chemistry?" she wailed. "But you love chemistry."

"Yeah. And I think I'll probably have some interesting experiments to run—in the kitchen."

"But I feel like we forced you to abandon the career you always dreamed of. I feel terrible."

"I don't want you to feel terrible. I want you to feel happy. Rhonda, I denied this for a long time. I can't deny it anymore. Last year, in the radical thinking class, we read The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyer. Talk about an incredible interview. PBS broadcast six hours of the total of twenty-four that they recorded, but Moyers put out the whole transcript. You've heard some of the words from it. 'Follow your bliss.' That's what I'm doing."

"But I thought your bliss was chemistry," she whimpered.

"When you make a life decision at the age of ten, you don't leave room to grow and change. I still like chemistry. But the idea of spending forty hours a week making new plastics, drugs for big pharmaceutical companies, or even testing Pap Bart's bourbon..." I pulled into the parking lot near the media center and stopped. I had to face Rhonda and make sure I said this correctly.

"I died, Rhonda. I don't remember anything about dying. I don't remember any experience—no bright lights, no dreams. I died. I woke up and it was three weeks later. Just a blank. Then I sank into guilt that I woke up and Lexi didn't. I isolated myself. I panicked," I said. "In all that time that I was alone, not once did I wish I'd invented a new organic formula. Not once did I wish I'd gotten a chance to work forty years for a drug company or an oil company or an auto manufacturer and then retire. The only thing I wished was that I'd spent more time with my family and that we'd been able to enjoy more activities together. That's what my bliss is. I'm on a degree program to get a joint MS in Telecommunications and MBA in Business. It will take four or five years. And you know what? If I decide it is interfering with my family life, if it isn't enhancing our quality of life, I'll quit. On the spot. Even in the middle of a class."

"You like television as much as I do?" she asked.

"I don't know. I know that I like working on television with you more than anything else I've ever done—possibly except baking cookies with you. I think we can still do that, though."

"You are an amazing man, Brian Frost. I am lucky to have you. We are all lucky to have you as the head of our family, our lover, and our guardian."

I'd been doing a lot of thinking since I came back to life. Not all of it was morbid, though I struggled with plenty of that. I'd screamed at Casa del Agua in the middle of a night with Doreen and woke the baby. In a perfectly brilliant solution, Doreen placed Matthew on my chest. He settled down immediately on his Papa and my heart settled down as well. I shared a son with Doreen, Doug, Rachel, and Sandy. He had three moms and two dads. And la Madrina. I wasn't sure how Rhonda did it, but if she wasn't in the studio or in class, she had one or more babies crawling all over her. Eleanor, Matthew, and Leon for now. Soon there would be Theresa's next, Dani's, and Doreen's next. And who knew who else was going to announce an addition in the future.

Our clan was big into ritual. We had our bonfires, our handfastings, our adoptions, naming ceremonies, and even weddings. And now we had our River of Life. But there were lots of other little rituals. I woke up early in the morning and either talked to Rhonda or listened to her. I know that stuff about being tickled in her head when I'm talking is a bunch of new age hooey. But sometimes I almost think I hear her responding to me. Of course, if I'm talking out loud in the kitchen, she might respond. I know it's silly, but I've done it since the first time she took over my paper route for me.

And forms. Now that was a ritual many of us participated in. Not everyone. Dani didn't care to participate, though her two sisters were often in the field with us. That would last another month and we'd have to move indoors. Unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to do forms in the studio any longer. While it still only seated about forty, we'd definitely made the main level of the barn into a working soundstage. With platforms for seating, we didn't have room for everyone to line up and exercise. But we did have a good big exercise space in the basement of the big house.

And we had the silo.

There were still only half a dozen of us who ever used that space. Whitney, Adam, Judy, Amy, me. Occasionally Rhonda. I was reminded of Campbell's book again as I entered the sacred space and began my private workout. Whitney had done a great job with the design. It was only about sixteen feet across, but that was room enough to spar or to do a strenuous workout alone. For me, it was the place to center myself and let everything else flow around me.

I moved from one form to another as my body continued to regain strength and agility. Sometimes I still had a twinge or two. I'd stretch and my hip would lock or my back muscles would start to spasm. But there was no question that the exercises were doing me good. Master Xi visited once a week to work with Whitney and me. He billed insurance for physical therapy and never had us sparring or doing anything that could be interpreted as training to fight. Still, he talked to us about balance, centering, and the universe.

Had I killed Wayne Enders with fire?

If so, how could I possibly teach that to Whitney like she'd asked? To strike another person with it would kill him. But seven people had said they saw me hit him. They saw me streak across the space and strike him with so much force that we both fell back twenty feet from the impact. Yet the coroner found no sign of contact. I knew I was too far away to reach him, but I struck out anyway. Had I struck out with the fire that fried his brain?