Goofnight indeed.

Okay, so the wine had a bit more of an effect than I would have liked. Though I think they liked it. Hard to fight back when you can't recall your argument.

And in any case, I slept. All night. God love me, I didn't wake up even once, though apparently it wasn't for lack of trying.

This morning I am formatting the media card on my Blackberry because I KEEP PULLING IT OFF THE USB CORD WITHOUT EJECTING. (This never happened with a Windows laptop. Also, Bridget really needs to learn to remember things.)

And I have cleaned all the carpets. With the big carpet steamer-thingie. It is amazing. Everything smells good! Like flowers. Mondays find the princess efficient. Seriously dull even.

Oh, but I have news!

The movie theater inside my house appears to be shaping up quickly now that Ben is back into a regular routine (almost! almost.) They have taken down the paintings I had up. The entire north wall now appears to be a 200-inch screen. I've never seen a movie on a screen that large without paying eight dollars a person and having to sacrifice my shoes when I stick to the floor.

My theater is fully carpeted and plush. It seats enough people to put most theaters to shame and last night we watched Clash of the Titans (again because! so good!) and made pasta and opened a little bit of wine and had the most relaxing evening ever. Ben has a list of things to pick up (like a new receiver and other assorted technological things that I didn't understand a word of) so that, as he explained it, the kids can play the Xbox on it too, Bridget. Because I was all like "It's done? we're ready to roll? Cool." and they all said "Hell, no, we're just getting started."

We're going to get silver screen paint, and velvet curtains, plus blackout curtains for the window. We're going to get a big old-fashioned popcorn popper and build a snack bar. The Tiki/African theme will remain, everything in browns, wooden masks on the walls, etc. etc. I'm pretty sure I blathered on about this room when we moved in. I just never expected it to be THIS awesome.

I'll post pictures when it's done but presently it looks like Best Buy threw up a bunch of hardware and cables in the middle of the floor. Oh and nothing is actually hooked up anymore because Ben took it all apart again to attempt to explain to me why it wasn't ready.

I'm just. Well, I'm a simple girl and really the first VCR arrived in my life at the age of what, fourteen? and I've been charming people to make my movies play ever since.

Snort.

And yes, it's a movie theater. Not a room with a TV. Full projection. The entire wall. I said the house was big. It's bigger than that even. Oh my God, the rumors are true. I sold my soul for square footage.

And after seeing Clash that big, I'm not sorry.

(The BlackBerry is fixed! All hail copy & paste. Thank you Lochlan.)

alrtightpresent. I am!

Oh hello. I'm sorry, I can't type right now. It's rainign and the power keeps going out and the wine keeps going and they're setting u the home theater which is pretyy cool ineven though I don't like spending money all that much really. It's okay though. It rains ALOT.

BEnw as home all weekend and he never let go of me. That I like and it's worth more than meony. Hes awesome. :) goofnight?

Restoration.

It was a lovely rainy day to wake up slow, walk the dog while I was still in pajamas and then climb back into my warm bed with the big sleepy guy still wedged firmly in the middle and drift off again in his arms, only to wake a few hours later to my surprise. I made coffee, croissants, and hugs for breakfast and we lingered forever before deciding to go for a drive. Sometimes it's nice to just get away for the day.

So we did and now we are home early and winding down from a day that involved having no commitments at all save for the one we made to each other. I'm off now to make tea with honey and probably fall asleep on Ben's shoulder while we watch a movie.

Tomorrow I am hoping for more of the same.

Is it Friday yet?

Here's a ramble. People seem to get concerned when I don't really post much.

I am drinking reheated eleven-hour-old coffee (I passed a coffee shop no less than nine times today), listening to Seventh Void cut with High Holy Days and Bif Naked and thinking to make spaghetti for dinner, possibly pizza if no one wants a heavy meal. I'd like a large glass of wine and a deep breath, for today brought the most energy I have had in four weeks.

Routine is a fickle sort of relief. We're barely back into the school year and I find myself thoroughly annoyed by everything from lunches that come back uneaten to last minute party invitations and Other Parents, in general.

Sigh. I am working furiously on being less judgmental. I am losing the battle.

In other news, the grapes are gone. Yes, all of them. There's a black squirrel who was here all last week treating the vineyard as his own personal farm market. We did get to try the grapes and they were wonderful and next year step number one will be installing netting over the top of the arbor to keep out the critters.

