And you wonder why we struggle so.

Look at the ground look at the ground look at the ground.

I flick the mental metronome and start to count along.

Look at the ground look at the ground look at the all of the sudden his eyelashes flicker and he slowly raises his eyes to meet mine. Mine are glassy, dripping with hot, panicked tears. The corners of my mouth are caked with cotton candy and I still have the five dollar bill clutched in my hand that he gave me for the hot dogs we're not going to get now. The ones he asked me to get so he would have time to leave.

What did you do, Lochlan?

Nothing, Bridget. Don't worry about it. We need to go.

What did you do? Tell me.

Is there anything you need from the camper?

My sweater.

Here, take mine. And if anyone asks you, make up a name.

Make up a-what's going on?

Let's go.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me around, practically running. We make it to the truck and he opens my door and lifts me up, shoving me in at the same time and I feel my hair brush the doorframe. A hair's breadth away from being knocked out but I land safely on the seat and scramble to launch toward his door to open it. Only I don't know what the rush is for. Maybe he has seen a ghost. Maybe he's robbed someone. I just know that Lochlan is never scared of anything unless it concerns me and so I do what I am told.

One minute I am reading his letter telling me to go away, go home, go to school, be a good girl and the next minute I am his only possession worth taking in an emergency.

Well, that's kind of thrilling in itself but I'm afraid because he's afraid so it's not something I can dissect enough to feed to my ego. Not now, maybe later.

He stomps on the gas and the truck spins in the dirt, spraying gravel all over the trailer. It screams to life and suddenly we are jolting along at a hundred and thirty miles an hour on the packed dirt road, full of potholes and I scramble back over to my own side and grab my seatbelt. It's that or go through the windshield and I'm twelve so I had my whole life ahead of me up until this point or so I think because I don't know what we're running from. We turn onto the highway and drive the wrong way. Inland. I have never gone this way before.

I'm so sorry, Bridget. I thought it was you. I should have known better. Dammit! I should have KNOWN it wasn't your fault.

But it was. I didn't mean for it to happen.

It's my fault. I left you alone too long. I'll never forgive myself. I'm so sorry, baby.

So why are we leaving? That's family you're taking us away from!

Those people are not your family, Bridget.

He yanked the wheel and the truck veered dangerous across two lanes and skidded to a halt on the shoulder of the highway. He throws his arm out reflexively to block me as I lurch toward the dashboard, the seatbelt all but useless the way he is driving. We're far enough away now. It's dark out and Lochlan hates night driving. Maybe I can reason with him and we can go home, back to our cozy little camper. To sleep. Maybe get our food first. I'm hungry. I'm always so hungry. We don't get enough to eat and my stomach growls loudly and Lochlan hears it and rests his head on the steering wheel, helpless. I know he wants to cry but he's being strong because I'm not.

Bridget, listen to me.

I lean in and listen very closely. Lochlan talks low, quietly and he is difficult to hear with the trucks rumbling past us, shaking our seats, rattling the windows. I listen and my eyes grow wide and suddenly I understand everything that has made him afraid and I am glad we are away from there.

But what about the letter?

Pretend you never saw it. I thought I was protecting you by leaving you behind and I was wrong.

So now what?

Now? Easy. We find a different midway. Maybe go to Ontario. And I never let you out of my sight again.

For how long though?

The rest of your life. I'm your family now, Bridget. And I will watch over you until the day I die.

Quick before the vision goes away.

You know it's summer when the boys are all hanging out in the backyard wearing their utilikilts and holding plates loaded with meat. I've always enjoyed July but this just makes it completely worthwhile.

There are no mosquitoes here either. That helps.

A lot, Ben says.

Snort.

Torpor torpedo girl.

Keith is a little bit like Ben. As fast as I can empty blueberry muffins out of the pans, he is eating them. But his hands are covered with black grease from one of the motorcycles and besides, these aren't all for him. I wave my oven mitts at him.

Stop it. Stop it right now.

You're the best cook, Bridget.

Thanks but flattery won't get you any extra muffins today, Keith.

I can pay you for them.

Your money isn't any good here. At least wait until tonight when everyone has had some and then see what's left okay?

Sorry.

Don't be. They're muffins, not feelings.

He just looked at me strangely and headed back outside. I forget that my giant kitchen window overlooks the driveway three levels below and they can smell everything I'm making.

