******050:

I didn't hear, but rather felt Aubrey's presence, and even though I was sitting on my butt with my knees drawn up and my head falling over my elbows, my feet dug into the cooler sand at the top of the tide line, I felt sweat drip down between my shoulder blades. I barely acknowledged her.

Her bare feet came into view off to the right. I was drawn to stare at them, slender, white, and slightly tan, with a faint sandal mark between her toes and across the arched upper part. She wore turquoise nail polish with a pretty sapphire on the fourth toe, along with a tiny silver toe ring. I reached out without moving my body and ran a hand over her ankle, as if examining it for flaws.

The flowy material of her sundress, high in the front and trailing in the back whipped in the hazy breeze. I turned my face, not looking up, and pulled her closer. She took that step.

"You want to talk about it?" Of course, they'd called her, even with strict orders not to bother her, they'd called her. Even Ben knew better than to disturb me in a rage. I hadn't been in one for years.

I didn't answer, knowing she would be worried, and the stress levels could endanger our miracle children inside her. I shook my head, kept massaging her ankle. Looking at it through slanted eyes.

I felt the fury dissipating. I'd learned to control it. No one saw me lose control these days. Ever. It was a matter of pride and a coming of age for me. I'd been there, done that. I was over it. I didn't pitch fits, or throw tantrums. I didn't lose control.

But I had. Today.

The trigger had not been Eli, or his news. It was not even the fact that I resented being involved in their illegal shit anyway.

It was that he had played on my weaknesses. He'd tapped into a side of me that I felt was unresolved. The part of me that did things to get attention, that was a cocksure---- douche bag, uncaring, unsympathetic----

It wasn't even like the interview where I'd been accused of it, or the explanation demanded of me over the camping trip.

This had pointed at evidence. Did you adopt three kids to get attention? To get accolades? To be noticed?

Was I doing it for the fans? The public? Or Aubrey?

Which made me question other things. Church membership--- why? Me? God, or to spite my mother?

And changing views about gays. Had I really ever felt strongly about it all? Or had I done what I did, support who I did, just to get attention? Had I used my voice--- my real voice, the moral voice I'd been gifted with---

Not the talent voice, I mean, the voice that spoke to and influenced people--- that voice. Was I using my voice and being true to myself? To God? To what mattered?

Did bringing the hateful people who had killed Jake and Tim and the others to justice, exposing them for the scumbags they really are, was that number one: in my power, and number two: was it my responsibility?

If I didn't make a more concerted effort, would I be betraying all they lived for and therefore, betraying my image of myself?

Aubrey had lowered herself to the sand. I let my eyes open and squinted at her. The breeze was cooler than it had been for days, and yet it was scorching in its inconsistency. Her skin glistened. She'd taken off all underclothes, I could see that her thin dress--- white light weight linen with golden pinstripes threaded through, and a second more cream color flowing around her--- it covered her like a stream. And it revealed, to one whose eye was trained to see. The misshapen belly, lower, protruding painfully on the left. Her lovely breasts now tipped in a darker, richer coral, and constantly hardened, ready to nurse and nurture our babies. I reached out and finger stroked the area I was looking at, not callously, not in distraction, and not to arouse. Just because she was mine and I could.

I lifted my face to her, open, vulnerable.

"I'm sorry."

She blinked slowly, and then gently pulled me closer, bent my head to her legs since she had no lap and I stretched out, she combed her fingers through my hair and we listened to the cries of gulls overhead, the pattern of wind and waves surrounding us.

I hadn't realized her hair was down, but it was. When I'd met her, she'd kept it up all the time, pulled tightly back into a messy bun, or even a strict and severe bun, but usually always up. Lately, not sure what was up, maybe headaches and blood pressure, but if she was indoors, especially, she had it down. She must have come straight out to me when they'd called.

Her hair now blew into her face, and she pulled it onto the windy side, so that it blew away from us. And I realized it had gotten longer, and more curly.

"I wonder which of the girls will get your amazing hair?" I mumbled, and she heard me and ran a hand through the tangling mass.

"My dad's hair is dark like yours, and my mom's hair is like mine, and we kids are all over the place."

I nodded against her, one hand wrapped under her legs, the other resting on top. She rubbed my back softly, not massage, just a relaxing tickle.