I still have the tomatoes to look forward to. And the oranges too. And the dahlias are coming back, the roses never stop blooming and all I have to do is look out the windows and I am smiling because everything is so beautiful.

We were caught in a monsoon today and I'm getting smarter. When I left the house I grabbed the children's umbrellas because the sky looked...well, it looked heavy somehow.

I was right.

My weather-telling skills are so rusty after eight years of tornadoes and blizzards and no coasts but they're coming back nonetheless, slowly and with feeling.

Last week sometime Proud usurped Breath as my favorite song ever. It was inevitable, really. Just like I can pretend to like tea but I'd rather have coffee any day, even if it's ancient. Actually I think I'd prefer a steady diet of Jack Daniels but those days are long over so coffee it is.

I need to have some serious fun. We are overdue.

I need fresher coffee.

Ha! I have found a new way to distract Ben while he plays Warcraft.

I'm playing King Diamond Christmas tunes.

At full volume.

Let me be your monster.

Articulate, humanesque nightmares are the worst ones.

(Stop and take that breath and relax, loosening your grip on life for just a second. Taste that. Freedom from anxiety seasoned with a hint of rest. Now go away. This is not yours. This will be served to someone already character-free, someone who doesn't even realize they don't deserve this unencumbered existence. That fucker isn't aware of how good they have it, they only know life as a bubble of sunshine and ignorance, breezy winds and plans best made. Did I just catch you trying to take another deep breath? Give it back. You're flammable.

Look, here's a leak. Put out your flames here. Yes, I understand you hate them. Familiar is the tension, the low-level hysteria put aside only long enough to concentrate on something specific and then you pull your finger out of the hole and the stream begins anew. You're up to your waist and you can't swim. The water is thick with indecision and cloudy with hope and fear. It's undrinkable, unswimmable and unstoppable too. It covered your freedom easily and now it's working on your courage. With enough time, erosion will begin and there will be no turning back. Run, Bridget, run!

I can't. I'm still unable to take a very deep breath. My knees are positively shot and I don't know which way is safe. I can run straight to the sea but then I am trapped because I am not a strong swimmer. I am trapped because I am not a strong person. Take the fear. I DON'T WANT IT. Take my indecision too. Leave me the fuck alone already. I have been through enough.)

Sitting with his sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, hair perfectly tousled, six o'clock shadows playing across his face, Caleb frowned at me and rested his head on one hand, balanced against his temple in a painful display of exhaustion. He is slouched way down in the low library chair with his eyes closed and his left hand balancing a brandy glass in mid-air. It has been empty for almost thirty minutes but he's still cupping it between his fingers, warming invisible liquid gold. Maybe he wants me to refill it but I make no move to do so.

You look beautiful.

It will grow. I put my hand up to my neck, self-conscious.

Don't do that. He frowns. Don't even be uncomfortable with the way you look. Jesus, Bridget. You're beautiful. Uncannily so. You always have been.

His words are sweet poison to me. I'm not willing to listen to him extol my virtues when he didn't leave me with any at all. I'm not willing to listen to him editorialize my life from his perspective of obsession.

What does Henry need?

We don't co-parent in any sort of organized fashion. Caleb provides for the children in any way that I request. It's that simple. He also provides a pure representation of Cole, because it's not as if I can take the children to the concrete room where I keep the Cole-angel. They would be frightened. Caleb offers a Cole that they remember well. Kind. Fun. Permissive but consistent. His only request is access to them. Time with them. Time with me. Play nice, Bridget and it will all be okay.

It's okay, that isn't sinister or anything. Cole said it to me every night. Now it just sounds funny. I stopped playing nice years ago, as you can see.

I take my brandy up and swallow the contents of my glass in one gulp. It burns and I grab the windowsill. I gasp and choke and Caleb is there rubbing my back as if you can dislodge certain death with massage and I want to tell him not to touch me anymore but I can't breathe. I cough hard and then I wave my hands at him and thrust the glass toward him and leave the room.

Water. I need water.

I get a glass at the sink and stand there, drinking it slowly. Staring at my reflection in the kitchen windows because no one closed the blinds and I can't reach them but it's okay because the only person who watches me from that one place on the road is the one sitting in my library now drinking all of Jacob's ancient, valuable brandy that I didn't know what to do with so I packed it and it came with me.

I hear voices.

