If it's Saturday I talk to myself out loud. Wait, nevermind.

When the sun clears the dark away I sit quietly, legs crossed, eyes closed, left abandoned in a moment but only for a moment with a kiss on the forehead that means meeting time, he'll be back and I hear the doors close and then a thud as the truck door closes and the rumble of life from the big beast with FORD stamped on the back.

Seth seems nice, since two years ago I was briefly introduced but did not talk with him at any length. Last night he sat at the kitchen table and I watched him watching us. He does not take notes or act as if he's thinking about anything of importance, in fact, he acts a lot like August. You wouldn't know what he does for a living and when I remarked last evening that being stuck here for the next ten weeks or so doesn't seem like much of a living at all on his part, he let his warm blue eyes rest on me and he smiled, telling me candidly that he averages three clients a year, and then the rest of the time he does whatever he wants, that he is well-compensated. He likes what he does and he doesn't consider it work.

Ben will do well again. He wants to do well, he just doesn't have the self-discipline required to do it on his own. Self-discipline isn't something Ben comes with. It's sold separately. Like batteries.

Seth will be Ben's batteries. Ben is going to do a lot of really hard work.

I am not.

I'm going to continue on this path for a bit. No pills, no therapy, just a new routine that is slightly busier, which means I have less time to let my brain crash around inside my skull. Bridget's idle brain is her worst enemy and time is her nemesis and between the two, she's been cultivating destruction all by herself.

She does that, you know. The tiny tornado, flattening very big structures and causing fear in people for no reason at all. A glitch when all conditions are right.

I don't want to go through life being known like that.

Maybe I'm too late.

No, dammit. There is always time. If I ever learned anything from Jake, there is time for me. Of course, there was no time for him, but there's time for me, there's time for Ben and there's time to get it right.

Limitless chances, princess. Just do the best you can.

Do you think if I fill those empty spaces in my head his voice will stop finding a way in?

Is that what I even want?

And with that, I must go, because PJ is here. To fill my empty head with coffee and my arms with some really good hugs, I hope.

This post is not about Caleb.

When I was a little girl growing up on a beach somewhere on the East coast, I thought the devil was cool. I figured he was about 35 years old, chain-smoked king-sized cigarettes and had tattoos. He wore a lot of black, usually biker clothes or funeral director with a wild-west-twist suits, and he listened to heavy metal. In my head he was a combination of Ozzy Osbourne, Mick Jagger and James Hetfield all rolled up in one man, but better looking. Scorching, smoking hot.

And Jesus was a wimp. One of the uncool kids, sitting in his room with his record player and out of date seventies garb, fringed faded jeans, love beads and flowing white shirt with his long wavy hair and a beard to die for, spinning Simon and Garfunkel or perhaps some Nick Drake while he waited and hoped for the heathens to settle down. While he prayed for them to be good people.

For some reason Jesus was impossibly eighteen years old in my head.

And emo.

Both images are forever stuck at a point when I was eight years old, like most ideals I have. Possibly this might be where my brain stopped growing. In fact, I might be almost one hundred percent sure of that, since I still like to play with the Rubik's cube when I pass one. Sometimes to the point where I am late for an appointment or miss a call, because hey, if I can get this side all red, maybe I can get this side all white and how the hell do people do these again?

Must be nice to be so smart.

But this post is not even about how smart or how dumb Bridget is.

No, this post is about Seth.

Seth is a guy who fixes lives. And he is a friend of Ben's. And two years ago when Ben went off his rocker completely and came on to me in one drunken, dangerous night, Seth was the guy who flew out here the next day and stood close to Ben for weeks on end, pointing out the pieces, and Ben picked up those pieces and managed to put his life back together and stayed sober for over a year. Seth is coming back and they're going to pick up the pieces yet again because the first time Ben couldn't hold on to them. Seth is someone who will shadow Ben, schedule him and basically become his new best friend. He will evaluate and get him all the help he needs and then in twelve weeks hopefully Ben will be at a better place and he'll be able to go back on the road because the night job is calling again.

Thankfully Ben does well with direction and he does even better with deadlines and all he needs is a push because life got to be a little much and he's been veering wildly between being Jesus and being the devil himself lately.

(I do realize that I am no picnic to live with either. No one likes the beautiful fucked-up ones with the maturity of your average eight-year old.)

And so I'm hoping that when Ben has to go back out there into the world where the devil comes in many forms but so does Jesus and so you better watch out for both, that Seth might stick around and maybe give me a little direction, some guidance, a plan of some sort because I am currently without one and I'm sure the recent levelness of my head is due solely to the fact Ben keeps my hands and that single-digit head of mine really busy. In twelve weeks that vanishes for a bit again and I might lose that kid.

I don't want to lose that kid.

Thankfully the kid isn't old enough to drive, she's in her room listening to the Stones and to Black Sabbath and even to a little bit of Drake.

And fine, yes, Simon and Garfunkel.

Polarity begins with a B.

