Notes on a Life

***

1. She likes to have chicken salad on Wednesday. It's a comfort thing. She doesn't remember many meals with her father, but she does remember waking up early on a Wednesday during her eleventh summer to find her dad in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee, smoking a cigarette and dicing grapes for his chicken salad.

Usually, she had oatmeal, but that morning he'd let her snack on grapes and ramble on about how she was going on a bike ride with the Nelson kids three streets over. It was a quiet, happy memory and she's got few enough of those to go around.

So, when she sets her tray down next to Donna with her chicken salad sandwich, she smiles just a little before tuning in to her friend. She never notices Donna smiling too.

2. She envies Bruce his faith. It's a strange thing to consider, but the way she was raised, the people she was raised by... Belief in something greater always seemed overridden by what was. God had always felt more of an abstract to her. One she didn't quite know how to cope with.

She talks to him, sometimes, about what he believes. Asks, not because she's smug (he's called her that, among other things) but because she honestly wants to know. Wants to see things the way he does. Or try, anyway.

She's tired of being alone in her head.

3. Amy misses Kyle. As unloyal and stupid as it sounds, she wishes he were still here and that her brother was back with his ex-wife. Kyle made her laugh. Made her comfortable in her own skin in ways that Vincent never will. Vincent... knows too much. Thinks he knows the right things when really he's rehashing things that have been done and gone.

Kyle rattled cages, but knew when to let go.

Sometimes, after watching Vincent at the breakfast table debating with Lauren, she pulls out her cellphone at work and calls Kyle. She likes listening to the baby laugh in the background.

4. With Bruce, she is more herself than she is anywhere else in her life. With him she is everything (judge, mother, friend, sister, lover, wife, nemisis, adversary) and nothing all at once. She would love him for that reason alone, but she also thinks he has a spectacular ass.

5. There are days when she looks at her daughter and wonders why the hell she thought motherhood would be a good fucking idea. Right afterwards she usually tries to beat herself unconsious with her desk to kill the overwhelming urge to apologize to her mother for existing. This ends with Bruce rolling his eyes and giving her his danish.

"You really need to get that blood sugar checked out."

She thinks he knows what she's actually thinking about. Probably.

-fin-

Back.