"Ben is worried about you. He said there was a call." Her voice was soothing, sweetly non-judgmental, and I knew she would not jump to conclusions.

"There was."

"And your reaction to the call was to punch a hole in the studio room door?"

"Yes, it was."

"You aren't ready to talk about it?"

"I'm not."

"Are you sparing me, because you are worried it will cause me stress?"

"Aubrey, I know it will cause you stress. I also know that not knowing about it will cause you stress. I'll tell you what I can when I'm ready."

I felt her relaxing, forcing herself to wait me out.

I lay there, reliving the moments I had encountered Senor Jimenez and Senor Guiterez, both of whom had cronies and allies who worked for them, both of whom were related to my daughter, and both of whom had secrets and lies they kept hidden for their own agendas.

My heart rate accelerated, but breathing became shallow. What about this had me so riled up? Why wasn't I letting the authorities do their thing? Why had I confronted these guys?

"Aub-ber-ey."

"My love?"

"Why am I letting them get to me?"

"Are you asking me why you feel out of control?"

"Yes."

She let the wind whip her hair, I scooted over on my back and stared up at the fluctuating heat waves in the sky. She didn't know what was up, she and I had both kept details from her so as not to endanger our children. We both clearly understood the consequences of letting her stress out. The babies, as of right now, weighed roughly one pound each. They were unable to survive outside the womb, without serious defects. Most likely they would die.

It was a fact we lived with daily, but never spoke of. Me less than her.

She was the doctor. She knew it, had treated it herself. How ironic that the ultimate and premiere multiples doctor in the country found herself having multiples.

Granted it was genetic.

As was the intricacy of understanding I felt rolling off her in waves of pure acceptance and adulation. No matter what she was on my side, she was with me, supporting me. She would not leave me, and she was my companion and my teammate.

I put a hand over my eyes to block out the darkest rays.

"I would say...." She had that guessing quality to her tone, but I knew she had an astute opinion. "That your expressions of aggression recently are direct manifestations of your grief."

"From losing mom?"

She shook her head slowly, capturing reflections off the water in her eyes. I could see them glittering and undulating as if her eyes contained the fluids of the earth. "No. From losing yourself."

I swallowed hard. Very hard, as if a clawed creature was stuck in my throat. My eyes burned, and my heart felt stuck on the last beat, unable to go on without clarification; acknowledgment.

"What---." I couldn't actually speak, but I had to hear her say the words that were stuck inside me.

Again she was slow to answer, the wind pulling at stray tendrils, her hand gently folding them behind her ear and then refolding them, her other fingers gently smoothing my forehead. It was all I could do to hold still, and not sit up and demand she speak what was in my heart, the words I needed to tell myself, face and get out.

"You've lost you, Rafe."

I could barely breathe. I had to sit up and she knew it, she even helped me, as I rolled away, not far, but beyond the reach of her sympathetic hand. She crossed her ankles, and braced her palms behind her.

"Since I met you." I began, struggling to speak over the close gagging inside me. I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling an unwanted reaction to my powerful emotions.

She shrugged, holding back hair again. "Some of it started before me, but you fully abandoned the person you had been before.  After we became us, so you didn't feel the loss as acutely as you might have if you hadn't had me to mask the symptoms."

I wasn't completely following her, my inner turmoil was pretty stiff. But I got the main gist: I had started changing and losing some of that inner person long before.

"But aren't we all just snakes? Aren't we all shedding our skins all the time? I shed the outer rebellion caused by the ADD, and the rejections, then I shed the flagrant f***ker--- in favor of possibilities--." I held my head and yanked at my hair. "Possibilities that came from a former belief system, one I vehemently chose to kill."

"Yes, we are all snakes, Rafe." She said, getting my convoluted thought processes, and I sighed wearily, knowing we'd had these type of conversations before, but that was seriously the way married people processed. Had to be.

I processed with her now. Period.

"You think?"

"I do. All our lives we are shedding the natural man, our natural selves, getting better as we go."

"I wasn't necessarily shedding to get a better self. I went from good to bad to worse."

"No--- you went from immature, to directionless, to submerged."

"Immature." I stated bluntly, feeling the loss of immaturity, the loss of youth and innocence, bad decisions and good ones, but mostly bad.