Yesterday's double post was not supposed to be that way. Sometimes I empty my head and then I save it and delete it later but that 'publish' button seems awfully close to the 'save' one when your fingers are cold and I'll just be thankful it was an innocuous entry.

Now, can I ask that you take a day off from the mean emails? I don't ask very often so I'll ask twice in this month because I don't need them today. Please. Thank you.

Change is upon us once again on this marathon swim of a life in which I'm given precious seconds, a wave sweeping over my head, in which to take a deep breath and dive back down for more. Beginning on Monday, when I begin work (no worries, I will have time to journal), Ben will begin work as well, because he's been lying in his own road to hell being repeatedly run over by a large, heavy wagon loaded down with his life's tragedies, disappointments and pressures, bottled in liquid form so he can at once be mired in and escape from darker memories and an incredibly skewed outlook on life now that's getting in the way.

I will be watching him, encouraging and supporting him and hopefully learning from him. Because Ben is a lot like Bridget, needing to be flung to the bottom repeatedly before change will be called for, before things move, and then when the change occurs we usually run for the hills because good things have become the things we fear.

We're bad for each other. With a soft spot a mile wide for Ben, I will coddle and enable him to the brink of ruin because I have always tried to give him an ease in life that no one else gives him and I don't know why but it's there. Whatever I could do, I would do for him. And he's been much the same way for me and I don't expect people to understand because when they were off playing soccer or volleyball or got up to get and fill a plate at a barbecue or dinner, Ben and I were usually sitting together somewhere talking. We've talked about every last thing on earth there was to talk about and then some more. We know the inside of each other's brains so well that I knew yesterday that he was safe and that he would come home with change in mind because we know sometimes when things get harder instead of easier it's really time to move some stuff around because the feng shui is fucked again and if we just align things better, good fortune will follow.

Hey, at least we take turns.

At least this time I KNOW he's in danger, instead of being fooled.

And me? I'm doing okay. Worried, nervous about Monday, heck, nervous about every day but in a whole other completely selfish way worrying about Benjamin keeps my head busy and we all know what a good thing that is. And it isn't lost on me that he's exactly like me, and I have to admit that seeing him self-destruct repeatedly is like looking in a mirror. I always say I'll change and improve and do whatever I need to do to get past this place where I am stuck, mired in a purgatory and I can't seem to pick a side. I need to pick a side. Ben needs to pick a side.

I really hope we pick the same side.

Harder than I thought.

(The brain is off-leash today, this is what results.)

Starting this day in a thick gray sweater that is wool but is not itchy, having poured oil all over my skin this morning in a bid to seal in the moisture, pulling on my slim jeans and my green cowboy boots quietly so as not to stir anyone, I could creep downstairs and pull almost an hour out of thin air from which to think without talking, be without being.

For lack of comparison past height, adoration and that odd brand of faith let's say that Ben has obsessions of a different sort and that they come in liquid form. Last night he left for a meeting and came home slightly drunk and I don't know how that happens or what kinds of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings serve beer but it was really interesting from a sociological point of view to watch him come in and decide how he was going to play it. He chose unwisely, trying to pretend he was fine, only he wasn't trembling and wouldn't touch me and the hesitated when he tried to leave his stance against the counter in the kitchen and that split-second was enough for me to see and then I went to him for a hug, not to confirm or test but because I'm Bridget and I like hugs, I like physical contact and he pushed me away and told me not to judge him. I asked him if he remembered who I was and that I would always be the last person to pass judgement on him but he just defended and said he knew who I was, he was drunk, for god's sake and maybe I could just let him celebrate winning the girl of his dreams away from all the better guys without raining on the goddamned parade.

As if I wasn't even that girl.

Ten more minutes and I could see his undirected ire building and I was forced to trick him and have the most ridiculous picture in my head now of running back down the hallway between the kitchen and the back door and locking my beautiful husband behind the other side because when he has had that much he is unpredictable and I am scared. He yelled some horrible thing between the door jambs at me, things about wishing he had stayed out, about the cute girl with the long black hair who could have rocked his night and he wouldn't have to put up with me, or maybe he should go back and get her and bring her here and I can join them and loosen up a bit. Then he pounded on the door so hard I jumped a hundred feet in the air and in spirit banged my head on the attic and then the trees and then the power lines and then the clouds.

And then he stopped but it was moments too late. I had PJ and Chris on speed dial to come and clean up the mess that is their friend because those comparisons in the few rare places that lead me back to Cole can also be the ones that make me fear for myself and the comparisons to Jake are the ones that make me fear for the future and I get this giant, wet, cold slap in the face once again that we aren't making a sweet, idyllic life here, we're simply choosing to be together in between our own personal freakouts and it isn't very pretty, no matter how many lovely and rare words I pull off the pile on the floor to arrange.

