Lion.

We're making turkey sandwiches for lunch. Lochlan likes his on white bread, regular mayo, no lettuce. Turkey slices with salt and pepper. Sandwich cut on an angle. He makes mine the way I like it. The heel of the loaf of bread, and a regular piece. Rye or pumpernickle, never white. British mustard, preferably. A huge stack of lettuce. Okay, maybe a little salt and pepper. He doesn't cut mine, I like to hold the whole thing at once. 

After lunch Caleb takes our plates and then asks me if I want to go for a run later. Maybe before dinner to burn off some nervous energy (is there any other kind?) and I automatically say no. He takes my arms, centering me in front of him, looking down into my eyes to see if I'm doing okay Right Now. 

I am. I don't want to run though. My sauconies have holes in the toes and I'm bitterly unimpressed with how quickly they wore right through and so to punish the company I'm taking the winter off. 

Clocks go back this weekend, Diabhal. It's a warning not to push but he finds it hilarious.

Same time every year, Doll. 

I shake my head. Maybe later in the week. 

Let's go today-

LET'S NOT! I struggle out of his grasp. He looks surprised and freezes for a second before recovering, his expression changing to boss mode, almost parental before my eyes. I wish I could do that. If you stare at me long enough I simply self-destruct. 

I can't go today, Diabhal. I need to move slow. 

I can distract you, he says softly, before landing a soft kiss on my temple and letting me go. He heads outside.

Lochlan is on his phone on the other side of the kitchen. PJ is running through the grocery list that's on the side of the fridge. We have a paper list and then add those things to an app that we share, synced to everyone's phones. You always have your phone when you're out but not always when you realize at two a.m. that we're almost out of rice krispies. Ergo: paper list on fridge. 

PJ shoots a look at me and I catch him. 

What a mood, Bridge. It's forceful and sexy. I like it. 

Lochlan snorts. 

PJ takes the hint, puts the list back in it's place and goes down the hall. For the moment, everything is good and I don't need to be three-deep in boys for safekeeping (not during the day, anyway). The meeting organized a loose all-hands-on-deck scenario where everyone has agreed to float in and out to be handy in case I break free or break down. To make sure there are arms everywhere. Like a human playpen for an adventurous toddler, I can bounce around in this soft but hard bouncy castle made of guys watching me reel from grief while we point out we've finally moved on.

But have we moved on? 

They closed the loophole that let Jake in but they'll never be done with the interloper himself and I think that is the part that Lochlan will never forgive himself for. He saw it coming and he had a small window in between Jacob moving against Cole and when Caleb came back but he left it closed and he tried to be so hands off and it didn't work. He tried to go out and live his life too and it just. didn't. work. He's supposed to be here with me. We're supposed to be sick of each other's beautiful faces and of my immaturity and rigidness and his stubborn perfection. 

But we're not. 

And there he is. Right there within reach when by now in the year usually he's found something to do and can't watch as I regress backward to the point where he needs to take the knife and I can't even spread mustard on my own sandwich. Just in case I turn around and plunge it into my ribs to stop the hurting that blooms with every single breath. Just in case I want to turn and look up at the one who came back to deal with the mess that is me, the one with the red mane and the stoic green eyes. The freckles and the capable hands. The one who told me God was make-believe and preachers were snake oil salesmen, nothing more, but who goes to church anyway just in case he turns out to be wrong, the one who stood at the meeting yesterday and thanked everyone for holding both of us up while we get through the hard parts, saying this is his religion, and this is his flock. That we will be safe, and happy, at last. Sam let him take it, let him run with it. Sam knows he'll be back.

Jacob stood in the doorway and smiled proudly at Lochlan too, but I don't think Lochlan saw him at all.

And I'm not going to commit any mustard-knife crimes. Not in this life, anyway.

Lamb.

 It's a family meeting. I sit, knees together, perched on the chaise in front of Ben, who has ninety percent of it to my ten. The small copper box rests in my hands, as my fingers rub the little enamel bluebird who after thirteen years glows with an attention paid in spades, enamel gone, beautiful warm copper and no blue remaining. My fingers are nervous, trembling, rubbing the bird in a steady circle, a worry stone to replace the oval adventurine one Lochlan found for me on the beach in Cape Tormentine when I was nine. I wore it right through. I still have it.

