The Unbearable Oddness of the Adults (this chapter borrows something from Kathryn Wemyss's Timothy Turner and the Entertainment Badge, Ch 7. Thank you.)

Timothy knew that something was changed. Not in him, or for him, but around him. The house had become more alive after Shelagh had moved in, that was not new, but now this vibrancy had a new level of comfort in it. It seemed that there were some intensive conversations between his Mum and Dad and individual moments of not only comfort but tension. Yet Mum seemed to go around the house with more self-confidence, cleaning and dusting in a happy manner and asking his view on several pieces of furniture and what their history was and where they could be moved. She still could make a pretty good argument about the virtues of music practice, but didn't seem to mind his lunch bag or schedule in a quite so anxious manner as earlier. She had also started to visit the Evensong on Wednesdays at the Nonnatus House regularly. That had been something his Dad had urged her to do for sometime. Timothy suspected that it was because he felt Shelagh missed the Sisters. When he was at home, Dad had fallen back to some old habits of his, like falling asleep while watching the TV or even reading a newspaper. Mum would not let Timothy to wake him up:

"Shhh...it is good for him to take a nap, because he does not always sleep very well."

She seemed totally complacent of this, and his other odd habits. Timothy wondered if she knew of his frequent breakfasts around the Poplar cafes? He sometimes missed their man-to-man talks over fried bread, although Shelagh's cooking was very superior to all the snacks he used to share with his Dad.

Once, when he visited the bathroom downstairs at night, he saw the sitting room door ajar and his Dad there Mum in his arms. Her head was resting on his chest. The adults could be odd. Why don't they go to bed when they are clearly so tired? Timothy tried not to take notice of them, as they seemed blissfully unaware of his presence in the hall.

He couldn't help hearing some bits of their conversation.

"Oh, your beige overcoat. It is back from the cleaner."

"I remember you wearing that coat."

She seemed to snicker at this."I love that coat. Like you love that scarf..."

"The armours for our frail bodies. Or souls." Patrick kept a long silence. Then he said with a certain deliberateness:

"Shelagh, the scarf...I really should use a coat now. I think I could use just that coat now."

"Your wardrobe choices are up to you. On the condition you keep on loving me..."

"Thanks. Didn't you already give my red-and-green tie to charity box? So that pretty much covers my control over my wardrobe...". They had a fit of laughter which they tried to subdue.

Oh, the adults. Their nonsensical talk. Timothy climbed upstairs, and just at that moment when the sleep finally caught him, he had a remote recollection of Sister Bernadette in the wrong cloths with his Dad's coat on her. Such a long time that was...


If Timothy had come down earlier he would have heard the earlier part of those confessions.

"That scarf...It was to commemorate the day of deliverance. An alternative anniversary to our original wedding day. So, you see, we were in the habit of making starts. As many as we needed. Moira was good at that. She had the resilience that Timothy has inherited. I was always more inflexible. But it grew on me, this thing that the mind has the ability to bend...to imaginative love. To imaginative acts of love and remembrance. "

"Or as someone wise said: God is not in the event. God is in the response to that event."

"That sounds...true."

"Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

"Yes. Something like that. My reverend wife talking..."

"Sister Julienne, this time. And Jesus in the second case." The laughter triggered by this didn't end until Patrick pinched her hard.

"Keep this serious, my girl, or..."

"Oh, to obey my husband, that I will. With regard to laughter." She became thoughtful again. "Remember that I am inclined make my own rules for this life that came after the Order. Making as many starts as it needs to sounds good to me."

"I am touched by that. Touched and relieved."