I don't hear anything else and then gradually within ten or fifteen minutes I hear voices toward the back of the house, more than one and I know the other guys are here. I hear their sure and confident voices making statements about what will happen next and then a roar erupts from Ben because he doesn't want to leave, he wants to be let in his own house, he wants to be with his wife, he's supposed to be there for her. Is it too much pressure? Sure. Yes. Sometimes it is. Sometimes I think I should set him free but he doesn't want to be set free and I don't want to be without him. I run back down the hallway and open the door and both PJ and Chris are standing in the sitting room and Ben is sitting in the chair holding his head like he does when he has just crossed from unreasonable to surrender.

I run across that little room and throw myself in his arms and hold him as tight as I can. He says that he is sorry but I don't hear him so he says it louder and stops halfway through the word sorry. I shake my head because I don't care what his problems are if he's here. And he says he'll never get mad at me and doesn't understand why I call everyone when I'm afraid instead of just telling him. But there are nights still burned into my head that called for me to be protected from him and I made promises to others on behalf of my children that I must keep so I called. He understands, for their sakes and for mine and he falls deeper in despair but I pull him back up as hard as I can, our fingers slipping even as they grab just a little higher, tighter. Don't let go. Please, God, don't let go. Just hang on to me and I'll hang on to you and then when we get a little stronger and there's just a little more time under our belts, this won't be so hard. it won't be something that requires interventions and stern talks and more empty promises and more reassurances that yes, I changed my mind, you guys can go home now, we're okay and they shake their heads and mentally place labels across our foreheads because the old ones faded and peeled off in the sun but the words on them don't change but we don't really care and I will always flinch when someone's hands fly out and he will always drink when someone's judgement flies out, maybe it's so ingrained now it's just hopeless. Finally there are others who also are not perfect. Finally there is someone out there just like me, we think. Isn't that awesome?

Adaptation.

Fight over the clouds, over wind, over sky
Fight over life, over blood, over prayer, overhead and light
Fight over love, over sun, over another
Fight.

Angels on the sideline again.
Been soon long with patience and reason.
Angels on the sideline again
Wondering when this tug of war will end.

The barometer this morning is rather peaceful, and quiet and calm. It's a barometer from a girl who is un-therapied and un-medicated and un-pressured to do anything except just be. Just today and then we'll worry about the future and the past some other time. Just eat when you're hungry and sleep when you are tired and paint and write and read and watch the kids play in the snow and just take it easy a little bit. Just go for a hug when you feel the slipping and break away a little when some strength shows and maybe go for a run and maybe sneak a croissant and maybe just ditch some of the chores around the house in favor of doing nothing. Not wake up early enough to go to church and send the minister a text message that sort-of almost apologizes because Sam is cool with that but then he intends to get you anyway and plans to stop by later with a handful of prayers to stuff into your ears because you need them and you won't help yourself and he really wants to help you. Both of you because you're good people and you'll be okay so why not take the hand when it is extended for you because they all love you so, so much?

Of course, you will take what is offered. You always do even if sometimes it's a selfish offer that benefits someone else because you don't know any better. Your judgement has been broken for years.

But you mean well.

You will be well.

This life is new, and changes are required. This guy, though some of the attitudes and mannerisms and ideals are similar, well, he isn't the same. But he loves you and you love him and he's a hell of a lot easier to figure out because everything is simple and he doesn't wrap his words in gift wrapping that needs to be interpreted, he just says it. He spells it out and you repeat it back as soon as you have absorbed the letters. And all he wants is a simple life, and to have fun with you and he wants you to have fun with him because you always have. And he works so hard not to touch things that are bad for him but he's always been so bad and self-destructive and extravagant in some ways it takes a lot to relearn those things but he says you make it easier. You. Surprise. You've provided a home and a stability that he's never had before and he cherishes it more than he can express to you but you laugh. Stability? From me? He nods. It sinks in that you're maybe doing better than you think you are, than others would have you believe, but it's true.

It was always true. You just have to figure out how to manage your selfish and generous sides. You have to figure out a lot of things. You're just over-complicating things again.

You always do that. I don't know why you do that.

Stop it.

Just go be happy. Life is all lined up, you just need to live it.

He is smiling at you. So damned cute. So alive.

November Writing Challenges.

I'm not doing them. I'm just going to continue on with the massive effort underway at self-preservation. Right now I'm uncomplicating things in my life instead of making it harder.

In other words, I've had enough challenges for a while, I won't be volunteering for any more.

Other things I have done to simplify my life? I started eating a lot of fruit and nuts. Raw. Easy. Good for me. Drinking more water, less coffee. Smoking less. I sold my spinning wheel to someone who will enjoy it. I'll spin up the remainder of the fiber I have with the hand spindle and finish that round rug that I add to every now and then. I fired my entire team of mental health professionals. Started with one and it snowballed until they were dropping like flies. Why? I don't know. Ineffectuality, I guess. I dreaded going. I can't do something when I get hives just thinking about it. In the panic for order within my skull, bad choices for doctors were made. It's okay, that's fixed now.