Duncan follows soon after, grabbing a muffin. Doesn't anyone ever wash their hands around here? Better yet, doesn't anyone ever ask if something is available before they just take it?

One, poet. These are for everyone, not just for lunch for you guys.

I can wait. I just wanted to see what you were doing.

Baking. Then mopping. Then laundry, then I'll take the kids to the park. Want to come?

Sure do. Want a ride on the bike first?

Tonight instead. Please?

Sure thing.

He wanders back outside and I leave the muffins cooling and go and pull out the bucket and the mop. Put the laundry in the dryer, mop the bathrooms and kitchen floors and organize dog and children (sunscreen/keys/bathroom visits/leash) and then we head out.

We're back twenty minutes later because the children started in on each other and because it's surprisingly hot for me today. Usually I don't mind but sometimes it's almost too much and I prefer to hide in the shade, lingering in cooler shadows while outside everything transpires slightly more slowly and with less patience than before.

Tonight when things cool down a bit I will switch into jeans and a big hoodie and Ben's jean jacket and a helmet and I'll climb onto the back of Duncan's motorcycle and we'll drive up to the top of the mountain and back down and we'll marvel at the wind and the beauty of the coast and then I'll come home and clean up supper and have a hot bath with Ben again and hopefully sleep. Hopefully, I say, because I can only get so far by myself and I tend to wake up after only a handful of hours.

Don't be sad for me though, I've been this way all of my life and I'm sure that had I ever been able to learn to sleep deeply I would be a devastating intellectual or some such fabulous creature instead of a chronically sleep-deprived unfunctional little human girl, writing down every last thing she needs to remember lest she become distracted and forget something. As if organization is some sort of hallmark of competency or some equally foolish conclusion.

No, seriously, that's how it is. And I have coffee and narcolepsy at hand presently as proof. You could argue with me, but frankly I'm too tired to care. At least everything is done, which means I can sleep.

But I can't sleep, and so on it goes.

Recent Proposal.

In honor of our first official BC Day, I've decided to throw a party.

Not a big huge bash, just a barbecue for about thirty people, more or less. A midsummer soiree. Jeans and beer. Steaks, burgers, corn. Chocolate cake. Sparklers. Because we are celebrating being here together, being on the coast again at last, and because there has been some quiet good fortune and luck mixed in with the usual bullshit so that's good enough and really I'm long overdue for a cocktail party that doesn't involve ten-million-dollar yachts and/or penthouses with forays into princess-trafficking if I may be so cheeky as to call it that.

Trust me.

Still, I invited the devil. I invited everyone and everyone can bring someone fun if they have someone. PJ has been sort of maybe seeing someone. Duncan likes a girl. Caleb is not permitted to bring anyone he has paid for or coerced, nor is Sophie invited so I'm betting he'll either fly away somewhere or show up alone. Children, dogs, neighbors and guitars have been summoned. Dalton will be home on Friday so it's perfect. I will charm Daniel and Benjamin into helping me make some potato salad and a million garlic rolls and sliced vegetables and fruits and assorted yummy things for a burger bar. We'll get some ice cream. BYOB for those who drink, Lemonade for those who don't. Lochlan will most likely stay in his wing and not show his face. That's fine. I've been sworn at all week long, I don't want to see him, frankly.

The boys can take turns at the grill. They're all good at things with meat and/or fire.

Har.

Last time I threw a party of this size I got married so it's been a little over two years and I don't really remember much about the day other than the looks of veiled shock on the faces of my family as I actually went through with something they never expected.

New-Jake and Keith will eat everything in sight. I am learning that about them. But they will also pitch in and carry things and clean up and get ready. One can mow the grass tomorrow and the other can set up the tables down by the vineyard gate. It's going to be beautiful here this weekend, so why not short notice? Why not come as you are?

Why not celebrate something instead of waiting for everything?

Of course, this will all be contingent on whether or not I murder Lochlan in his sleep tonight. We'll see how the next three days go, shall we?

How dare you say that my behavior is unacceptable
So condescending, unnecessarily critical
I have the tendency of getting very physical
So watch your step cause if I do you'll need a miracle

You drain me dry and make me wonder why I'm even here
This double vision I was seeing is finally clear
You want to stay but you know very well I want you gone
Not fit to fucking tread the ground that I'm walking on

When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love
You'll understand what I mean when I say
There's no way we're gonna give up
And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams
Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe

Trailer park notes.

