I have a new favorite place. I like to sit on the low rock wall, which is less of a wall and more of a dividing line between the two lawns behind the houses on the point.
The wall itself is four feet high and three feet wide and the perfect place to sit, overlooking the sea, high enough that the wind will braid your hair but the rain will somehow miss you in favor of soaking the grass.
I've brought sketchbooks and picnics and headphones out here. I've been out here in my pajamas and in a dress and heels. I've been mostly out here in jeans and a hoodie because lately it's been freezing cold and rainy and damp and typical, which seems like a jaded, cynical expression for someone who has been here a scant two and a half years. I'm learning to fit in, I'm trying to let go.
Jacob never brings anything here. He said he liked the sun and the rain and so I moved him from his hiding place in the garage and when Sam made a few noises about coming down to sit with me on my wall, I almost took his head off. No one comes to spend time here because this is my time with my thoughts.
It's not a question of crazy, it's a question of Jake. Jake spends a little more time hulking around in my tiny shadow than I let on. Ben knows, and therefore Ben has now issued a few (dozen) gentle ultimatums about it being time to give Jacob up, or some ridiculous notion therein. As if you can put an expiry date on mourning. He, of all people, should understand this. No one calls him on being an oversized toddler when he can no longer bottle up rage or despair or loneliness or whatever demons haunt Ben now while he sleeps because he won't let me comfort him. And I don't ask him to change a thing. He issued a few ultimatums about giving up all kinds of things and I mostly hung on for dear life to whatever good moments we found on the farm and I left the rest on the floor, neatly swept into a small pile by the door.
Two can play this game so well that it's become a choreographed dance, set to a melancholy jazz standard, ripped from the forties from a quiet smoky club where people go to forget their troubles in the bottom of a glass of liquid gold.
I'll show you my ghosts, I challenge, changing all the words until the song becomes new, unrecognizable and heard instead of tolerated. Don't ask me to change things now, I plead.
He insists that I am ready and made sure Joel and Sam were both nearby, after yesterday's explosion when I came back across the driveway slowly, in bits and pieces and I headed straight for PJ's room where I knew he hides the good stuff and PJ made a few alarmed shouts about me being too small for fifty-proof or something (TRAITOR) and I threw one of the bottles at his head and then Lochlan locked me in a hug while Ben called Joel and then Sam.
I don't know why, I fucking hate Joel and I don't want to ever hate Sam. Sam is practically all I have left of Jake some days, since August still hasn't come out of his shell and maybe he never will. Maybe this is where people come to self-destruct. Maybe this is hell.
I lit the cigarette while Jake watched me, the rain battering us sideways but not enough to force me back indoors. My ears are buzzing and I look at him. Can he hear the buzzing or am I just lighting up like a Christmas tree? Electrocute. Whatever.
Where did you get that stuff?
Huh? Oh, I stole the cigarette from Joel and the lighter from Loch.
Do they know?
Of course not. I place a forty on the smooth flat rock. Jake laughs uneasily and glances toward the house.
You and your pockets. (I always have my hands in people's pockets. I keep up my skills in case the opportunity ever presents itself again that I can run away and never come back. Would I? You betcha.)
I shrug and take a drag. So where are you really?
What do you mean, Bridget? There is no formal purgatory, because Jesus atoned for all of our sins. Keeping me here is not for my benefit, but for yours.
What if Caleb is wrong?
About what?
You being dead after all.
Hey! A sudden yell makes us both turn and look toward the house. Lochlan is coming down across the wet grass. He looks cross. He looks rather alarmed that I am out here alone and that I'm smoking. I don't smoke. I get headaches when I smoke but for some reason it's a lesser but just as effective act of defiance as presenting to the Devil was before I wrote him off too. I'm also drunk (still) but nobody cares about that right this second.
I continue to smoke while I watch Lochlan approach. I think he might explode, the rage on his face is funny. Just what I need. A little levity. I've had some bad news, you see.
(Oh, that came out of my head in Winnie The Pooh's voice. My poor Pooh. I loved you to death.)
What the fuck, Peanut? Put that out! He takes it from my hand and takes a drag, making no move to put it out or extinguish it. I laugh and he looks at me carefully, pockets his lighter and picks up the bottle. It's still sealed. I was only considering starting a new one because there wasn't nearly enough in the other one I found. Why are you out here alone?
I look at Jake and Jake puts his finger to his lips. I look at his fingers. His huge hands that knew every inch of me and I wish he was here to look after me but he's not. Not anymore.
I was trying to think. I can't think inside right now. Everyone's freaking the fuck out and it's too loud.
Lochlan comes right up to the wall and wraps his hands around my elbows. He presses his forehead against mine. I know, Bridge. I just don't want you to make yourself sick. Jake wouldn't want this. He wouldn't have wanted any of this pain for you.
Jake is just sitting there with a look on his face that is half-amazement that Lochlan is attempting rare comfort and half-incredulity that Lochlan is attempting to pretend he knows what Jacob would want at all. I see the look and I realize I don't know what Jacob wants either but he is fading and I have no time to ask now.
He always leaves when someone else comes around. I should take that as a hint but really I've been hoping all this time that we were having some sort of mind meld, and that he was far away, filled with regret and missing me so much he could venture into my thoughts like he used to when we lived in the castle and he was still breathing. There are things I still need to talk to him about, things I can't sort out on my own, things I need him for.
My voice comes out harsh, flat, slurred and quiet.
No one knows what Jacob wants because Jacob's dead, Lochlan.
