Solstice

Gil works nights and Jack doesn't need to sleep.

He's been staying up all night, watching bad tv, flipping through books he's already read, tending Georgia, drinking beers that don't affect him and not even touching the plants in the garden to make them bloom.

You encourage us and listen and care and don't do anything, obviously and then pat your little dude on the head when he's making you proud. Why does he have to make you proud?

Georgia calls him Papa but Jack wonders if he's lost all rights to that name. Father, Guardian, Lord--they all feel so distant, so strange. He cannot guard. He can't protect. He can't keep evil away. He can't even provide happiness.

Whatever makes you happy, Jack.

Sara's Father's Day cactus isn't as much of a comfort as it could be.

Your forest will die as you will die--as the pretty babe on her blanket there will die, in her time as well.

It hurts. That's what he tells no one, can't put into words or even the lines of a drawing. It hurts to know that like all the others, every one of them will someday be gone.

Perhaps you should not be involved.

He drinks another beer, watching two perky people sell ugly jewelry.

Tomorrow is Solstice.

He's never felt so mortal.