Well, the bad doctor part is fixed. My head? Oh lord, you don't want to know.

I got my shoes back. Chris swung by and collected them after a call from Ben. I start work for Caleb on November 17. I'm really hoping he doesn't proposition me every single day. I'm going to order the physical CD releases of Limbs and Branches and the Winter EP because iTunes and I REALLY aren't getting along, or have I mentioned that previously? I roasted all the pumpkin seeds and collected the rest of the cherry tomatoes from the basement. They're all gone now.

Oh, and there are four days left in this year without Jacob and I'm doing really fucking good. Place your bets now and hope for the best.

One voice, louder than the rest.

Thanks to last night, today is almost okay. I didn't think it would be.

If you've done your math or read here for any length of time, you'll remember that it was a year ago tonight that Jacob told me he was leaving us. And he never came back. Well, he came back the next day and took almost everything he owned and went very very far away and spent many days straight praying, locked in a hotel room overseas and the night before his 37th birthday he jumped off the roof.

We're not going to talk about that. I can't. I am peanut brittle and I can't handle more than the odd random memory or offhand comment. I'm so not ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille.

Instead I'm going to tell you about the freezing-fucking-cold motorcycle ride I had last night. Ben borrowed a bike from a procrastinating neighbor who hasn't put his bike up yet and warned me to go and add as many layers as I could. Even chaps. I never wear the chaps he got for me. Well, not outside anyway. He likes many layers of protection on a bike. Just in case.

I thought he was nuts. Figured we'd be out for a ten minute tear across the city and back and then we could light a fire.

Nope.

Ben drove for thirty minutes in the six-degree moonlight, until the city was a memory far behind us. And his wife was a Popsicle, clinging to his waist, head down, chattering teeth and all. He managed to extricate himself from me finally when he stopped the bike out by the fairgrounds. Across the road is an endless hay field, lit up with endless stars in a prairie sky that is so beautiful sometimes it makes living here almost bearable.

He put the kickstand down and took off his helmet and walked about a hundred yards into the field. Gloves and leather jacket making him almost invisible since he left the headlight on.

He walked back and opened his arms out wide, gesturing.

Is this the perspective you need?

I just shook my head. Defiant. Frozen. Still sitting on the bike. My knees were locked against it and my teeth were clamped together so they didn't chatter so badly.

He threw his arms back down to his sides and walked back to me and pulled me off the bike and half-carried/half-marched me out to where he had walked. He put one hand on the back of my head and one under my chin and forced my head up and then he let go of the back of my head and pointed up into the stars.

Where is he, Bridget?

In heaven.

Where are you, Bridget?

Down here. On earth.

Say it again.

Ben-

Say it again, princess.

I'm on earth.

He can't run your show anymore.

I know.

You know but you're letting him anyway.

I don't know what else to do, Benjamin.

What do I always say to you when things get hard?

Take your own advice, then.

This isn't about me. What do I say?

Just be, bee.

He walked back out into the field.

Just be, little bee. Just let him go. Let the sad parts go and the mad parts and all of it. Let it go. I don't know how to help you. I want to and I don't know how. I can help with as much as I can and it will never be enough until you get to a place where he doesn't exist in every breath you take in. He's not your air anymore, princess, you've been breathing without him now for a whole year and there's a lot of years left that he won't be in. I just want you to take a full breath because Jake is gone and he isn't coming back and we're going to make a life here!

Ben was done. He got it off his chest. Maybe not so smooth anymore. Not eloquent, not articulate, just plain straightforward Ben as only Ben can be.

Yelling.

And it made perfect sense.

So when my brain revolted and exploded all in the next moment I was surprised to see the regret on his face when I fell apart. I went down on my knees in the dirt and let go of my helmet. It rolled away from me but I didn't see it because he was running to me and pulling out his phone and I very slowly keeled right over and everything went black. Dramatic self-preservation to the finest degree.

I woke up in PJ's truck, Ben saying he was sorry. Holding me close to his chest like a baby. Heater blasting in my face.

My head knows when it has had enough and between that and the rolling vertical blackouts I have had from all my higher-dose medication lately I'm now getting the walking coma I wished for for this very difficult time. True to form, I'll keep writing, it just takes that much longer to get out what I want to say.

And I've talked to a lot of people about time recently. How time is marked for me in terms of before and after, pre- and post-, individually, in Cole-time, Jacob-time and Ben-time. How in the blink of an eye you pass a milestone like a year and in that blink everything changes, absolutely everything.

Adapt or die, princess.

It wasn't Ben's voice I heard when I went down.

It was Jacob's. And something tells me I'll never hear it again.

I poured my heart out and it spread over the concrete in a black pool, thick like oil, slow moving and bubbling with a sickly, aching pain. I found a stick nearby and I drew patterns in that pool, shifting some of the blame, taking some of the heartache and shaping it into a boomerang and then I threw it but it never came back.

