7.

~ Norma awoke to the sounds of birds singing. The first eager rays of sunlight were breaching through her windows and pulling her unwillingly, out of bed.

She'd fallen asleep last night almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. She'd barely had time to take in the storybook cottage Alex had shown her behind the main house. It was set off from the pool and accessible only by a small footpath. In the cloak of night, it looked like nothing at all.

Alex had handed her a key and kept his distance. He'd seemed to understand it was overstepping some invisible boundary if he intruded into what was to be her home. However temporary.

"I put fresh sheets on the bed." he told her. "Your bags are already inside."

The cottage was aired out and clean smelling. It wasn't the kind of place she'd feared a guest house might be. A garden shed only pretending to be small home. Instead, it was a legitimate downsized house with electricity and plumbing. A small kitchen was fashioned to the back wall and granite countertops gleamed with new, scaled down appliances.

The furniture looked new two, but for the cottages' size, was also smaller. No large, oversized sofa or big screen tv. Just, Norma saw, two small recliners framing a fireplace and a small breakfast table with two chairs off of the kitchen. Her bedroom was likewise just as spartan. A bed and a dresser, the same as the second bedroom and both were of equal size. The bathroom was clean and looked modern.

Norma only cared that she could lock the front door, change into her night clothes and go to sleep.

When morning came too quickly, she had to remind herself where she was. What had happened and that Dylan would be returned to her soon enough. It felt odd to be in a world so peaceful.

Normally, Norman and Dylan needed to be driven to school or some activity. There was always something to do. Even when they were at the cabins, there was always something to do. Plans to be made. Now, Norma had to rethink everything. Her sudden illness throwing off her plan and her schedule.

'My diary.' she thought gravely. 'How much did Alex read of it?'

She picked up the heavy book and looked over it; pretending she was an outsider seeing it for the first time.

It didn't look good, but it didn't look bad either. She never said anything about her plan. Not really. It had seemed more like a fiction than a real plan to set into motion. If she needed to, she could rip out these pages and burn them. What if Alex had made copies? So what? Useless without the actual diary and she could always say she was writing a story.

She looked over her neatly written words and carefully divided days. She'd kept the diary for over two years now. Sometimes writing in it twice a day for a few pages. A lot of times she found herself rambling about things that wasn't related to the plan. She only wrote about the plan in detail in small parts. Like an off handed remark. Something like:

'I need to get milk from the store, oh and frame Sam for murder.'

It wasn't like her idea stuck out from the pages. It wasn't a clearly drawn map. Norma wrote small and neat. Alex was a man and men didn't read things like this unless they had to.

Besides, he'd given her back the diary right away. He couldn't have read it in that short amount of time.

'That's what copy machines are for. He could have made a copy of it and read it when he felt like it.' The dragon hissed at her.

Norma felt cold at the idea.

'No. He wouldn't.' she thought.

'Of course he would.' the dragon hissed.

She shook her head. If Alex made a copy, there was nothing she could do about it now. If she worried about it, became nervous or upset about the idea, Alex would defiantly grow suspicious. But if she acted like she didn't care, if she pretended that she trusted him, then things would go smoother.

She balanced skillfully on the kitchen countertop while she stuffed the diary and bag of cash into the large air vent. No one would find it there.

'Alex will.' The dragon growled spitefully.

Norma shook off the mean dragon, got dressed and went outside.

~ A part of her wished she could live here forever. The moment she stepped outside, it was like being in another world. Her little guest cottage was painted white and had a front porch with a swing attached. It had a lacy white trim decorating it that was meant to look Victorian, but gave the cottage a gingerbread feel. As if hungry children might come from the woods and devour the place.

A stone foot path was placed in front of the porch and all around it were well tended flowers that attracted honey bees.

'I think this place is enchanted.' Norma thought carefully stepping off her porch and onto the stone path. The sun had warmed the stones and they felt good on her bare feet. She felt an irrational fear that if she left the cottage, she might never see it again. That it was somehow magical and hidden from the real world.

She looked back as soon as she spotted the blue, Greek style pool and saw her gingerbread house was still there. The trees shading it and she longed to go back.

Norma breathed a sigh of relief and pressed onward. The swimming pool expanding larger than she remembered. It's waters strikingly beautiful because of the blue tile at the bottom. It looked slightly garish with it's grecian style statues all around it. It was a large pool. Not the kind suitable for parties but only meant to impress.