August and Ben are sitting out on the patio with forbidden cigarettes and herbal tea. I can hear the tones but not the words proper. They had a splendid argument when I returned from the airport with August because no one else gets a vacation but somehow August is able to disappear for ten days even though presently is a high stress time for the company. How is this possible? The world doesn't stop for hippie festivals and desert-worshipping but somehow he did it anyway because August puts life ahead of living. Lucky for us. He keeps his head on straight and his universe relaxed and then he can be a good friend and confidant and in-house social miracle worker here because Ben won't let anyone else do it and here Ben is strung out on overtime and his eyes are bleary and he has just enough strength at night to come home, eat a big dinner, play an hour of warcraft and ravage me completely before falling asleep and waking up again too soon and it's heartbreaking and maybe, just maybe he doesn't need to know that August came back renewed and reborn, smiling from ear to ear.

They made up just as fast. August is made from a patience we have never encountered before. He had Ben placated quickly and they retreated for some stream of consciousness that will see Ben psychologically propped up for another little just to get him through the end of this workload and then we get to breathe for a minute or two, watched by the others for any hairline cracks in the facade. Never mind that we have repeatedly presented ourselves to be examined with staples holding big ragged segments together, duct-taped limbs and reinforced organs, fibreglass spray and plaster dust in our hair. We hold hands and stand there grinning like stupid fools.

Hairline cracks, Ben? Do you see any hairline cracks?

Nope, princess, can't say that I do.

Guess we're good for now.

Yup. Guess we are. Can we go now?

Eleven is standing still.

This morning I was summarily dismissed at the door to the school. It's the first day back today.

Uh, mom, you can go now.

I can walk you to your class, make sure everything is cool.

It's okay. We'll see you later. Bye.

The door closed in my face and I was left out in the rain. It's okay. I ran home, hopped in the car and went shopping, only being pulled back out of the reverie (of not having the mopey twins taking forever to get down an aisle because they have to pick everything up) by a call from the school.

Mrs. Reilly? Ruth said you didn't know that it was only a half-day today. Pickup is at 11:30.

Well, damn. I thought I had hours left. I thought I had a lifetime left.

I was greeted with big hugs and almost knocked down outside the front doors.

We missed you, mom! Mom, can you carry my backpack? It's heavy. (it was empty).

Ha. They're only half-grown! So there. I still have time left.

Fine.

Lochlan is where I learned that birthdays were to be dreaded and then pointedly endured and it took Jacob the better part of three years to teach me differently. Just as I began to get excited about them again for the first time since I was in the single digits he was gone and birthdays revert back to an odd sort of industrial-emotional obstacle that I'm never sure I fully clear.

I would try harder to deflect Lochlan's opinions on things but it's so hard. Too hard. Once we were back home from his birthday dinner and I had the kids safely in bed I returned to him. He pulled me into the bathroom where he proceeded to roughly scrub the remainder of the sharpie marker off my fingers from Saturday and then he steered me back into the den.

He passes me his library card.

What is this?

The privilege of borrowing, princess.

I have one. I try to pass it back but he just hammers his index finger on it to grind his point home, a hole through the plastic, straight on through to the other side, baby.

Life is a library card, Bridget. You borrow emotions, events, experiences and then you put them back on the shelf for someone else. All of it is temporary. Life is borrowing love, breath, joy. Then we're done.

Don't, Lochlan.

Why the hell not? I'm in love with a fucking library book! I can check you out but you're a bestseller so I can't renew! Fuck your fucking allegories, princess. And fuck Benjamin too! I was here first!

I'm going to go. I'm not doing this tonight.

You're not alone. Why would you care?

I have been alone.

Yeah, for a whole hour. Maybe less.

What do you know? You've NEVER been there when I needed you.

Yeah, well then maybe I'm not worth it. Get the fuck out.

How much did you drink tonight?

CLEARLY NOT ENOUGH. It hurts. It fucking hurts so bad and it never goes away.

You made the call.

I know. Don't you think I know that, Bridget? What I don't know is how to make you forgive me. How to make you mine again. I've watched every one of them home in on you and then take you from me and I don't know how to stop this. Once and for all. I just want it to stop. How do I make it stop?

Go to sleep, Lochlan. You need it.

Yeah. Goodnight, library card. Check you out tomorrow.

Goodnight, Lochlan.

Like my pun?

No, not really.

You should stay, Bridgie. I just wish you would stay. I miss you. God, I miss you so much.

I am already gone. I close the door quietly so that it doesn't click. I'm sure he is asleep before I make it down the hall.

