High notes.

If you could do anything this weekend, what would it be?

Hug.

Seriously.

Hug.

Bridget, you're impossible.

Oh, now you're making me sad. Can I have a hug?

Sure, I'll be home tonight.

Are you serious?

Yes.

Yay! So why did you ask me what I wanted to do?

Well, I could have gotten us tickets to the Coney Island freakshow and I was waiting for you to say "See a freakshow." when I asked what you wanted to do. Then when you did, I would have said "Well, I just happen to have tickets to one." and then you would have laughed and it would have been cool but it didn't work and now I just have to be witty and cool with no material to work with.

Oh, see, now, someone REALLY NEEDS a hug. Come home, I have lots.

Then why did you say you needed one?

I don't like my own, silly. Only ones from other people.

Mourning routine.

Morning comes so early as I open my watercolored green eyes to greet almost complete darkness, still, at this hour.

I don't need an alarm anymore, I have trained myself to wake up just before my nightmare hour and so the house rests silent and still, cats and children, two to a bed, slumbering through the final few hours before their own days begin. I turn over onto my stomach and grope for my hearing aids, popping in the right one first and then the left, since my right ear is worse, though that is a myth, both ears share the same degree of loss.

I crawl out of bed and pull on the pink flannel bottoms that I discarded to the floor the night before. They seem to go well with Ben's faded black Affliction t-shirt that has become my security blanket when he is away. I sit up slowly and take a sip from the enamel mug on the nightside table. Both the mug and the table are dressed in chipped white paint and heavy use. I'm not sure I won't get lead poisoning from either one, eventually. I make a face at no one at the taste of warm orange juice and stand up, stretching my arms high above my head, then combing my hair away from my eyes in an impatient and often-repeated gesture. I grab my phone off the table and wish for faster nightfall already. First.

I check the kids, finding their lumps under heated blankets where I last safely left them, smaller furry lumps at the foot of each bed that purring greetings on guard and I back away down the hall, turning and heading for the steps, bare feet already sure of where the worst creaks of the wooden floor lie and moving to avoid them.

When I enter the kitchen I push on the ancient ceiling light, a beautiful embellished glass dome that I can't bear to remove, and the harsh glow flickers on full after a two-second hesitation. I squint at the sudden intrusion to the relative peace of the dark and then the phone rings in my hand, a buzzing irritant, a life saver, and I jump ten feet on the inside, disordering my brain and loosening my teeth.

I jab the answer button and Benjamin's voice floods into my skull, soft words to greet me, to confirm his missing us, to repeat his love from so far away. He has a pattern. Ensure that everything is alright and then detract from my plans, needing confirmation I won't step outside alone in the dark, wanting to close the space between us with more than our imaginations for resource.

We fail and say goodbye and then I blow him an invisible kiss, two fingers pressed against my lips and my eyes water up inevitably because I miss him too but I didn't tell him and I always wonder if he knows.

I wonder if he knows me as well as he likes to think he does. I let thoughts roll through my head as I absently butter the inside of the egg coddlers, one for me, one for PJ. I need to eat something before I run or I have a tendency to falter and fight against rubbery legs. I fish two pieces of wholewheat bread out of the bag in the fridge and feed them to the slots on the toaster and then I hear the gentle alarm beep and see the light flicker in the hall to let me know PJ just opened the back door. He and John enter wordlessly, and I get a cheek-kiss from each one before they settle into their customary habits, John starting coffee, PJ checking the eggs to see if they're ready yet. I won't drink coffee before running (it makes me have to pee. A lot.).

We eat quietly, the boys hear Ben's update and add their own to the patchwork of current news within our circle and then just as the sun begins to rise at last, John pours his coffee and heads to the den to read the newspaper and keep watch over the house while I creep back upstairs to get into my running gear.