Norma walked around it and saw Alex had taken out a pool cleaning kit and chemicals. He had a hard days work ahead of him to clean this pool, although it looked good to Norma.

The large mansion loomed up ahead and she wondered if Alex was even in there. If the doors were locked and if an alarm might sound if she approached.

She saw an impressive greenhouse to one side. A purely decorative addition from magazines. Something that held no practical purpose. Then a large solarium to the other side of the house. She saw the doors to this place were open and music, loud and obnoxious was coming out.

Norma followed it and realized it was 'The Rolling Stones'. Jagger was moaning over and over again:

'You can't always get what you want.'

Norma quickly hopped up the concrete steps and found another swimming pool inside the solarium.

'An indoor pool and an outdoor pool?' she thought wildly. She spotted the boom box in the corner and turned the music down. It was only with the music off that she could hear the whirling of an automatic pool cleaner, a little robot like bummer car battering along the indoor pool.

Norma didn't like it here. The indoor pool area smelling damp and slightly mildewy like all indoor pools tended to. She had to wonder about the owner of this estate to have such a need to show off.

She could hear laughter and knew it was Dylan. Would recognize her son's laughter anywhere. She quickly skirted the indoor pool and ended up in a small shower room. She walked past that and into a mud room next to, what could only be the houses' main kitchen.

It was meant for grand scale cooking. The kind you find at a very fancy restaurant. Two gas stoves with eight burners each. A large walk in cooler and separate walk in freezer.

All of it decorated french country chic. Even the cabinets were distressed to look patina with age.

Norma noticed that a French chef hadn't been in this fancy kitchen at all. Not if they started cooking with fast food take out and cold cereal.

She spied her son's favorite sugary cereal on the countertop and a sink with two used cereal bowls in it. If she checked the fabulous walk in cooler or the beautiful refrigerator with the built in ice maker, she was sure to find milk and maybe hot pockets in the freezer.

"So, we were in Iraq." she could hear Alex saying loudly from another room and Norma found her interest pulled away again to where her son surely was.
"It was a desert. It was really hot. I wasn't used to it. I had to carry all this stuff on me and I got over heated. I started sweating really bad and I got dehydrated." Alex was explaining.

"What's dehydrated?" Dylan was asking as Norma crept out of the kitchen. She spotted the largest and most audacious looking dining room she'd ever seen before peering into a comfortable family room.

"It means I didn't have enough water in my body." Alex was saying.

Norma caught sight of him and felt her breath catch a little. He was dressed in a simple T-shirt and jeans, obviously he'd been working on something, but it was how he'd had Dylan dressed that had cause Norma to really be amused.

For whatever reason, her ten year old son was wearing combat gear. The kind a grown man would wear into war for Desert Storm. A large white MP badge was on the shoulder and Dylan was trying to balance the oversized, military issue helmet on his small head.

"What happened?" Dylan asked while Norma tried not to laugh.

"Well, I was so hot I started to see spots." Alex said.

"Spots?"

"Yeah. Purple ones." Alex clarified and sat down the bottle of water he'd been drinking. "I told my buddies about these purple spots I was seeing and they yanked me up, drug me to the medical tent and stripped me down to my skivvies."

"What are skivvies?" Dylan asked.

"Underwear." Alex told him.

Dylan snorted a laugh.

"Yeah, well." Alex said dryly. "I tried tell them I didn't go for that, but they didn't listen. They just put me in a blow up kiddie pool and this medic had packs of ice under my arms and on my groin to cool me down."

"On your thing?" Dylan asked in horror.

Alex nodded.

"Then what happened?" the child asked.

"They made me drink a lot of water; told me I could leave till I urinated clear." Alex said.

"What's urinated?"

"Going number 1." Alex explained easily.

"Oh." Dylan said and adjusted the military jacket on him more securely. It was far too big for him but he wanted to play dress up like any little girl would in her mother's clothes.

Norma was desperately trying not to laugh on the other side of the wall as she spied on them.

"Then what happened?" Dylan asked.

"Well, I'm jutting sitting there, practically naked in this blow up kiddie pool in the medical tent with a drink in my hand and ice on my groin. I'm all red from the heat, sweating and I look like I'm on some really bad vacation, when General Watts walks in; looks at me and starts laughing. I must have been the funniest thing he'd seen all day.

"What did you do?" Dylan asked in excitement.

"I couldn't really stand up, my legs didn't work. So I gave him a salute and tried to smile." Alex said.