The clouds raced through the sky over my head like a nightmare in time-lapse photography and I ate some more words but I had to choke them down, they tasted awful. And so I stood, and into my apron I gathered my courage, my hope and my resolve and I took them, bundled up, inside to the fire where I shook them into the grates and watched them burn.

And then when the sky disappeared and the dark came in to quiet the world, pockmarked with tiny lights that other people pin hopes to, my heart found its way back, dragging the ache after it like dirty laundry that has been ignored for too long.

I'm doing all those things that everyone wants me to do.

I take my medicine, even though it makes my hand flutter and my head hurt. I go see my psychiatrist, even though I hate her guts and I believe she hates mine, I go for grief counseling even though it reopens the wounds day after day. I let the children talk to me about their sadness when so moved, even though I'd rather just forget it hurts them too, and I keep on going even though in the very back of my head, a once-loud, now quiet voice points out it would feel good to just go to sleep and not wake up.

I moved on and found that something I once fought against turned out to be something so wonderful and bittersweet and sorely needed.

I changed.

I did all of that and on Friday will I feel any different?

Expectations cast in sand.

I'm up on the wall today, slowly tightroping my way across the stone as leaves scatter around me, not strong enough to push me off but threatening enough to distract me with their dance, partnered to the wind. My arms are rooted to my body at my elbows, hands cupped to keep the words from spilling, almost failing at keeping my balance on behalf of my body, stick-straight in the middle of the wall as I press forward, one foot and then the other in front of it. Eyes straight ahead, mouth set in a half-curve of foolish, misguided determination and a desire not to fall off.

If I fall off, I'll be bruised, but only on the inside, and I'll have to climb back up with help and begin again. I've come too far to do that now. I see the end in sight and then I can climb back down and walk on the ground like everyone else. I won't be the freak, perched up high above their heads, trying to at least walk somewhere, instead of getting nowhere at all. Breathing despite the lump in my throat, seeing despite the tears welling up perpetually in my eyes, and hearing everything they say about me in their hushed whispers, in spite of the ever-present thud of my erratic heartbeat in my own ears.

Here's the thing, I'm in no danger of falling off right now. Not with these steps, not on this portion of the wall. It seems to be a safe zone, see, since I have leaned out very far and still remained on top. I'm sure I dropped a few words down to the ground, I see them resting in amongst the leaves and I'm sure someone will pick them up later.

Do you understand why?

When he saw me lean, he startled, and with a shout he called out to me that it was okay. That I could try anything.

Because he would catch me.

The only trouble is, he's standing on one side of the wall. What if I fall off the other side? What then, dear Benjamin? His solution was to swear at the wind, and then he reached up with both arms and pulled me down off the wall and then he didn't let go.

You can't fall if you're already on the ground. You can't fall when someone is there supporting you. You can't fall if you're steady.

You can't fall if you're already down, Bridget.

There is no foundation here, I said.

Sure there is, it's just flimsy as hell, he laughed.

We need to make it stronger and we need to do it now. I wasn't laughing.

Yeah, he nodded. His eyes were grim in the sunlight. We are, Bridget. We are.

And with that, he took my hands and pulled me to my feet and we set off down the sidewalk.

Conclusion: The Memory Thief.

He ran flat out down the dark alleyway, splashing through puddles and careening around obstacles in his path.

Before his brain had a chance to compare the relative safety of the building with where he was now, a fist came out of the blackness and connected with his jaw.

Down he went, the bundle flying out of his arms. The thief stared up at his would-be mugger, and the mugger stared back. The precious bundle rested on the wet pavement between them, still wrapped in the thief's coat. Still safe, for the moment.

What do you want?

Is this all of them?

Yes. Why?

I'm taking them.

That isn't a good idea.

The mugger didn't say anything. He walked forward and gently picked up the bundle. He removed the coat, tossing it toward the thief, who didn't make a move to catch it. The mugger leafed through the stack of memories, nodding here and there, frowning and then smiling softly. He glanced up once, his dark eyes shining in the night and then he turned and began to walk away.

Those aren't safe for you to keep, you know!

The thief's sure pronouncement echoed off the brick around them.

I'm not keeping them

The thief jumped to his feet and ran after the mugger. He grabbed the mugger's shoulder and spun him so they were face to face.

What are you going to do with them?

I'm going to put them back.

You can't.

You had no right to take them.

Someone had to save them, that building is condemned. If we don't keep them safe they'll be lost forever.

They're in the building for a reason. It's where they belong. And there's a chance we can save everything but not like this.

This is the only way.

No, it's not.

Do you have a better idea?

Yes, I do.

What is it?

We leave it alone. Taking it apart before we need to isn't going to work.

I know that, that's why I'm trying to work with what I've been given, Ben.

Then try something else, Sam!

And he took off, back toward the building, back to return the memories to their places. To file them away in their locked cabinets in the locked room at the end of the hall where they would be safe. No one was in a rush to get the building torn down, structurally it was safe. He was fine with continuing to live on borrowed time as long as there was no more pain for her.