"Directionless--- because you left the church, but you kept some of its precepts, forever, as an example, you never stopped believing in forever. And family--- you never, never did wrong by your family, you never made them regret knowing you. You always honored them. But you chose to follow the worldly things that surrounded you, and it became easier and easier to pull away from decency--- the decency you'd been raised with."

I took a deep cleansing breath, owning it. But not without the sting behind my lids. I closed my eyes hard, and rested my head against my knees. I nodded against myself, picturing wild orgy type parties---- did I miss that side of me? The lack of inhibitions? Maybe. I felt angry thinking about it.

I felt restricted.

I looked up and forced myself to say this. I felt this was actually what she was getting at.

She nodded. "Yeah, you've lost that guy. That guy was a party animal, but you've got to admit, he was free--- and he knew how to have a really good time. He kind of liked the wake up feeling after a hard night of losing it, feeling untamed, feeling that living from moment to moment full of possibilities feeling."

"I do." I said quietly. "I do---!"

"Say it." She demanded.

"I resent the forced domesticity. I miss the freedom of living on the edge. I want to feel it again, and I felt it with these recent confrontations, I feel in control--- of the brawn, the fire, the pulse of life."

"Say it loud, Rafe!"

"I resent domesticity!" I yelled it into the wind and the wind ripped it away savagely. I gagged on tears. It was going to happen, I was about to let it go. I could feel the pain swallowing me up. Fear clogged my mind. Letting go of the untamed beast, and not wishing for it ever again was making me really angry.

"And who is bringing domesticity into your life? Why are they doing it?"

"I am!" I screamed into the waves. "I am doing it. Because---." I gagged again, and finally felt the dam burst and the tears slide down my cheeks, choking me, like vomit spewing forth.

"Tell me!"

"Because it ultimately brings me peace, and peace is more valuable." I said it low, she couldn't have heard. But I heard. I admitted it. I owned it, I lived it, I believed it. It was mine, and I internalized it. I swiped at the salty stinging trails, turning the rims of my eyes to fire.

"You have to admit that you'll always crave it, and you have to deny yourself, and let it go..." These were recovery words. I didn't need or want them in that moment. I sat back, like she was and gave her my attention.

"Whatever it takes to grieve this. I will."

"I know."

"I'm going to Mexico."

"No!" Her shock was palpable, like an atomic bomb that was as unexpected as it was unwarranted and unwanted.

"I have to find the necklace before the rest of them do."

"No, you don't! Rafe----." She looked horror stricken. Maybe I shouldn't have told her, but maybe it was her right to own it. All of them---babies too--- named in Mexico at least--- they were all a part of it.

"It is what it is, Aubrey."

"It's not that!" She breathed on a frantic cry.

I shrugged, unwilling to tell her more now. I could see the confusion and pain in her eyes. What she didn't know....

I could see her struggling to determine from whence the threat to her family came--- that mother instinct kicking in. Her eyes darted all over my face, seeking revelation. I closed down.

"Rafe, you can't be serious. You were talking about grief."

"Yes, we were talking about grief." I agreed. "And it's true. I am grieving, but I am also righteously indignant and in the right, and I am going to be taking a short trip in a while. I'm not sure when, but probably after the babies come."

"That's stupid." She turned away from me, huffing her breath, and throwing sand in futility. Even she knew that tone of voice.

I scooted closer. "It's who I am, babe."

"Mexico? Going to Mexico is who you are? What, confronting stupid cartel leaders who want--- what? That is who you are? No! You are the guy getting sued for plagiarism and letting the lawyers deal with it, not concerned, because you are ----."

I smoothed her hair that had blown into her eyes, as I pulled her face close to my chest, sideways, against the breeze. I kissed the top of her head.

"I am both of those people. You've always known it. The inner core is still there, baby, accept it. It's not rebellion against God, and for that I have you to thank, but it is rebellion against hate and injustice, and wrongdoing. It has touched my life irrevocably and it has to be made right."

"You are better than that. It reeks of revenge, and... and irresponsibility. And I hate that you want to involve yourself when it could mean putting yourself in danger."

I felt a welling of love that she was so adamant, and at the same time, I felt for her. She'd not been up against my stubborn side before. Not really. We agreed to disagree on many subjects, but settling our differences had not been one of them. We handled things by playing basketball and making love. Neither of which were options.

Aubrey wobbled to her feet, gave me one defiant look and slip/ trudged back up the burning sand.

*****