Within five minutes PJ and I are out the front door and pacing down the deserted sidewalk. Me fifteen yards ahead, music spooling into my head to set the pace. PJ catches up, my own large human shadow working to keep his long strides in check so he doesn't leave me far behind. I could run flat out and I would never be able to keep up with his legs.

This is the easy part of the run. We don't talk, we just listen to music, check for each other and measure our own breath. Within twenty minutes PJ will begin to complain quietly and suggest turnarounds every six minutes. I ignore him until I get the message from my endorphins that I am high and can go home now. It usually happens fifty minutes in now. I could get it faster if I were in better condition.

That makes me laugh. I'm like a used car for sale. Hidden corrosion and the engine is seized but otherwise you would never know by looking. I think I can outrun my problems and they're waiting for me upon my return or I can wallow in them just to feel every last drop of agony, thinking full immersion might help me mover forward and instead when my head clears I've lost more ground than I expected and have to start over.

Par for the course.

Fuck you, this isn't golf. This isn't a game and I resent that you would compare it to one.

Bridget, you take things too seriously.

Someone has to or it all falls apart.

What are you talking about?

If I forget where I've been or what I've been through bad things happen. The absolute second I begin to take things for granted or relax and enjoy life something bad happens. It's always been that way.

You're imagining things.

No, I can imagine a lot, but usually good things. This is everything else. All the bad things that can go wrong. It's like my life is somehow the one that is all wrong and so there's no grace to guide it.

You sound like me now.

I listened you know. I always thought it might help, that maybe if I tried harder to believe in things and just coast like everyone else seems to, that things would change. Instead things got worse.

It wasn't you, you know.

It's always me, Jake. Always.

PJ cuts off my conversation there as he takes my elbow to signal that we're doing a turnaround so we can head back toward the house. We make the loop on the other side of the river and I can see the wooden benches with their bronze plaques wedged into the ice like ships in the arctic ocean and I press my fingers to my lips and then force myself to abandon a kiss to the wind, hoping it makes it across and will be divided equally. My eyes fill up, burning now and I grab PJ's arm for stability for just a second and then the world clears and I take the lead again.

We fly soundlessly down the sidewalk, following our well-worn but invisible path back to the big house in the middle of a block of like-houses, the gingerbread shrouded in the pre-dawn darkness. I stop just in front of the iron gate and look around, a new habit of taking in the unfamiliar street that I've only lived on for three years, and I listen. I listen for the noises that begin to creep in around the morning. Maybe a bird, maybe sirens far off in the distance. Maybe cars idling down the block.

Maybe Jacob, still whispering things to me long after I've stopped listening.

Bright boys.

Baby, baby, baby, when all your love is gone
Who will save me from all I'm up against out in this world
And maybe, maybe, maybe
You'll find something that's enough to keep you
But if the bright lights don't receive you
You should turn yourself around and come on home

Lochlan confirmed this morning what I've suspected for a quite a while now. All the boys are losing it and I'm doing really quite well now.

YES.

Well, if you don't count that I seem to have these drawn-out, hilariously long and convoluted conversations with Cole, but I don't see that as being any different from when the boys talk to me under their breath where they know for sure I won't hear them but then they can say they did talk to me later when a point comes into question.

I'm onto them. They think I'm in the dark all the time, they have no idea every now and then I sneak down the hall toward the light and hang out for a little while, just listening and biting my lip so I don't make a sound, warming myself in the sun before returning to the hole my head lives in.

Now the rest of this day I am crossing my fingers that Andrew comes home with a date. He went with Henry's class on their field trip. With Henry's young, pretty and very single teacher.

I'm going to fix up Lochlan next.

Oh, be quiet already.

Lochlan is here, because for some reason April is just too damn far away for him. Because for some reason he happens to be smart enough to understand better than anyone when Ben is being too much like Cole and when Bridget is being too much like Bridget. Ha. God help us all.

I hate that he freelances. It's just far too easy for him to come and save the day.

Running all of it past Cole.