He got to the top of the fire escape only to find the window open. He entered and walked to the first door with the broken pane. It was open. He went in and sat down on the floor and opened the drawer closest to him and began to sort through the paper.

It would be a long night, but he would stay until everything was returned to its rightful place.

*****************

The sun had risen high in the sky when he stood and stretched, arms to the ceiling as his stomach rumbled with hunger. The mugger surveyed the room and smiled to himself. Job well done, he thought.

He called out loud, his voice jagged and hoarse,

It's finished. You're okay. You're safe now. I will watch over you.

He didn't hear a response.

The door opened and he turned, surprised. When he went out into the hall, he found that the building had changed. It was full, offices were bustling, elevator floors were being rung, printers buzzed, coffee was carried to desks in busy arms full of important business, and the building seemed new again. The floor was different, the scratched and faded covering replaced with muted grey carpet to keep the noise down. To his surprise, the window in the door was intact, frosted glass masking the contents but allowing the light into the hall.

His smile was a little unsure now, as he tried to blend in, casually walking toward the elevator noises. He got to the center of the floor and realized he knew a lot of the people working here. People nodded to him, a few squeezed his shoulder. One man, dressed in an expensive suit, came forward to shake his hand and thanked him for saving the building, because there was a lot of work to be done here and it was an important place and that the mugger was going to be very happy living and working here.

He nodded, saying nothing, as the realization began to sink in. He didn't have to save it alone, but neither did the thief have to tear it apart to save what he could. Everyone would work together.

That realization was fleeting, dashed to pieces as he got to the main floor lobby and saw cracks sealing themselves as he walked across the floor.

No, it wasn't everybody.

It was the building. It was healing itself. They only had to help. The doors to that room didn't have to stay locked now. The building was full of light and it had purpose.

He sucked in his breath and smiled.

Bridget wasn't a lost cause after all. He always knew that though, it was a risk he was glad he took. Even if he had to pretend to be the bad guy sometimes.

Part Two: The Memory Thief.

As abruptly as the screaming had begun, it stopped.

The lights began to go out, in the reverse order that they were turned on, he could hear the heavy clunk of the switches shutting down one after another, quicker now until the building was once again steeped in blackness. This quiet darkness was worse than before, after the calamity in the room, the only sound now his harsh breathing and the feather-light sweeping swish of the last few pieces of paper sliding off open drawers to the floor.

The door slamming shut broke the silence.

He reached down to the floor, scooped up a handful of the papers, and smoothed them into a neat stack. He worked methodically through the night, gathering hundreds of them in his arms and bringing them to the space in the middle of the floor where a pile grew. Once he was sure he had every last one, he wrapped the stack in his coat and tucked the bundle securely under his arm.

The door wouldn't open.

He waited for a few heartbeats in the room, standing motionless before finally taking a deep breath and talking softly.

Open the door, please.

He heard laughter all around him.

Open the door now, please.

More laughter, and the doorknob rattled violently.

Please?

Everything stopped.

The door opened slowly, as wide as it could go and the a single word reverberated through his skull as it echoed through the empty building.

NO!

The door slammed shut again.

He walked to the door and tried the knob gingerly. There was no resistance as he turned it and he opened it again and looked both ways down the long hallway. There was nothing to see in the darkness and so he took a step out. He walked purposefully back to the window at the end of the hall, the same way he had come in and stepped out, back onto the rusted fire escape to make his way back to street-level.

He thought he could hear the faint sound of someone crying, softly like they didn't want anyone to hear. He shook his head as the sound was carried away on the wind and descended the stairs slowly and carefully until he reached the bottom, stepping off onto the wet pavement into the deserted alley.

He broke into a run.

Part One: The Memory Thief.

He slipped in during closing, when no one was watching, sliding a leg down through the open window and finding easy purchase on the highly polished wooden floor. He walked carefully down the dim hallway, avoiding the boards that might creak under his weight and then froze at the first door, silent and still.

Was someone coming?

He held his breath and waited.

No, there was no one there. It must have been the wind. Or the building. Sometimes buildings settle and make noises that only seem to be important when it's getting dark outside. Filling his lungs with air again he pressed on, trying the first door and finding it locked.

He moved on.

After several frustrating minutes he came to the conclusion that all the doors seemed to be locked and so he circled back to the first door, the one closest to the window at the end of the now-dark hall. It appeared to have a rather flimsy doorknob lock in a door that was half-glass, a large window set into it, single-paned, rippled with age.

Doable, he thought.

He took one last look around, just to reassure himself that he was indeed alone.

He covered his eyes with one arm and put his fist through the glass.

It shattered all around him in a deafening crash and he tore his arm away from his face to check again to see if anyone was watching him. The hallway remain deserted but now an alarm was ringing somewhere, deep within the building. He looked at his hand, watching as the blood ran down his knuckles and dripped off the edge of his palm. Any other time he would have been hypnotized by his injuries but he knew he didn't have a moment to waste now that the alarm had been triggered.

