Contact.

Ben sent me this. Apparently they don't even take away phones anymore in five-star rehab:

So I sent him back this:

Yes, I know I'm awful but it's fucking funny.

How it's done.

Sam is playing Would You Rather with wedding details. It's six-fifteen in the morning and I'm not sure I've had enough coffee to do this right now only it's best, we have learned, to cram in as much wedding planning as possible when he is in the mood because then he falls apart again and throws himself headfirst into everyone else's problems and while he's an incredibly skilled counselor (thank you for Sam, Jacob, have I ever said that to you before?) he's a crying shame in his own right, terrified and watching Schuyler and Daniel with curiosity and longing. He wants a happy life, that's all, he wants a sign that he's making the right choice.

Matt walks in and Sam accosts him with two different plate designs, both in brown. Which one should we use?

Matt studies both of them for a minute and says I like them both, actually, so you pick whichever one you like most. 

My brain says, oh, a compliment followed by a complete abdication of responsibility but Sam just beams.

Matt winks at me and throws his curveball. Pretty sure he does that on purpose. I remember you saying something about the green plates though? Those would be nice. 

Then he leaves and Sam's cheerfulness strangles itself once again with doubt. I turn and throw my toast overhand at the back of Matt's head. It nails him and he laughs. It's a plate, Sam. I don't care if we eat directly off the goddamned table as long as you are with me forever.

Birdgirl.

I will only stop you drifting so far

Before the storm moved in last evening it was so warm and sunny and broiling that we decided to go for a swim, just me and Daniel, in our undies in the sea. The tide was going out so we could cross the beach to the little cleared area where we sometimes find the courage to venture into the water if we get hot enough, which rarely happens thanks to the perpetual breeze. But not last night. Last night everything was stilled before the storm.

I emerged with chattering teeth and a frustrated mindset. Nothing changes. He listens to Loch and never let me get out of arms reach. I never did become a strong swimmer and Loch remains paranoid and diligent around the water. The camper was and is a birdcage, only I can't hear myself sing.

***

Lochlan has one hand wrapped around my jaw, and the other clutching the back of my neck. We're having a staring contest in the dark. I will either win or melt but then he drives against me and my eyes close involuntarily. I can't win if he doesn't play fair. I move to turn my head so he doesn't look at me when I'm weak but he keeps it held in place. His lips find mine for a favorable response and I give it. Sharing breaths. Blocking words. Getting that confirmation where if nothing else, we're okay.

Are we okay? So many questions. So many endless changes. One minute he's oblivious and content in his ignorance, the next intense and dark with the weight of history. He's turning into Ben. Into Cole. I don't even know. Hearts blur into one big red puddle and we fight our way through, drowning in every conversation and he has begun to place time limits on my indecision and on my proclamations as if he can quietly, gently become Jacob and Caleb too.

Instead I just pulled my arms up around his neck and he tucked his face in against my jaw and we held on because that's what we do when we can't figure out where to go from here. He knows. I do not. He waits. I spend time like it's water, flowing through my hands. He suffers, I dissolve. Yes, we have this all figured out. There's only one thing we have figured out and in the dark that's where you'll always find me.

***

The Devil has a small army outside in the front yard just after sunrise and I'd like to murder him because my room is the closest to the front of the house and how freaking unfair to wake a light sleeper with unannounced machinery.

And then as the backhoe begins to cut in to the edge of the property he pulls my elbow so that I follow him back to the boathouse and he passes me what I think is a watercolor painting of a small Victorian stone patio with a high semicircular wall around it, built-in benches and a round table made of stone with a hole in the center for an umbrella. There's a tiny chiminea incorporated into the wall for heat. There are flowers all around the entire patio and on the wall above the table too. The trees form a sort of natural shade canopy and smaller stones are set into a path leading away from the space.I tell him it's pretty and he takes the rendering back.

I'm building this for you. Right now, today. A place just for you so you can write or draw or just read without interruption.

Why?

Because I know how much you miss your turret.

I nod and narrow my eyes. I'm not sure how he would know that other than I am predictable too. The turret was a glass and iron atrium at the very top of the castle. It had copper panels on the roof and stained glass below that and clear glass panels all the way around. It was unheated and frigid. And I destroyed it with my bare hands and they had to remove the frame because it would have cost too much to fix.

I've regretted that every second of every day since but I was angry and scared and alone and I just snapped and I wanted to bring pain with a capital P. I got it. The house would have sold for a lot more had I left it alone and I understand that now. Money is the bottom line. Caleb doesn't let me forget that. He says it's not important but it is or he wouldn't have so much of it to fill the hole from where I am not.

Where are the bars?

Pardon?

Nevermind.

Lochlan comes out front to see what the fuss is and I meet him to tell him about the patio, describing all of the little features from Caleb's picture. He nods and looks pained as he watches the men work and then he shakes his head.

This will cost him a fortune. 

But you and I can draw here. 

He nods and watches me watching the little backhoe climbing into the trees at the side of the house. Bridget, you know he's not doing this because he wants to make you happy. 

I know. He wants to up the property value. 

Loch just keeps watching me. His eyes squinch down into slits and he shakes his head as if he has water in his ear.  You don't really think that's why-

No, I don't think I'm that naive anymore. But he thinks I am and that's all that matters.

Saltwater fixes everything.

