Bailey is here. She's stripping off our skin, leaving us all naked and raw, or so it seems. She's come to get her pound of flesh as an Aunt from Caleb for hurting her nephew (Henry isn't hurting, really. The only thing that he's concerned about was Caleb's interaction with me that he interrupted. It was the first and only time that's ever happened and since then they've been as thick as thieves once more. Kids are resilient. I tell you time and again, brain, but you don't listen.) and beg me and Loch to be normal for once.
Ha.
I don't think that's a distant possibility even.
Her concerns are interesting to say the least and though she was the same age as Cole, being in all of Cole's and Lochlan's high school classes while I foundered in elementary school, she doesn't know them past when they were teenagers. She disappeared into a world of tupperware parties and interior designing and we packed up and hit the road to sing for our supper.
No two sisters could have been more different and yet when she showed up on the doorstep to kick ass and take names I felt a relief like I don't think I've felt before, even knowing nothing will change when she leaves, which is tomorrow morning, because she has her own life which constitutes changing flower arrangements according to season and booking trips and being busy.
Caleb however, looks thinner and more haunted as the days go on. He got the absolute worst of her ire. Good.
Sam and Duncan were told privately to each back off. She worries about them. Sam the surprise outlier. He's your confidante, Bridget. He's a given eventuality.
Well, I know that and everyone else knows that but I didn't think she knew that. And he isn't because I love him too much to wreck him. He isn't shallow. It wouldn't end well. It's not like any other relationship I have with anyone.
Exactly, she points out.
Duncan tells her point-blank over breakfast that he isn't into relationshits anyway. She laughs. He can charm her so he does and I think she's ever so slightly unnerved by that. It's understandable. I mean, look at him.
August understandably just...left for the day. Ha. He doesn't want to be under a microscope. It's a long story.
She and Lochlan fight like sister and brother. That never changed. They bicker and square off and then make lunch together.
Bailey and the others are highly civilized and get along well. She treasures PJ for his role here, and John. She and Gage and Keith got along very well. Andrew and Christian gave her a warm reception that she echoed and I think Batman might be in love. Should I tell him her custom draperies will be more important than his feelings?
She can be cold and distant. Not like me.
She's not a sex addict like me. I remind them all. She won't hook up with anyone. It's not contagious or genetic.
It could be contagious. Ben wags his eyebrows. He's actually been on his best behavior. She can't understand where I get my insistence that he's wild and undomesticated. I feel uptight and like I'm on review. She tells me repeatedly that since I won't invoke the powers that be then they (the boys) need to know that others are watching and they won't get away with things they think they can get away with.
I think it's too late for that, Bay.
It's never too late, Bridge. No one here has any control over you. Nothing is keeping you here. You can leave any time you want but you seem to like playing commune.
That's when things shift back and I know she doesn't think too deeply or care too much but it looks good. A feather in her cap if you will and maybe some decorating inspiration, as well as her big-sister-duties completed for another year.
I love you, I tell her in a rush of regret because had I gone to her in the beginning things might have turned out so different. I would have a tupperware collection to rival the housewives of Edward Scissorhands instead of a collection of fucked-up men caring for a fucked-up girl.
But she doesn't hear me. She's watching Duncan wash the trucks. She's in her own world and that world isn't here.