He reached through the window and unlocked the door from the inside, throwing it wide open. The door slammed against something on the inside, ricocheting back into his face. He kicked it open again before it struck him and threw himself through the doorway.

Inside he took a quick inventory of the room. There was a small window on the opposite wall that afforded better lighting than what was now in the hall and as he surveyed his surroundings he saw the room contained only a row of wooden file cabinets on each side, their drawers neatly labeled in her modern handwriting, a distinctive blend of capital letters and loopy lowercase, easy to read and impossible to duplicate.

He crossed the room with purpose now, and with rage roiling through his veins he began to rip the drawers out of the cabinets, two at a time, letting the contents fly around the room in a paper blizzard, a storm no one would ever want to be caught in. The beginnings of an evil smile began to tug the corners of his mouth upward and he started to laugh as all the lights began to come on, one by one down the hallway and then the room he was in was suddenly bathed in the harsh fluorescent light of day even though the day was long over.

And that was when the alarm stopped ringing and the screaming began.

And though it may cost my soul
I'll sing for free

Jacob, you're hilarious.

Really. This whole saving-Ben thing as a way for me to save myself is...well, it's genius. Fine line between love and hate, indeed. It's the exact same way I feel about you. Loving you desperately and hating your guts at the same time for breaking every last promise you ever made to me.

I kept mine to you. I'm still here. Still fighting my way uphill. Still making so much progress, finding footholds and grabbing weeds to pull myself along and then hitting a soft part and sliding halfway back down, screaming and cursing the whole way.

I've been hot and cold, cold cold cold, hot, cold and never in-between. I've been face-down in my own agony and floating on clouds I think I self-generated. I've known love and loss and more pain than death and still I have your stupid unrealistic, unwarranted hope.

Why is that?

Why, indeed.

I don't know. Say God if you will, if that works for you. Days like this where I can wake up and nothing much is different and the inside of my head is still a shambles and a shame too and yet I'm smiling.

It's got to be the mark of true insanity.

Miles to go.

I saw your light once
Did you see mine?
But not all things will pass away
You turned your light off
So I turned mine away from your sadness,
Away from the nothing that you feel for me

My run this morning was cold because of more than just the weather. Temperature-wise it was almost perfect. Cool enough to keep my sweat cold but warm enough to strip down to a t-shirt three kilometres in and I could take my jacket off and tie it securely around my waist which gives me a slight wobble when I run and gave Lochlan pause to assume it meant I was open and ready to talk.

I wasn't.

If I wanted to talk about Ben's drinking problem I would just talk about it instead of writing about it and then logging off, closing the browser window and walking away from it so I can see if he needs anything, pretending that it doesn't bother me when he retreats into himself, as if his pain is that much greater that he can't crawl out of himself long enough to let me help him. I want to help him, I just never know what to do because nothing works and so I just hover on the fringe of his life like a bumblebee around a garden full of wild flowers.

Loch flew out yesterday because in the brief span between the total blackout and brief, tentative sobriety Ben asked me to stop. Just stop everything. Stop letting everyone run our lives, stop letting them interfere, stop taking medications that barely work and therapies that merely spread the pain around, keeping it in the forefront and just let us be. Let us be in love, let us learn how to be happy, let us just do family things and smile more and not let the ghosts win. Not let the past be the Most Important Thing.

But then he would slip again and the snarl would return and he no longer wanted to talk or do anything except disappear and pour more liquid on his flames to try and make it stop hurting so much.

He was angry that I told people. Because I need help with this. I've never been married to an alcoholic before. I've never been married to Ben before. When we were friends, I could never understand how he made himself so easily loved and hated all at the same time. When we got married I expect that to change and it didn't.

I spent last evening following him around and watching as he turned all of our friends away. While he tried to lock down our lives even though at this point we're forced to play them out to a group vote based on the choices we've made, based on my needs to not isolate myself from more objective sources that I trust. As fast as he could turn them away, I would call them and reassure them that I was humoring his outbursts, that we are okay, and someday we might be more than okay but for today just please, please keep the peace and stay away from him so that he doesn't hurt you.

He had a few kind words for the kids, but they know and they look at me as if I make choices that will ruin their lives because they're old enough to pass judgement and they're old enough to know a total breakdown in willpower when they see it. The fragments of broken promises all over the floor was a dead giveaway.

And so I used my hearing loss as a convenient excuse not to talk to Lochlan while we ran, but just to churn the distance under my legs until I could turn despair into determination and Loch didn't have to do any convincing anyway.

I had an appointment booked this morning for therapy and I just got home from it. Just now.

It was watching Ben that convinced me not to stop. It was so much like looking in a mirror that I have no choice but to keep going forward, keep letting people in who can help me, keep going to therapy and keep taking medications that make me shake and have nightmares because for god's sake, I don't want anyone to ever look at me like I looked at him last evening. Maybe they already do and that's why I had to break one promise to keep a million others.