Anything to make you smile
You are the ever-living ghost of what once was
I never want to hear you say
That you'd be better off
Or you liked it that way

But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do

Written across my knuckles in Caleb's neatly printed script with a sharpie from his big wooden desk in the other room.

OBLIVION

I'm wondering if it will last through a few more showers so I don't forget, ironically. Maybe if it washes off soon I'll have it written again on my forehead instead because that's what they read when they look at me. Forgets everything. The slights, the betrayals, the violence, the struggle.

(Forget history, forget the present and forget about the future, for now, baby.

Live in your sweet circus fugue and everything will be okay. Life is a big-top cotton-candy bubble for you, the outside can't touch you, the inside won't stop, and you can make as many rules as you like and paint them, numbered on a huge wooden board that you prop up by the entrance and we'll read it and then serve to ignore or break every last one.

For you.

Because that's the way you wanted it. Your needs are like the tide, always shifting. In and out. Aquamarine dreams, froth disguised as rapid eye movement, twitching, aching limbs from paddling against the current. Scattered, random waves.)

He watched us last night because Ben allowed nothing more, the correction for changing my appearance without permission, reparations for scaring me so badly and yet staying away is something I can't seem to accomplish at all and so I am brought, vaguely tranquilized on wine and unsteady. Undressed, given a marker and license to let go of my thoughts on their flesh, assent to print blame should I want to, or make promises to be tattooed. I remember distinctly writing I wish you were Cole down Caleb's muscled left arm. I remember writing don't leave me on Ben's impossibly-broad back where he would never find the conscious of my self. I remember nothing more than landing in the soft sheets after that, Ben's arms around me, the way I like life best. I no longer held the marker. The lights of the city were the last thing I saw.

I turn over and gaze out the window. I am upside down, facing the windows and therefore, the water. Ben sleeps easily beside me, rightside up. Caleb is nowhere to be found. I trace the letters on my fingers and turn my hands palms up. I love you is written on each one in my own handwriting. I am surprised by that, and pleased.

It is a first.

Grace in Ben's dark.

Ben's head pushes against mine. A subtle nudge. I turn and his lips cross the bridge of my nose. He whispers something but I miss it because his hands are over my ears. The kiss takes my breath away and doesn't return it. I'm drowning in his life, in his hands.

Closer still, his arms keep me against him. It's pitch black. I can't see, can't hear. Oh God, I can't breathe you are so heavy Ben and then suddenly an exquisite agony comes over me. When I cry out the weight lifts and his hand covers my mouth.

Shhhh, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay.

It isn't. I am pushing him away, bracing myself against him, uselessly blocking his advance and he moves right through me, no obstacles, no hesitations. I am clawing at air and skin now, pulling his fingers away from my mouth, scraping his shoulders all to hell and still he is close and tight against me, always reassuring, always unapologetic, rougher than he knows, fighting me, pulling my limbs in until I am powerless, shut down.

Suddenly there is air again. I am on the other side, free to move, the ache is gone, the power returns. Suddenly every single hint of movement is bringing waves of a drug that I am addicted to, gratified for those small moments before the thirst returns, mortified when it returns worse than ever. We are matched move for move, depravities accepted, welcomed. His hands slide up my leg and I am crushed again as he muffles my cries, cradling my head in his hands, kissing me. Giving up on his pretense of gruffness and might, overcome with a tender quiet that surprises us in a way the violence does not, strung out on rage to feel anything at all makes for a derivative joy when we reach that impossible place where rage is not required. Through, not around. A welcome struggle to keep our love visceral, to not change what we have, what this is.

I am lifted into the air and brought back down, fresh blinding pain presented in a spectacle of devotion, my tiny piece of air ripped away on the downswing, a conscious effort to relax every muscle, the circus girl who knows how to fall.

His love is the shield and his history the sword that cuts so deeply the wounds cauterize before the blade has been drawn through. I am covered with scars and choking behind the grasp of his hand. I'm lost in his psychological landscape with no map to guide me through his hot and cold emotional display, ruined by the sweet tenderness that remains behind his brutality.

Every inch is then examined for injury, every hair on my head kissed, every inch of my flesh stroked and tested for bruising. Proclaimed good enough, his hand returns to my mouth and his intent to my soul as he travels the rest of the night fighting my slumber as a human antidote for Bridget's nightmare fuel.

This darkness does not belong to the devil to exploit. This darkness is our own.