September's Swan Song

The Riouxs love fall. We are all autumn babies, regardless of the calendar months in which we were born. Fall is rich in colour and flavour, all rusty orange and apple crunch. Fall is the Saanich Fair with its sweet yellow corn, its stomach turning rides, its dusty barns. Fall is the start of school, preschool for E, his last before the gates of grade school open and usher him through. J returns after a year of trying to forget. Fall is finding where we hid last year's scarves and sweaters, only to shed them when the sun beats out summer's final sweaty drumroll. Fall is when we find ourselves again, happy to be home, to be at rest, Rioux ever after.