I was really hoping he was stronger so I don't have to be so hard. Or so cold, maybe.

Fade like a played-out song.

We come to find
What we take for granted
Keeps us alive in the end

So don't let time
Leave you empty handed
Reach out tonight and make amends

What's different is nothing. We're on a long play record and the needle is stuck in the middle, grating across the grooves in a hiss of static and the wailing guitar notes have dissipated into thin air.

In this house misery loves company. She waltzes across the wooden floor and reaches her arms out to embrace him and company, well, he comes back for more, always. He does whatever he must to put forth a show of strength and no matter how flimsy he feels he keeps coming back for more.

And every now and then someone will bump the record player and we all get to hear a little more of our song, but really, this thing is never going to work right.

Objectified.

I'm incredibly mindful today of the fact that my mind has waged a mostly successful mutiny against my brain and they are currently engaged in a fierce struggle for victory. I used to think that my mind was stronger, obviously because it always seemed to come out ahead, but lately I find myself rooting for my brain to win and take back control of the things it is supposed to be in charge of.

I'm not sure if it will and so I watch with interest and more than a little curiosity because it's a rare gift, a day in which I see it taking place from the outside instead of from my usual position between the two.

Faster, pussycat.

There's something to be said for being good to yourself. It's one of the things that should come first, but in my life has always come last. First comes trying to be the best wife and mother that I can. Second comes trying to be a good friend. Third comes taking care of this giant house and all of the things that involves. So I come in fourth, in my brain, in the grand scheme of things when it comes to treating myself.

Lately I've been holding the line, enduring stress, keeping it together while we go through Ben's traveling, double-stacked therapy and grief counseling, medication, changing seasons and whatever else you can throw at me. Well, what I mean is I'm keeping it together as well I always have, which isn't great but believe it or not it's been better.

Yesterday I got a little overwhelmed and lost it completely. Somewhere across the late afternoon I fell apart and couldn't pull my pieces back to resemble any bit of Bridget whatsoever.

And Ben stopped pretending I was fine on my own.

He gathered me up into his arms and took me upstairs for a three-hour nap. In his arms. Held tight. He woke me up in time to read to the children and get them into bed and then he made us some dinner and we ate on the living room floor in front of the fire, not talking much at all, just being. Just being good to ourselves. Food, fire, rest. Comfort. Closeness.

I'm not here reporting on any changes to my grand plans or any epiphanies. Therapy with the new doctor will continue, albeit I get tomorrow off. Grief classes with Sam will continue tomorrow. Medication will continue. Autumn will officially arrive on Monday whether I like it or not. Life keeps going on around me and in spite of me. I just need to remember to stop and be good to myself here and there and take time to do quiet things like sit by the fire, nap when I'm low on sleep and hold Ben, since I don't see him enough and can't get enough of him besides.

It seems so easy to forget about those things when I'm so busy trying to be a fully-functioning human. The definition of which I do believe I got wrong. It has nothing to do with keeping moving. Not at all.

Fall for me.

We're great in small doses
I pronounce it.
You're satisfied loving me.
You're so proud of yourself and your disadvantage to me.
It's just something you love to say (and hear that you're uncommon).
The greater the dosage makes me mispronounce it to be.
You're dead inside of me.
You're dead inside of me.
But when you're alone.
And no one knows.
It doesn't seem to matter.
You're the same inside of me.

Outside this house the last of the cherry tomatoes are ripening on their vines, while the leaves scatter haphazardly across the stones and thread their way through the grass. The toys have been put away and a rake leans up against the wall beside the garage door, ready to do duty against the coming autumn winds. The skies are dark, overcast and grey, full of clouds that herald the colder air.

Inside this house the air is equally cold sometimes, our emotions scattered like the leaves, pills and therapies leaning up against the door like a rake to clean everything up, only we're never sure if we should use it as the leaves appear or wait until everything falls down and the trees are bare. Do it once, do it big.

That doesn't seem to work. None of it works and last night saw magnificent change once again as I was halfway to the airport in spirit. I swear I didn't want to go, I just thought Run, Bridget, run! But at the last moment we discovered a new kind of balance somewhere in the middle, somewhere between Ben's earlier attempts to do nothing at all in fear of being compared to Jacob and Jacob's ways altogether. Instead Ben found a Cole-balance. One that always worked, no matter what. The leaves always got raked and it was never a bit at a time or all at once, it was the just the usual magic that worked for Cole and worked for everyone else too and now it appears to be working for Ben.

We've had more than our share of struggles with this, with everything, with trying and failing to adjust to him leaving and coming home and being here versus being away and we seem to have picked perpetual fall to live in, with the leaves needing to be picked up all the time, but they never stop dropping. They block out the sun, there's so much here to gather but we rarely make headway.

It's a big yard.

We made some headway last night. We made a lot of headway. We figured out a great way to stay ahead of those falling leaves, just in time.

If there's one good thing about living in endless Autumn, it's that winter will never come.