Bridget, would you just stop? Enough already.

What do you want?

I want you to get a grip. Jesus, he's going to cling to you even more than you do to him. I don't know who is more pathetic but it'll work if you stop trying to throw everything you can reach at it.

How do you expect me to do that?

Revert back. Reign it back in. You want to be like everyone else? Well, everyone else wants to be just like you. Go back to your sweet submissiveness, baby.

It didn't work.

Oh, like hell it didn't. Think about it for a moment.

You don't know me anymore.

Still better than anyone. Don't you kid yourself.

It won't work. It didn't work. I couldn't do it. I lost it.

I lost sight of your impulsiveness, that's all, baby. I let go just a little and I dropped you. I'm sorry.

You're not sorry. You think this is funny.

No, it isn't funny. I fucked up, baby. But there's only one thing I have left to tell you and then I'm gone. It's too crowded in here in your sweet little head. I need space and time.

What is it?

He's just like me, Bridge. I'm glad you're safe now.

Safe was a joke with you, Cole.

No, Jacob was a joke, Bridget. He was an illusion. Sure he was a good man and he lived admirably and all that shit but at the end of the day he was more fragile than you are and look what happened. I could have warned you. I wanted you to be so happy. I couldn't make you happy and I tried to overlook his problems and let you alone and I failed you.

You never wanted me to be happy.

Bridget, I wasn't smart enough to control myself when it came to you. None of us are. When are you ever going to get that through your head?

So now what?

Stop overthinking things. Watch a bunch of movies, dote on the kids and wait for Ben to come back. Forgive Ben for his issues. Get on with your life. You're driving me fucking crazy here. Everything is okay now. Accept it and live, for once. In the present. You guys will figure it out sooner rather than later.

I know.

Don't know. Just do.

Yeah.

Fucking finally. I love you so much. Be happy for once.

How do I help him be strong?

Be happy, Bridget. That's all it ever takes. If you're strong, he'll draw that from you. There's nothing else to it.

Were you always so strong?

Never. I knew I took that happiness from you and squandered it. I'm so sorry, Bridget.

Well, I win, because now you're dead.

Or maybe I win, because you're still a beautiful fucking mess.

Price of admission.

Shortly after I wrote in my journal Jacob and I made a late dinner. Quietly, resolutely we ate together. The suffocating disappointment of Friday's outcome still hanging over our heads made things tense, an unwelcome feeling for me now. Halfway through the meal I looked up only to discover Jacob was sitting there making silly faces at me. I laughed so hard. We made up. Okay, not exactly true. We made up in his dining room chair in various states of undress because going upstairs would have taken too long.

Here's where I point out when he was unzipping my dress he heard a creak. I told him it must be the cat. We continued on. That chair was fun.

Until we decided to return from heaven and we both saw Ben standing in the doorway watching us. Leaning in the doorway, because he had been standing there for a good ten minutes taking in the flesh-for-fantasy lottery. He struck Bridget gold. He saw everything. All of it.

Most people would have been embarrassed and left hastily. Ben? He stayed to watch the show. Which pretty much destroyed the already shaky ground he occupied in Jacob's good graces, because Jake hated the offhand comments Ben would make at any given opportunity. Or the lingering looks if my strap slid or the wind swirled my skirt. Jake always said that Cole and Ben were likeminded individuals.

That's part of an entry from June of 2006 published here once upon a time and now offline with the rest of my archives because I have paranoid tendencies for such a public journaler.

There are moments in life that haunt me and I am not the only one. For Ben there are two moments in our history that he would like to permanently alter and this is one of them, told to me in a waterfall confession of tears and frustration and utter despair. This one moment where he says he stood in that doorway and he simply couldn't move. He knew it was wrong and he knew he was't welcome and he was frozen to his place while his head went off-leash. He stood there and burned me to his memory forever, every last detail of what I looked like in the throes of bliss because he wanted to be the one making that memory.

