4 December, 2004
Meg and Maisie come home from the hospital today. Maisie is the cutest, tiniest thing I’ve seen in my life! I spent all day yesterday finishing up the nursery, and I think Meg’s going to love it. For the first time, I started to wish we were staying here. It would be so much fun to be an auntie. But then, I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to her. It’s been so long, but I still don’t feel safe. Yesterday, as we were driving home from the hospital, I was imagining what would happen if they came after us again, and we had to run with Meg and Sam and Maisie. I pictured it so vividly I started to shake. Nick saw me, and I’m pretty sure he knew what I was thinking. This whole time, I’ve been seeing what’s ahead as a big adventure, just the next obvious thing to do, but in the last couple of days, since Maisie was born, I’ve started to feel like it’s something we have to do. I can’t let her go through what we went through. It’s amazing how one little person can change your whole outlook, and I’m not even her mom. I’m glad Meg wasn’t with us before. If I’m so anxious, just think how she’d be!
I’ve been drawing up budgets. I think we’ll be able to manage for about three months, if we camp instead of staying in motels, which I’ll feel safer with anyway. So we’ll have three months to figure out how to deal with the hounds. I don’t really know how it’s going to work out, but Nick is pretty confident we’ll be able to keep them off one way or another.
It’s scary to think about. Most of the time I’m just excited and impatient to get going, but every so often it hits me. What if things are like they were back then? What if we’re all just running terrified after a week of it? I don’t think I can stand that kind of blind panic. But we’re all older now, and Will’s had time to think about everything, and so have we. I hope he has a good plan, though. I’ll feel a lot better when we’re all talking about it.
Talking of Will, Nick and I are going to have to figure out how to approach him. It’s going to be tricky, since he hardly talks to any of us these days. I hope, once we’re on the road together, he’ll see fit to open up and actually talk about his plans and ideas. We’ve got to get him into the habit of talking to us before we pick Gaby up, or else it’s just going to be the two of them in their own little world, like it always was.
Sam’s calling me, it’s time to go pick up the girls. I’m going to miss Meg so much! I’m glad she’s got her baby to take care of now. It’s weird and kind of cool. I’ve always looked to her to take care of me, and I’ve felt really safe here with her for the last three years, but now that she has a baby I feel like I need to protect her–both of them. I feel more like a grownup than I ever have. I hope she’ll understand, and not be upset with us for wanting to go. I think I’ll let Nick and Will talk to her first. They have it so clear in their heads what we’re trying to do. I just know that we have to do something, and this seems like it. When I’m with Nick, I feel very confident about it, but when I think about how to explain it to Meg, I get all confused. Oh well, I’m sure it will all sort out once we’re on the road.
Time to go.