Look what's out a little early. I cannot WAIT to see this.

Suckerpunch.

Enjoy and goodnight.

Four a.m. shadow.

Jacob smiles ruefully, tossing his head back to keep his waves out of his eyes. His hair is getting long again and I'm struck by the fact that I didn't realize this was possible in heaven. That his hair would grow. I say as much and he laughs bitterly.

This isn't heaven, pigalet.

I ignore that, because I know, and we don't talk about how I fail to release him, ever, because here he is closer. Here, I might get him back with a lick and a miracle.

What was the tequila for?

I hate it when they fight.

And the tequila helped end the fight?

Of course not.

Then you don't need it, Bridget.

Maybe I wanted it, Jake.

Don't use that stuff, princess.

Then come back and I won't have to.

I would if I could.

(hear that? That was the sound of my broken heart clattered down out of the cords and into the bottom of my soul again. THANKS A LOT, JAKE.)

How is Ben?

I'm fine, preacher.

Took you long enough to carry this through.

I had to do it my own way. I thought it would work but you were right.

Jake smiles, not in a superior way, just in a glad-it-all-worked-out way.

And Lochlan?

Angry.

I don't doubt it. Caleb?

You gotta ask, preacherman?

Bridget? How are you with all of this?

I don't know, Jake. Why don't you all ask each other how I am? Isn't that the way this works?

You're full of it this morning, princess.

It's temporary, Jake. Ben, not to be difficult but you make decisions and stick with them until the wind blows.

I stuck with you, didn't I?

That wasn't a choice, Benjamin, it was an inevitability.

Ben grins and sticks his tongue out at me to dissipate my sudden, unwarranted attitude. I melt and I can feel pieces of my heart climbing back up my insides and tack-welding themselves back together. It hurts and I wrap my arms around myself just in case I pass out. I hate it when he's disarmingly smug. It usually means it's followed by some wonderfully sweet moment that invariably finishes me where I stand.

I am not disappointed.

We stand there and smile at each other.

What a goof.

The angel of Patrick Wilson.

The fair was so much fun. I wanted to pet the baby goats and ride a few rides and eat cotton candy and not fry in the sun and I managed to cover all of my bases save for the part in my hair, which is pink and slightly tender, especially where Ben held the top of my head this morning as we woke up slowly.

I left my hair down yesterday and at one point wished I had put it up as I was whipped around over and over and my hair was flying out everywhere. Usually I put it up (okay, daily), not only for the heat but because it could become tangled and God forbid my untimely death occurs at a carnival because well, that would just be serendipity, wouldn't it?

Speaking of death,

Okay, maybe not yet.

Also good to make note for the larger carnival next month would be that cotton candy made on-site is better than bagged, imported cotton candy and that texting teenagers who fail to acknowledge you at the counter can ruin the entire experience. I believe I much prefer the leering pizza-on-a-stick man from the Red River Exhibition because at least he gave a shit. This intensely distracted seventeen-year-old (who was so busy on her blackberry she had it plugged into a charger) made me feel vaguely annoyed.

But again, I'm sure the big one will be better. They always are, with a contagious, kinetic energy that runs through me like a current. I am saving my dollars and my energy and will probably not ride the scrambler again. Oh and the best part? The kids are 52" tall (and then some!) each finally. So I'm not forced to accompany them on the screamingly terrifying ones like the endless slide or the tilt-a-whirl. And they are not forced to join me on my favorite, the ferris wheel. Not the big parasol one that stops a billion feet up, I prefer the rickety little metal ones, and only backwards, if you please. Leave me there all damn day and go have fun, I will still be smiling when you return.

Maybe it's the only place that suspends time that isn't the seaside.

That's okay too. More options are better though I think I'll need a winter choice now as well. Carnivals in the winter are incredibly sad places to me, and frankly so is the beach, though less so. I do love a beach without people on it. It's one of the reasons I live here now. It's almost offensive to see someone else strolling along what I have come to consider my beach, and anyone who brings me down to it is summarily dismissed. Walk ten feet behind me and disappear if I turn around, because I'd like to be alone now, please.

