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| The coequal branch of contract |
I am alone, or almost so, for the first time in a while. The boy sleeps upstairs. Raquel went into the city to go out drinking and to an event with a friend. They got a hotel for the night. I didn't check, but I believe it was a woman, her friend. She texted me after I had gone to sleep, telling me that she was at a bar that a friend of mine owns, some SF upscale place structured around some loose concept of days past. I did not get the text until early this morning when, as always, I awoke long before my preference to do so.
The boy now sleeps quietly upstairs. That will all change soon. He will come bounding down the stairs and ask if he can play video games. It is his life now. Most of his joys emerge from those screens where I can see many of mine vanish. Before Covid he was still present and available. Now, he mostly wishes to be playing a game, or discussing the goals and trials of playing one.
On Monday they both leave for almost two weeks. It will be myself and the dogs. We have booked plenty of time at the kennel for the most challenging of the dogs to care for - the husky, of course - in the event that I tire of her company, or the responsibility. Many that I know have spent long periods of time alone in the last 16 months. Not me. I've had very little of what could be considered time to myself.
Yesterday, Raquel and I went to see a $350 per hour lawyer, to talk about estate planning, trusts, wills, terms, beneficiaries, trustees, etc. It seems that we are going to reunite, though not under the vulgar banner of marriage. It will be more of a business agreement, where the individual terms can be more easily negotiated to suit our shifting moods. Prenuptial agreements, it seems, are not nearly binding enough. They simply don't work, insisted our counsel, they only cost you much more to enforce after things collapse. This bit of advice actually did sound true to me, knowing what little I do know of the family court system.
It is best to have contracts in place. There is unexpected death to consider, as well as the expected kind. Who wishes to give up their control merely because they are no more? That would be relinquishing your grip on the television remote only because you had slipped in a coma. One must be prepared for the eventualities of aging into decrepitude or sudden enfeeblement, also. Trust no one after your body and mind have perished. Your determination can live on through an estate. Your assets can grow like a flower from your demise. It is not quite eternal life, but it is some reassurance that you will defeat a small portion of the grave and the potential shame of poverty in the afterlife.
After the chat with the lawyer it occurred to me that the conversation, while amicable and friendly and even having some moments of levity, was among the more difficult conversations I've had in a while. Nobody likes to think of what might come. Or worse, what certainly will. I diverted my attention by thinking up absurd terms: funds will be released only if my soul's happiness can be verified through the psychic medium of my choice. If my son is ever heard singing Sweet Caroline the remaining assets will be forfeited to charity. Funds will be contingent on voter registration party affiliation. My body should be sent to a taxidermist and then placed within a medieval suit of armor and displayed prominently in the foyer with the visor kept open, my right hand affixed to a steely broadsword. My funeral should happen in a pyramid and my name should be legally changed to Pharaoh Q6.
For many years Bette Davis would often denigrate Joan Crawford after the latter had passed away. Once, on a film set, someone said to her, "But, she's been dead ten years!" A statement which was met with the famously cold Davis stare.
"Just because she's dead doesn't mean she's changed."
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