“It’s summertime,” she said, clutching her arms tighter as it started to rain. “We’re always busier in the summers. The new shop, and Charlotte’s about to have the babies. I have a lot on my mind. I’m not mad.”

He sighed. “Of course.” Though he wished she would just be mad, that he threw his dirty field clothes on the bed, that he walked through the house in his boots, that he put the milk carton back empty. Anything. He would be overjoyed that she was mad at him, so that it wouldn’t be something else instead.

“I’m going inside,” she said. “It’s starting to rain. Are you coming?”

He shook his head.

He wandered to his fields in the warm summer drizzle. He meant to plant a lighter crop this year, but all he gained from the lightened workload was the extra time to watch his marriage fall apart. It was too late to change his mind at this point in the season. He had what he had, and there was no going back. So he watched the wheat sway in the wind, tiny raindrops stinging his face, the wet sky feeding the soil. He reached out a hand to touch the young stalks as he passed. It amazed him that this ground was so filled with life, that anything at all on this toxic farm was able to grow.

- Matt, from book #2 (working title: Where the Universe Dwells)

notes: I am cheating the crap out of this week! I actually took this picture last summer, lol!

But I’m busy, and I’m writing, and that trumps my picture project. At least for the next few weeks until I get this novel draft done. And I will get this novel draft DONE, and to my beta readers, by June 12th! I have about eight weeks, and it’s looking possible, people! It’s gonna happen, I swear it!

And maybe this is like one of those things where if you say it out loud with enough conviction, it might actually manifest itself into existence?

Then when no one was looking, he would write little notes for her in the margins of his newspaper, vague and secret communications between them, a whole conversation. They never wrote emails – too much for her husband to find – but they had these instead, in between lines of news story, or on a napkin slipped under his pie plate. His handwriting was terse print, chicken scratch. Thank you. The pie was wonderful, it made my night.

She couldn’t keep these, she told him. There was too much risk. She wanted to. Even a simple one – thanks for the pie – she wanted to hide in some safe place so she could have it forever.

It’s fine, he wrote on the next one. Just keep them in your head.

- Leila, “ghost from a wishing well, part 1,” Lakeside Heights/Where the Universe Dwells

week 2: in which we eat pie!

Setup was much easier this week. But this one also required venturing outside the house, kid in tow (which is something I’ll likely have to work around for the real deal as well, so I don’t mind the practice). Baby steps, people – we just went out for lunch. And Dylan got to eat pie!

There weren’t many outtakes from this shoot, it was pretty simple, pretty straightforward – which was a relief after last week’s shoot. I chose this one over the couple others because I liked the texture on the napkin, while leaving the background in obscurity. (I would have liked to get the pie plate a *little* more in focus, but I couldn’t figure that out without losing focus on the handwriting.)

I also meant to have my hubby write the note, so it would be in a man’s handwriting – though it turns out my own handwriting isn’t very feminine after all, lol! Ah well, so be it!

Outtakes: