The Dove Keeper (Frerard)

Four

The first real thing I learned about Vivian for myself, and not something that Gerard had previously stated, was to never underestimate her. Yes, she was in her forties and was succumbing to age like any other person as years went by, but there had always been this strong defiance in her. Like Gerard's artistic capabilities, her need to rebel and to show people how wrong they were was something that stood the test of time. It did not regress; if anything, it got stronger with more age and practice. She was a single mother, supervising graduate students, and teaching classes at a college, but she was not tired, or even really that busy. She used to tell me that being 'busy' was a state of the mind, and like any form of consciousness, you could reverse it. It was one of her rare Gerard-like moments where she was spouting her own theories, though she would never admit it. She had much better things to spend her time on - like supervising us now in order to make sure we were doing what we needed to do.

Knowing Vivian's attitude, I should not have been surprised when she showed up at our place with not only a casserole, but an itinerary for what we were doing the next day. The quietude that we had experienced previously was a grace period; that was now over, according to her and her best intentions.

"Get up sleepyheads," she knocked on our door. It was 9:30am. "I need breakfast just as much as you, and at least I've brought lunch!" She paused, waiting for us to respond. We were still rolling around in bed, trying to orient ourselves. We had slept-in together this time around, waking up occasionally in the morning light and then using whoever was not awake yet as a pillow. I was on Gerard's chest and his arm was loosely draped around me. Vivian waited, heard vocal noises and mumblings, but when no feet came thudding across the apartment floor, she knocked again. "You get one day of recovery from jetlag. It's not my fault if you spent that doing other things." Though she was chastising us and didn't want us to get away with laziness, I could sense the excitement in her voice. She was just as thrilled for anyone else in love and the possibility of more between us - but in a purely pragmatic way. Love was another state of consciousness, she had told me, and if you use it wisely, you can create the best art.

Gerard got the door first, just after he threw some pants and a shirt at me as a heads up. I had awhile to wake myself up and dress as Vivian walked around the apartment and marvelled at the meticulous labelling.

"Ah, volia!" I heard her giggle with Gerard as he took her around. "Good work. I'm glad you're putting an effort into knowledge preservation."

The two of them had coffee and the last of the cake while I showered to continue the waking process. I was already reverting to nocturnal tendencies and my bones and hands seemed to ache with the morning sun.

"He's still a teenager, huh," I heard Viv comment just as I entered the shower. I paid no attention to it, at least, at first. As I came around in the shower, I began to wonder if I was supposed to be taking offense at this remark. I was in my mid-twenties at this point. Although that age scared me a lot of the time (didn't this mean I was a quarter way through my life now? But that was only if I lived until one hundred, and how many people did that?), I wasn't too sure if I wanted to be "still a teenager" according to Vivian. She didn't see me as the same seventeen that Gerard saw me as. I felt delicate and special with him, younger by comparison and by virtue. But younger to Vivian, who was equal parts passion and practicality, what did that really mean? That I was still young because I needed a shower to wake me up? Because I couldn't get up at 8am anymore since high school let out? What did it matter what time I got up at, so long as I still did something during the time I was conscious? So far as I was concerned, the daylight hours had always been completely overrated. There were too many people outside, and not enough creativity. I would often wait until it was dark all around, without any distractions, before I began any type of art, and it had been working for me for this long. Why did I suddenly need to change because there was another person in my bed?