My ways is slow...

I'm slowly digging through and have managed four more chapters, one of which wound up with a bit more restructuring and rewriting than I expected. It's setting up how Brendan and Jeremy will wind up being good friends after he returns from the Yom Kippur war.

Turns out Jeremy was talked into going to a kibbutz for a year, by his rabbi. Of course, his family happily goes along with it, so he feels like he has no choice but to do as they want.

This popped up while I was redoing a lazy summer afternoon between Brendan, Scott and Jeremy, in the pool. In Houston, summers are brutally hot and humid. Which Brendan doesn't like. But having the pool to help him deal with it becomes a mainstay of his existence. 

Initially, I'd written the scene as an earlier one Brendan was remembering, but I chucked that and made it current. There's tension between him and Scott, who was moved out of the pool house so Brendan could live there. Aunt Mari wants Brendan to remain close to the family, and this is how she manages it after the B-girls caused a situation that makes him want to leave.

So Scott is snarky with Brendan as he floats around the pool, but Brendan ignores him. Jeremy notices and winds up confiding his reluctance about the trip to Brendan while Scott is out of earshot.

Then during Hanukkah, Jeremy makes a short visit home with a couple of IDF buddies. Brendan sees he is unsettled, jittery, and having trouble being around his family, so he trusts Jeremy enough to let him have his one joint, to share with the guys. To settle them. Which it does.

And step by step, he and Jeremy wind up being more like brothers than any of his actual brothers. this was not specifically planned, but I'm liking it.