This weekend he tried to take that memory from me and I won't allow it. Not to be a dealbreaker, instead he thinks he'll wear me down and he doesn't seem to hear me when I tell him he can't because the walls around those memories aren't wooden, they're forged steel and he can't make them into matchsticks, he'll only get hurt fighting to dent or scratch them.

He will get hurt and I can stand in front of him and block his path and put forth a courage I don't think I can back up but it won't serve to do anything more than make me realize that for all his reminders to live in the moment, to just be, he isn't doing it either. He is not taking his own advice and half the time, I really don't know what to do with Ben. I wouldn't hurt him, really I wouldn't, but that one moment he can't take.

There's no making up, either. In a few hours he's on a plane back to work and we have to just leave it swinging between us, dropped on both sides because we can't get around it so we'll have to resort to stepping over or ducking under for a while to come.

Makes me sad, you know. It makes me sad to think that after all this death and all this crap we've gone through, he could still be so sickeningly jealous of a ghost.

Take warning.

Inevitably ownership issues take over us all. There's no way to avoid it. You get tired of being generous. You grow weary of making allowances and having patience. You become frustrated when the memories fail to be remade in your image.

Forcing the issue will backfire. You know this and you do it anyway. I would too but I know the outcome. I'm sorry. It's been done before and there are certain places where you will walk where the grass grows tall, unbroken from being trespassed and never trampled as your path before but there will also be places where you'll weave back over onto the softer earth where the grass no longer grows at all, it's been flattened by so many steps. Looking ahead, there is no other way. You have to go that way. You just simply have to.

I don't have enough of my own strength to remind you of much more than this, for you KNOW all of this and all I can do is quietly speak to you of this inadequate analogy of a well-worn path and hope the hell you can figure out the rest before you do or say things you might regret only when you're far away and can't undo the damage.

I don't have enough courage to overlook the difficulty of your head not being here because your heart has no direction and no authority and you really just need to stop this and just hold on to what's here right now in this moment and let the other ones go.

Please. Just please.

Red covered Ordinary World.

Pride's gone out the window
Cross the rooftops
Run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart

I woke up this morning wrapped almost twice in Ben's t-shirt. The one he wore yesterday.

Daniel called yesterday afternoon and said not to pick him up at the airport, that he had a few errands to run and he would be here around suppertime. He was indeed, sporting a genetically-matched shadow by the name of Benjamin, who arrived in the kitchen with orchids and a singing balloon, just in time for Valentine's Day.

A big cheesy smile paired with a big cheesy beautiful heart-shaped helium balloon that said Still the one and played a song to match the words. What a riot. I wasn't expecting him but since it's a holiday weekend he is all ours until Tuesday morning.

I love that he did that. I love that he knew I was getting fluttery and tired and homesick. I love that he defied instructions not to break his concentration and not to be trying to wear a steady path back and forth, wasting time when there is work to be done. I love that he needs me and he knows when I need him most. I love that he's sometimes very openly cheesy and sweet under all that focused intensity.

I love that he's here. He said this morning that he loves that I'm here. And now if you'll excuse us, we're off to spend a day attempting to resemble human velcro. Ciao.

(Title today is related to this, go listen and forgive us for still being big fans of Duran Duran. Some things can't be helped. Yes, I'll go look now for my credibility, lodged somewhere on the CD shelf between Cannibal Corpse and Tool.)

Vintage candy and the princess of persuasion.

I've been walking this road for far too long
To turn and walk away
I've been walking this road for far too long
Listen to what I say

Ben called them expiry dates, the final few nights before he flew out in which we would plan special dinners, movies, long walks, long talks, whatever we could come up with that would qualify as time together alone, stocking up so that we would each have enough to live on until he comes back at the end of the month.

So far so good.

(Good being subjective to whatever constraints you want to stand around that word, barricades against turning this day into one that is half-empty.)