There is no 'alone' at a carnival but it's interesting to be surrounded with crowds, line-ups and people and not know any of them, save for my boys. When we left, we fulfilled our usual tradition of bestowing all of our remaining tickets on a family who was running dry. They hopefully spent another hour there on the rides. Tickets are expensive. All-day bracelets are cheaper but I usually figure that out halfway through.

Last night the late-night plan was to watch a few movies. I was awake (for a change) and was blessed with watching Losers, which was incredibly fun and Passengers, which ripped the rug out from under me and left me sobbing long after the credits rolled. Not just a few tears but sobbing and I think I'm afraid of death again, which is good news if you are not Bridget but bad news if you are.

I can't explain it. We thought it was going to be a profoundly creepy movie about people who develop ESP after a plane crash.

Well, it's not.

Not even close.

I wanted to check afterward and see if it was written by M. Night Shyamalan, in a good mood for once, since I have grown to despise his movies but it was written by someone else. I wish I had had some warning. Maybe it was better this way, but honestly I ignore most movie reviews and buzz and prefer to come to my own conclusions. Which is also the way I view music and pretty much everything else in my life. Let me make my own mistakes and then I will learn from them. It was incredibly good and quietly profound, just like me. So go see it if you missed it, and take the tissues with you. You will need them. You're welcome.

Tonight we have The Hurt Locker because we're trying to catch up on movies because the end of Ben's project is finally in sight and vacation has appeared in a faint glow on an imaginary horizon. We are making plans to go to the beach and to picnic on the top of a mountain overlooking the city and hit the big fair and watch a million movies and sleep until noon (which Bonham will NEVER go for, unfortunately) and have a few of those romantic dinners at new restaurants (I staked out before I even got here) but will keep quiet or Caleb will trick me into going to them with him and that's finished for now. Bridget's going to do the famous Grouse Grind as well. I am excited. I'm going to get a t-shirt.

And I need to write. I'm just barely beginning to get back into writing and pulling out old projects and waking the fuck up from bad dreams and finding my cadence that disappears so easily and comes back so painfully, with so much effort.

2010 is now half over and we've spent enough time starting over and re-arranging life. My life is half over and I've spent enough time starting over and re-arranging time.

Far too profound a conclusion from a day that was constructed around mindless entertainment, wasn't it? Some days are like that, I guess.

Let love rule (Thanks Lenny).

Sorry, I took a tequila vacation and Lochlan followed me around all morning cleaning up internet messes as I made them, I think.

He is still here. What, did you think he would be thrown out? Asked to leave? No, the only new rule on top of Stop Touching Bridget was No More Fights, Goddammit, We Go Through This Every Single Year.

Both will be ignored, I'm sure. But the collective will stay intact, because we're a family. No matter what.

Caleb was amused as well and will play along as long as he can until it becomes overwhelming and then he'll just squeeze by threatening to petition to have my primary custody of Henry revoked in favor of English boarding school. Which, well, literally, darling, over my dead body, if that's the way it has to be. Ben won't let it come to either threat so really, how have we advanced here this week other than the knowledge that Friday mornings in Mexico are profoundly underwhelming?

Well, I'll tell you how. Since you're here.

Sam and Duncan ganged up on me and poured the tequila out and the coffee in because the boys like to force me to do all kinds of healthy things too, like confront issues and deal with life as it happens so that I don't follow Ben down the path of total escape. That path is a parachute with no strings, tossed out of a plane running on fumes and your pilot has already bailed.

Oddly I don't think Ben is going to cave and I knew this would happen when I rinsed the dirt off Lochlan's secrets and put them here. Ben feels threatened by my past because he is never sure if he's enough, if this is good enough, if we have enough love or can make enough history together to supersede or even just compete with everything that has happened thus far.

That makes me so fundamentally sad I can't even quantify it. And surprisingly Ben will tell you he doesn't give a fuck about anything and you will probably believe him because Ben lives life with a total recklessness that is only borne of hardship and pain. You don't have to understand why I'm going to abide by his wishes, you just have to know that I am.

As long as is humanly possible.

You laugh because something so simple is such a challenge task for me. You come to absorb my words with such curiosity, such disbelief. Well, you don't have the history and you don't live in this house. In this house, love rules everything and death takes those normal basic rules and turns them inside out and it's years before you realize you've been running on one set of feelings to outrun another.

