From the Journal of the Late Noel Aig: 8/1516/11

It’s been a long night, but I’m awake again. I even forgot the changeover of days. When I look back over my shoulder I can see my wife still blissfully asleep, smiling with thoughts of what we were just talking about.

I’m not sure if I knew until this evening, but I think I am ready to be a father again. I’ll never stop loving or missing Arthur and Sebastian, never stop thinking about what it would have been like to have raised them, read with them, played football with them, but I can’t live my life mourning them either. And I can’t be afraid of what will happen to a child of mine, either. I’ll protect them, and maybe not having a wife who tempted fate to the point of it taking revenge means I’ll have a better chance.

The whole house is quiet. So much is quiet here, peaceful and relaxed, and for a moment I know why my father hated to leave Chipping Norton for work so often. I got bored a lot after we moved there when I was 15, especially after my life in Dublin where I had the constant adrenaline rush of being part of the Living Tribunal. There were times when my adolescent brain would just crave any sort of excitement, and I’d almost get wistful about hiding in trash bins and almost getting killed in extended rituals. Now that I see why Dad didn’t miss that, I realize what an idiot I was as a teenager.

Quiet sounds like a nice thing right now. Having a child is an adventure, a long and difficult and endlessly rewarding one. Maybe it’s time for me to be part of that one instead of battling monsters all night. Maybe it’s time.

No matter what happens on Sunday at this meeting with the mysterious stranger (I really need to stop listening to mysterious strangers), I’m ready to try for a child, and considering we started tonight, I’m not turning back.