Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters)

Just as the sun rises.

With the six of us on this hill and the packed lake house behind us—I feel sentiments far beyond this sunrise, this morning, this moment. We filled an empty house.

I’m thirty-seven.

Just yesterday I was twenty and meeting some of these people—people that I’d spend my life with, that’d become my home.

Just yesterday I was twenty—still deeply and desperately in love with my best friend.

I grew older.

We all grow older.

In a blink of an eye, our children will grow old too.

And I’ll think: just yesterday they were twenty. Headed for college. Falling in love. Memories will flood behind us, the lake house no longer filled to the brim. As quiet as the moment we first walked in—and we’ll sit on this hill. Feeling the stillness that exists.

And then we end—we end where we started.

Just us.

All six of us.

Our four kids and floppy-eared basset hound stand on the hillside, a common spot because of the rope swing tied to a maple branch. Moffy raises a set of portable speakers, Bangarang by Skrillex booming. Luna, Xander, and Kinney—they wave out to us and lift up a sign together that reads: we love you!

They were a part of this surprise all along.

I laugh and cry simultaneously again. As we watch our kids, joy coating their faces, childlike wonder in their eyes, I remember every moment I spent with Lo where we said we can’t. Where we said we shouldn’t. Not people like us. This isn’t meant for us.

I realize something. So I tell him.

“I think we finally deserve this.”

Tears spill out of his eyes, and he says, “I believe it, too.”

Lo digs a hand into his jean’s pocket and reveals a delicate silver chain. A red heart-shaped ruby encircled with diamonds dangles at the end.

The shape, the style—it’s an exact replica of my engagement ring.

“Lo,” I breathe, more tears surging.

He unclips the necklace. “I gave you my heart a long time ago, and I’m not sure I remind you enough that you still have it. All of it.” Lo leans into me and fits the jewelry around my neck.

I start to cry, clutching his waist. In the middle of this quiet lake. They’re snot-nosed tears.

“Lil,” he whispers, wiping my face with his shirt. “Why are you crying?”

“Because I don’t have anything for you.”

He laughs at me.

“It’s not funny,” I cry but that morphs into a tearful laugh that rattles my heart.

Lo kisses my cheek, smiling, and he whispers, “You’ve already given me everything, love.”

The canoe steadies as Lo goes still. He peeks down at me, through the collar of his shirt. His genuine smile begins to swell my heart.

“What…?” I breathe, slowly slipping out from beneath the fabric. I glance around, the wasp gone. We drift lazily towards the west bank.

Lo holds me to his chest, our limbs tangled up together. His face is sharp like steel blades built upon years and years of battles lost and won.

“These years…” he starts, and I know this is much more than a wasp. This is more than a bicycle. Whatever this is, it exists in our decades together. “These years have been epic, and not because it was easy—because it wasn’t always—but because you and me, we flew.”

My tears brim, and I see us fly beyond our lowest expectations for ourselves, all the hard parts where our addictions tried to weigh us down.

We flew.

“You made that possible, you have to know that,” Lo says, his voice lowering. “Without you, I just don’t know, Lil.” When his dad died, it’d been his lowest point in years.

“You’ve made it just as possible, Lo. I wouldn’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here,” I repeat the same sentiment. He helps me every day in ways that no one else could. No one else knows. It’s not just sex. It’s every emotion that’s tied to a low, to a really bad day.

I always turn to him like he turns to me, and we’re not enablers. No one says that we shouldn’t be together. No one tells us to split apart. Our souls are still wound together, still wound tight.

“You know what I tell your brother?” I take a deep breath, remembering the conversations I’ve had with Ryke. “I tell him, ‘Lo’s ice in the winter now. He won’t melt.’”

His eyes redden, welling, and he says, “Thanks to you.”

He feigns a wince at our four children. “Christ, what is that on their faces? They’re smiling, Lil. Make ‘em stop.”

I peek at our kids, all four smiling big, standing in an uneven line. Wearing superhero and pop culture paraphernalia. Lo squeezes me, no longer teasing. He sees each one, each kid, his nostalgia brimming with mine.

Between years of missteps, fuck-ups, and setbacks, something beautiful and pure happened, and we’re viewing every little bit.

Lo flashes his iconic half-smile, and he says, “Never trust a bunch of Hufflepuffs to do a Slytherin’s job.”

Our three youngest kids pipe up at once, shouting about how they haven’t been sorted yet.

“I’m not eleven!” Kinney decrees.

“I’m a Hufflynclawdor,” Luna says.

“We gotta wait, Daddy. It’s too early for that,” Xander exclaims.

Lo cups his ear. “What was that? I can’t hear any of you. I’m immune to huffle-talk.”

They all groan like he’s the corniest dad in the entire universe.

Luna Hale might not have any friends outside of relatives, but she has more confidence at eight-years-old than I did when I was twenty.

Never ashamed.

My daughter is never ashamed.

“What do you fucking say, Calloway? Fast or slow?”

Daisy smiles so brightly, so fucking heartfelt—it’s hard to stare for long, but I always take the fucking risk. My eyes burn like I’m meeting the sun.

And she says, “I love you.”

In ten years, our love has never fucking waned. I raise my brows at Dais and feel my smile touch my lips. “Fucking fast then.” I step hard on the gas, her smile flooding the car, and the Jeep races down the highway.

“Whoa,” Sulli says and immediately sticks her head out the window. Nutty joins, tail wagging.

Winona shrieks in glee, bouncing in her booster seat. “Faster!”

Already flying, I pretend to go fucking faster but keep this speed. Daisy stays in the car, her long legs extended across my lap. With her hand, she draws waves in the wind.

No words need to fucking pass. No radio needs to be flipped on. Our music exists right here. We’re alive. We’re alive.

God, we’re all fucking alive.

In this present moment.

In this place together.

Ryke lets Winona down, and she puts her nose up close, fingertips against the window.

“Look.” Sulli points to four chimpanzees swinging from branch-to-branch, squeaking to one another. “It’s us.”

We all laugh together, and mine transforms into an overwhelmed smile. I look to Ryke, but I can’t do anything but nod at him—you know those moments where you’re just so full you can barely breathe? So full of feelings you only hope to meet.

They crash against me like freefalling. Like cliff diving and bungee jumping. Like screaming at the top of my lungs. Like one-hundred-and-fifty miles per hour.

All with Ryke Meadows.

He holds my cheeks with both large, rough hands, and I reach up and hold his with my small, soft.

Ryke laughs into his own beautiful smile, and he says, “This is our fucking life, Calloway.”

Every moment is wild, even the quiet ones.

We never really tire from Winona’s bounciness, her crazed energy in good company with the rest of ours. I slip next to Sulli and hip-bump her.

She hip-bumps back and shows me the rope necklaces she picked out. “Can I get these?”

Each has one silver animal pendant: bird, dolphin, wolf, and otter. I smile at her choices, knowing which one represents us. I’m the bird. She’s the dolphin. Ryke is the wolf. Winona is the otter. “Definitely.”

“I want to keep the wolf, then give you the dolphin, Dad the otter, and Nona the bird.”

Sulli always thinks about us, and I was never really anyone’s number one growing up. I was the number two or number three sister. Sometimes even number four. Ryke and I are number ones to our girls, and it’s an insane feeling.

I just want to make sure that she always thinks about herself too. “You don’t have to share if you don’t want to.”

Sulli adjusts my off-kilter flower crown with a smile and says, “I really, really want to, Mom.”