\u201cNot a commune.\u201d Ivor looked embarrassed. \u201cOkay, this is going to sound weird to you but I had this fantasy that Julie and the kids and Andy and I would all move into some kind of village somewhere that we could live in separate houses on the same block and the kids could play in between. One of those places where the whole neighborhood acts as the parents. Somewhere we could both see them every day without having to get a court order.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes anyplace like that still exist?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are still some small towns like that, sure. But I\u2019m more interested in these new cooperative housing arrangements I\u2019ve heard about. You own your own unit but share common space like lawns or gardens or dining halls where the kids can play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chloe had turned in my lap to use my arm for a pillow and my muscles were aching. I shifted her to put the weight on my shoulder. \u201cIs Julia interested?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe might be, if she didn\u2019t have to give anything up for it. She knows the kids need a father and it\u2019s a huge strain on her trying to do so much by herself. She doesn\u2019t have any family in the area or anything. But it would mean moving somewhere. And cooperating with me and Andy — at the moment that\u2019s the hardest thing in the world for her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did you get this idea?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTry me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
I almost did laugh, just because Ivor looked so apologetic when he said it. \u201cIs he living someplace like that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ivor shook his head. \u201cNot exactly.\u201d Matt hadn\u2019t told me much about Leif. Our conversations had focused mostly on the safe topic of our work; it\u2019s what Matt prefers to talk about anyway. And he hadn\u2019t seen Leif in a few years. Or maybe he was embarrassed.<\/p>\n
But Ivor had kept in closer contact with his father over the years, and had gone a few times to visit him in the odd community where he settled. Selu, he told me, gets its inspiration from a traditional Cherokee village. As much as they can, on a couple hundred acres, they try to live in almost prehistoric simplicity.<\/p>\n
The more Ivor described the details, the more it sounded a lot like a commune of the sort I thought had all disappeared in the 1970s, around the time our own parents\u2019 experiment had collapsed. The idea that Leif was living in such a place, after all this time, boggled my mind. And I was even more astonished to hear that Ivor would find it attractive. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to live there, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ivor shook his head. \u201cSelu is too far out for me. I mean, it\u2019s a nice philosophy and Dad\u2019s very happy there, but I\u2019m too attached to my material possessions. And I have no interest in mixing it up with other couples. The one thing I like about it, that I\u2019m envious of, is the way the kids at Selu are taken care of.<\/p>\n
They have all this space to play outside, and other kids to play with, and all the grownups watch out for them. I don\u2019t know how it is in New York, but kids in this neighborhood\u201d he gestured toward the front door \u201cdon\u2019t go outside alone. They hardly go out at all unless they\u2019re signed up for some kind of sports team. The rest of the time they\u2019re stationed on their PlayStations. At Selu they\u2019re outside all the time, playing with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded. \u201cI\u2019d like to see it.\u201d Then I felt an impulse to suck back my words, as if they could somehow get me into trouble.<\/p>\n
But Ivor only smiled. <\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t talk of Leif anymore that night. Chloe had fallen asleep, and I realized it was past Dante\u2019s bedtime as well. Andy went upstairs to fold out the futon in the office. I followed with Chloe, who curled up on the bed without opening her eyes. Gabriel was adamant that Dante should sleep in the room where he and Megan have bunks, but I knew Chloe would be distraught if she woke up alone, so I tucked Dante in next to his sister.<\/p>\n
When I came back downstairs, Ivor was spreading sheets on the couch in the living room for me. A towel and washcloth lay on the coffee table. \u201cYou need anything else?\u201d he asked. \u201cOh, listen, I forgot to ask you something. Tomorrow I\u2019m taking the kids to see my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLaura?\u201d I asked, as if he had more than one mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight. We planned it weeks ago and the kids have been looking forward to it. So I thought, well, she\u2019d like to see you again. And meet your kids. We\u2019d love to have you come along.\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt my stomach do an elevator lurch. It was lot like the way I felt when I first ran into Matt in the toy store months before. I found myself searching for some excuse, but coming up with nothing. <\/p>\n
\u201cOr\u2026\u201d Ivor read my hesitation, \u201cyou guys can just hang out here if you want.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d Whatever happened, I didn\u2019t want to be alone. \u201cWe\u2019d love to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked what Laura had been up to, and Ivor filled me in. He was amused to hear how eager my father was to know her news. But I couldn\u2019t stop yawning. \u201cLet the poor girl sleep, Ivor,\u201d Andy finally said.<\/p>\n
After they went upstairs, I pulled out the cell phone, realizing I hadn\u2019t checked my messages in more than a day. There were half a dozen, mostly from people at the hospital, and I made a mental note to call first thing the next day and help straighten out the mess my absence was creating.<\/p>\n
There was also one from Charlie: \u201cAdrienne, this is going to be my last message to you here, since obviously you\u2019re either not getting them, or can\u2019t be bothered to answer.\u201d His voice took on the stern tone he used sometimes with the kids. \u201cI hope by now you realize what you\u2019re doing is kidnapping. It\u2019s not just immoral, it\u2019s illegal. I\u2019m going to give you forty-eight hours more, because I don\u2019t want this to get any messier than it has to. Give me a call, either at home or at the office. You know how to reach me. If I don\u2019t hear from you by then, I\u2019m going to have to call the police. You\u2019re leaving me no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cNot a commune.\u201d Ivor looked embarrassed. \u201cOkay, this is going to sound weird to you but I had this fantasy that Julie and the kids and Andy and I would all move into some kind of village somewhere that we could live in separate houses on the same block and the kids could play in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[86,87,89,41,88,10,90],"class_list":["post-930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrienne","tag-communes","tag-counterculture","tag-fiction","tag-interactive-novel","tag-novel","tag-polyamory","tag-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1043,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions\/1043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}