I'm looking forward to this fall. Another tour, a movie to go along with it this time (link added because for some reason the embedded video doesn't show up on devices) and a chance to immerse myself in something I love to pieces that is uniquely mine and no simply an extension of something the boys love. Kind of like writing. Christian is a tech journalist, Jacob was a sermonist and lecturer but I traveled fiction as my road and it seems as if when I can just bury myself in words on a screen and music in my headphones, things seem a little bigger than me, and my problems seem a little smaller, a little less terrible, everything gets a little more hopeful even as we stare down what is turning out to be a downright frightening, white-knuckle bend in the road.

When they come here this fall it will be my sixth show and I can't wait. I wonder if things will be better by then. I wonder if things will be the same.

Thanks for your sweet words and generous prayers for Ben. He needs them very badly and I will relay every last one to him as soon as I can. As for me? Don't pray for me. I don't deserve your faith.

I want to save that light.

How long will he be gone?

I don't know.

How do I feel?

I don't know.

Why is Caleb part of the good-guy brigade suddenly?

Jesus Christ! I don't fucking know. The only thing I know is that today, Ruth brought me a song. First one ever. She is thirteen. I was never what she is at thirteen. I'm in awe.

When the curtain’s call
Is the last of all
When the lights fade out
All the sinners crawl

So they dug your grave
And the masquerade
Will come calling out
At the mess you've made

Don’t want to let you down
But I am hell bound
Though this is all for you
Don’t want to hide the truth

No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come

Ten-second delay.

Batman flew in to the Cape to explain why he failed to mention he was the owner of the house that Ben borrows a couple of times a year.

I told him fifty times I didn't care. That he has nothing to do with me and that I would like Ben to explain this but Ben drowned his words instead and I never got to dry them out to hear, and Loch washed his hands of Ben and that made Ben feel worse and this cycle is now so vicious it has grueling, unchecked freaking rabies.

I stood with my arms crossed in the doorway and said Batman could give his excuses and then leave. He said Aren't you the little spitfire and I nodded because yes, yes, I am, goddammit and I'm tired of this.

It's my house, Bridget. He said it so gently I almost cried. But I didn't because like I told you, I'm tired.

Instead I grabbed my bag and DFW and we walked up the lane and into town and I sat down on a bench outside a tiny general store and I took out my phone and took the case off it and looked at the Visa Infinite (that I stole from the Devil) and I called him to ask if I could use it because I'm only a halfling-thief so here, we'll play tag across the planet once again but I need to move really fast to get my head clear.

I couldn't do it though because we need to be home. With the kids and boys. I want to be there, not here with ice cold Batman and Lochlan with his clenched fists and frustrated, breaking voice, who, you know, followed me down to the store and was standing on the other side of the entryway with his hands in his pockets, flicking his lighter, pretty much ready to shadow me as I run. His hair is tied back with a cord and he's in a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans and he looks like home only I don't know where that is and then Ben comes out of the store with a bottle of booze and bag of souvenirs, looks to the left at Lochlan and then he looks down to the right at me and he says,

We need to be home, guys. I'm fucked and she's going to bolt.

I nodded and hung up the phone before Caleb answered.

***

Caleb hands me a bourbon and lemonade and then strokes the bottom of my foot with his knuckles. He's sitting one step below me on the patio stairs. He and Henry had cleanup duty in the kitchen and that's why he's still here. I didn't even cook tonight, Duncan did. It was awful.

Where were you headed? He says after a minute. He's growing a beard. He's wearing jeans and a worn-out navy blue t-shirt and he looks nothing like he should.

The beach house. Then to August, if I could get in touch with him. Internet on their piece of the rock is ridiculously non-existent at best.

And what would you have done?

Pretended he was Jacob for the rest of my days. I down the drink in one gulp and let out a shaky, watery breath.

Wow. He says.

Tell me about it. I can't...I mean, I don't seem to be having any luck accepting that he's gone. It's like there's a black hole and he's in it, I just have to find him but when I go in, there's no light, no sound, no nothing. No Jake.

And August will change that?

No, but maybe he's as close as I can get to what I used to have. 

I think your mind is messing with your heart. 

It's the other way around, I swear. 

All of it served to be just more distraction. Caleb got me, Lochlan took the children out for ice cream and while we were being rewarded for good behavior with treats, the rest of them were forcing Ben onto a different plane so that he can go back and finish the program he apparently walked away from earlier this spring.

Walk.

Home safe and sound. I'll update my own life as soon as I stop holding my breath, living vicariously through my all-time favorite circus family. Hoping for no wind and steady cables.

http://skywire.discovery.com/

Update: if you weren't watching, then you've missed out. It was heart-stoppingly amazing to watch. Twenty-two minutes!! Praise Jesus indeed.

I'm sorry. I ran.

POW.

Can you see my white flag from here? I mean, really. Can't you fucking SEE it?

(Turn off the stereo. We have to talk, and besides you're blindsiding me with my entire emotional map laid out in song. That isn't fucking fair of either of you.)

Batman owns this house, here in Cape Cod. I found a stack of paintings at the end of the hallway upstairs and I couldn't resist looking at them. Some of them were by Cole and I looked at Ben and asked him what he hadn't told me over the past five years. He just stared at me as he weighed which answers would provoke which results. Not sure he ever figured it out since he turned and walked back down the hall, away from me.

Ben is still under the wagon and Loch is still singlemindedly determined to take me apart piece by piece and then he can put back together his perfect summer girl as he remembers me instead of how I am.

Flawed. Surrendered. Surprised. Disappointed, demoralized and exhausted. This was not a good idea. This was not a good idea at all.

Wave that fucking flag high, girl, and maybe they'll come and get this over with.

DFW for breakfast.