Years.

This is where I am today. Half-sober, half-ruined, and half-renewed.

Over time (the end of the grand experiment).

Told me you loved me, that I'd never die alone
Hand over your heart let's go home.
Everyone noticed, everyone had seen the signs,
I've always been known to cross lines.

I never ever cried when I was feeling down,
I've always been scared of the sound.
Jesus don't love me, no one ever carried my load,
I'm too young to feel this old.

Here's to you, here's to me, oh to us,
Nobody knows
Nobody sees
Nobody but me

He bent his head down low, pushing against my hair, his arms sliding around my back, easily across the satin slip. He pushed me down onto the bed, kissing my throat, tracing his fingers down my face.

I love you.

I braced myself for him and then I was tearing at the sheets, turned over and hammered into, kissed all over, crushed beneath him. Returned to my back so he could smile down at me, slower now, harder now, until I'm clawing at air, his hand over my mouth so I can't scream, his head pressed against my mine. Then his hands are down, full weight and he pulls my hips into his so hard I can't breathe. Razorburn brings sweet stinging agony to my skin, sweat challenges our strength as efforts are wasted when our limbs slide freely over one another.

I am lifted, pulled away and then brought back to my delight and everything else goes away until the only focus is Ben. I am suddenly touched by how happy that makes me. How incredibly sure I am that after all of these efforts to test my loyalties they still remain with this man, and I am sitting above him now, knees up and wrapped around his back and his arms are around me and this is how we always end up and he kisses me because I am on his level at last. Cementing that loyalty. He looks at the clock, sighs and gets up, passing me my dress, apologizing for tearing my slip. It was vintage. Pale rose. He adores it on me and I am made to sleep in it often. I believe I can mend it still. He steps over to me and grabs my head in both hands, pulling me up to him for a kiss. One of these days I fear my head's going to come right off when he does that but I love it anyway. I am returned to earth gently. Beauty and the beast. So much heart in one room we're going to blow the walls out.

I love you, Bridget.

I love you, Ben.

We should have kept going. It took another two hours for everyone to show up for the family meeting Ben called, after hardly speaking to anyone for the past two weeks.

I should really learn that when a man stands in front of me with his back to me, blocking access that something very serious is about to take place and I am being shielded from harm.

Ben took this stance. Last night when he first came home and took me upstairs he looked at me with his eyes red and wired and exhausted, and he said simply,

Enough.

He turned around, facing his friends, taking a drink from a bottle of water. Almost to the letter I could have sworn it was something else because the action is the same but it was water. He put the bottle down on the table and he scooped his arm behind his back, me within his reach and gently pushed me further so I couldn't see their faces, so they couldn't see me.

I just pressed my forehead against his back and his arm came back again, pressing me against him, squeezing me in his own shorthand. It will be okay. And then he started to talk and I was shoved to the floor abruptly as Lochlan picked that moment to go for broke. All of the sudden everyone is shouting and PJ went for Lochlan and nailed him to the floor, keeping him there and Ben turned around and pulled me up off the floor and I tried to ask them what in the hell is wrong with all of you and I couldn't and I don't want to see them fight and Ben is trying to talk to me but Lochlan is still yelling, screaming for me and PJ is sitting on him so he's going nowhere.

Ben took my hand and he kissed it and he tucked it into his and led me upstairs to sleep. He was finished. Something I wished for. I don't know how it's going to work with this house or the new company or with the devil for that matter but all he had to do was say those words that burn Lochlan's ears and heart so badly and I can't help it.

She's mine.

This is what I have said all along as I've been passed from one to the next. No timeshares. Don't do this. Please. I can't do this. And then, fine. I'll embrace it. This is life now if this is the choice you have made. This is what grownups do. They take their bad ideas and they run with them and then later on they learn the cost. And then they have to figure out how to pay. I am bankrupt. I have no more emotional currency for this. It is over.

We're leaving now to drive downtown for breakfast with the devil, to do this all over again, so forgive me if I'm a little stressed this morning. I need to keep making sure it's water Ben is drinking because if he changes then he doesn't get to make any rules and Jesus Christ, no one wants me making them.

He holds my hand. So tightly I want to cry with relief but I'm waiting. Maybe later when we are safe again.