Dylan was smiling and Norma slipped into the family room that the two men had taken over.
"Mom!" Dylan said in excitement and Alex looked surprised to see her.
"Hey." he said standing up strait and clearing his throat. "I thought you'd be resting still."

"I woke up." she explained simply and pointed to her son in the sand colored army boots with desert camouflage and hemet.

"What have you two been up to?" she asked curiously.
Alex looked slightly embarrassed. There was no way he could explain how they had escalated into Dylan trying on all his old military clothing.

"I was in the Marines." Alex said. "In Iraq."

"And you had heat stroke." she reminded him.

"You heard that?" his eyes widened in alarm.

"Ice on the groin?" she whispered looking uncomfortable while Dylan busied himself trying to walk around the room in boots too big for him.

"Well, its' fine now." Alex said quickly. "In case you were wondering."

Norma didn't trust herself to respond. The topic had gotten to scandalous and she didn't want Dylan to hear. Instead she used her son as an easy way out; plucking the helmet off his head.

"Did you boys eat yet? Do you want me to make you something?" she asked.

"No, you're still recovering." Alex told her. "You shouldn't even be up. You need to go back to bed and rest. I'll bring you something to eat."

"More 'Fruiti Pebble' cereal?" she asked nodding back to the kitchen.

"It's good enough for Fred Flintstone." Alex told her and Norma rolled her eyes in disgust. "I'll bring you some real food." he promised.

"No fast food." she made him promise. "Fruit for something healthy for him." she nodded to Dylan who looked annoyed she was running their fun.

"I promise." Alex said quickly.

He was guiding her out of the family room and into the kitchen again. He stopped by the fancy looking fridge and picked out a grocery bag that looked like strawberries and other wholesome goodies.

"See?" he offered.

"Fine. But no violent video games and no scary movies." Norma reminded him feeling slightly cranky and tired all of the sudden.

"We can still go to the strip club later, right?" he asked in a low whisper.
"No!" she laughed. "And no horrible war stories."

"Okay." he agreed but she knew Dylan had already heard plenty of them.

"What did you do in Iraq anyway?" she asked when Alex lead her past the indoor pool and outside again. It was still sunny and picture perfect. The sky a striking blue that mirrored the outdoor pool.

"Same thing I do here. I was an MP. I mainly arrested and held unruly soldiers." he said.

"Wife beaters?" Norma asked without thinking. The words coming out of her mouth before she could stop them.

"Sometimes." Alex said slowly. "Yes. Mostly guys acting up on leave or getting into fights with each other. That sort of thing."

"You threw them in jail?" she asked.

"If it was serious enough, they could be dishonorably discharged." he told her.

They had slipped around the outdoor pool and into the shade of the walkway to her cottage. It looked as storybook as ever.

"Did you read my diary?" she asked bluntly.

"Yes, I read all about how much you love Matt Damon." Alex said lazily.

Norma felt the dragon inside her grumble. It hated to be proven wrong.

"Leonardo DiCaprio, actually." she said smartly.

Alex made a face of disgust.

"The boat guy?" he said. "That's who you write all those love letters to?"

"Yes." she nodded happily.

"You know there was room for both of them on that floating door."

"That's not the point." Norma said suddenly feeling irate at the accusation. "He died for her. That's true love."

"Anyone can die. In fact everyone dies." Alex shrugged. "That's not true love. True love is living and seeking revenge together."

"So what? They survived and sought vengeance on all the worlds ice bergs?" she almost laughed at the absurdity of the argument.

Alex handed her the grocery bag of food.

"Yeah. I could see it. Start a car company and burn a bunch of emissions that melt all the ice bergs. That's real love; not this dying tragically in the sea. Real love isn't death, it's life. It takes a lot of courage to go on living." he told her.

So, the story of the heat stroke and ice in the groin and kiddie pool is real. A friend from massage school was a medic in Iraq and she treated heat stroke soldiers there all the time with this exact method. They stripped them down and iced them under the arm pits and on the groin. I think it's an adorable story and one Alex would have told Dylan and felt he had to be defensive of and assure Norma there wasn't any damage from.

Also, I think Alex is the kinda guy who doesn't think dying is romantic at all. I think he would be pissed off at the idea of Romero and Juliet and Titanic and I think his idea of a romantic ending is the couple defeating the bad guys together and living happily ever after. He's not a quitter. Don't forget he broke out of prison just to get revenge for Norma's death.