I got an early Valentine's Day gift. Daniel will be home tonight and so I can send home the lumberjack (John) and replace him with my fairy godmother. Which makes me infinitely happy because Daniel is as close as Ben ever was and he calms me down and he keeps things light. John is so serious. (I still love you though, LoJack).

Daniel already called ahead and asked me to keep the afternoon clear tomorrow and we would take the kids skating at the rink with all of the old people while they blast static-Elvis through the loudspeaker and everyone must move briskly clockwise. Then he wants to shop for chocolates at 6 pm because they'll be on sale and most definitely from last year. Stale. There's a lifetime contest on to see who can bite into the most petrified ancient chocolate and live to tell about it.

So my hands may be fluttery today and this week I've taken up an old habit of listening to one song over and over again until I can hardly stand it but for now we stand at half-full with hopes of a refill even.

And I can't wait until Ben comes home so we can work on the best before dates.

Samwise.

Fading
It's over now
(Don't you know it's over now?)
Over now
(You know it's over now)
Fading
(Some kind of big surprise)
Fading out
(Don't you know your world is burning down?)
Burning down
(Your world is burning down)

I met Sam for an early breakfast this morning, a substitution for a run on a cold, snowy morning. His request, not mine, though I grew increasingly confused as he lingered over coffee, firing question after gentle question at me. How am I doing? How is Ben? Is everything okay with him gone? Is Caleb minding his boundaries? Have I talked to Lochlan? Is Seth reporting success on the away front as well? How am I really doing? How are the kids dealing with Ben being away? When does Daniel arrive?

And on and on and on until we ran out of taste for coffee and I reverted to one-word answers to try and subtley point out the elephant, that I wasn't going to bring up, so help me God, because I knew eventually Sam would for both of us. I didn't have to wait forever.

PJ is right, you know.

How's that?

You're an easy target, Bridget.

Because they saw me at the church?

No, you've always been an easy target. Ever since you left Cole. It started then. Jacob said they were relentless.

Sometimes they were.

Possbly more than you realize, Bridget. There were several who tried, at the time, to perpetuate rumors just to hurt you. Things about Jacob that weren't true.

Who? What are you talking about?

Jacob spent half his time doing damage control, trying to shut off the rumor mill before it could do harm to you. That's when he began his policy of open-door meetings and witnesses, to prevent any later misunderstandings. So many women had their eyes on him and wanted to make trouble for you.

I know. I find it funny, you saying it now.

No, it's really not, Bridget. But no matter what people say or do, they don't know and at the end of the day everyone will take what they say with a healthy degree of skepticism, I promise you that. No one is out to get you or me, just keep that in mind.

I don't care about them, I only care about you and Lisabeth. How is she?

Sad. We're both sad. But you had no part in this, short of warning us a long time ago that the church took up a lot of time. If only I had realized how right you were then. That was only part of a larger problem though. There's no single event that caused this.

I'm so sorry this is happening to you.

I'm sorry it's happening to you, too.

Don't worry about me, Sam.

I will always worry for you, Bridget.

I have been nothing but trouble for you.

You're not half as awful as you think you are. If you were I never would have kept the promise I made to Ja-

Oh, Sam. You didn't.

I didn't know with any certainty, Bridget. I suspected for a long time that he wasn't doing well, and he wouldn't get the right kind of help, the kind he sorely needed. His only concern was for you and the kids. That we look after you, together, all of us. That's why it doesn't matter what anyone thinks. It's why we don't care what anyone thinks.

What did I ever do to deserve this, Sam? What makes you all stick around for me? Tell me, because I don't get it.

I don't know, Bridget. I really don't. It's a different sort of faith, that's for certain.

So we are a cult now.

Pretty much.

Does this mean we can be pol-

Oh, don't even start with that today, okay?

I was kidding, Sam.

Yes, I know. But sometimes I wonder about you anyway, Miss Fidget.