My brain is screaming the opening lyrics to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I should tell them I can't hear them but they're so focused and attentive right now. 

Lochlan has the bridge of his nose held by his thumb and middle finger. His index finger has disappeared into his waves. Curls on the bottom, waves on top. It's grown so much since summer. It's getting darker on top for the lack of sun. 

(I'm going back to my plough back to the howling old owl in the woooooooooooods hunting the horny backed toad oh I've finally decided my future lies beyond the yellow brick roaaaaaaaaaad)

Hold the line, he says.

She needs more-

He lets go and stares at August. We need to hold it. She'll be okay. 

He knows I can't hear him so he's kindly shoved me right outside of the conversation. I don't need to have any input. Not anymore.

She'll be okay. He repeats it to reassure them and I feel soothed by that. I hand Jacob back to Ben, who takes the box in one hand. I resume rubbing my fingertips with my fingers. I have no fingerprints left.

 Face pressed against the frigid window this morning. The world has gone out of focus now from the condensation from breathing and some moments I can't believe I still am even able to breathe when the ground is quicksand, my limbs are concrete, my heart a shattered mess, my brain a disaster in a bone bowl, rattling around trying to outrun the memories as they come, direct hits, killshots, certain ruin every waking moment. 

I turn my cheek away and press my forehead on the pane, hard. Lochlan says my name from the darkness on the other side of the room. I laugh. Save yourself, I tell him, as if it's an option that he didn't already take once but he came back and God bless him for that. I don't know why though. I am not lovable, not manageable or useful or good. I'm kind though. I love magic. I love fire and I love love itself and once I thought everything was going to be okay and goddammit, it was the best feeling in the world. 

Kind of like when you press your skin against ice-cold glass.

My best defense.

Don Henley is singing our life over the shitty speakers from the jukebox in the diner. My eighteen-year-old self believes in Don, believes this truly will be the last worthless evening, and that the life ahead of me is full of promise, stability and excitement. That everything would soon change and become wonderful, as if Don was about to just snap his fingers and fix it all with one single catchy ballad tonight. 

I took Don at his word. I was a hopeless romantic, sitting there ignoring the french fries left on my plate, staring at the window watching our reflections while a twenty-three-year-old Lochlan smoked a cigarette and wrote out our midway working hours in his notebook with a pen that was almost out of ink. All of this provided by the last round of pickpocketing I did while he did teardown last night, zigzagging through the dispersing crowd, bumping into people, trying to squeeze around people, thinking I had three wallets when I zagged away from the crowd again, only to find out one of them was a soft leather cigarette-pack holder with a fresh unopened pack of Player's Light inside. 

I wish he wouldn't smoke before my milkshake is finished. 

We can leave after this, he says suddenly, putting out his cigarette in the clear glass ashtray by the window. Don starts a new song, singing about how he's learning to live without her now, but he misses her, baby. 

The only person who calls me baby is Caleb and he can't find us now. We've only been staying with a show for a few weeks at a time now. We don't use the camper, we rent motel rooms in town. We call home more and lie better than ever, and our friends are fed a constant stream of benign disinformation in order to make it work. 

But it doesn't change the fact that I am not the person I used to be. Lochlan used to tell me to eat my vegetables and to not be afraid of the dark, and that he would love me forever. Eighteen-year-old me now knows the world is different. That vegetables aren't important. The dark is something that one should be afraid of, for that's where the monsters hide. And that love is fickle and difficult and hard to make consistently, especially when those monsters get in the goddamned way.

I go back to the jukebox at the end of the diner and feed another few quarters in, hitting the same numbers I hit twenty minutes ago. I come back to the booth and fish out a cigarette. Lochlan's eyebrows go up but he lights it for me and I sit back against the glitter vinyl and take a long drag as I stare at the strangers in the reflection.

Someday I'm going to buy a piano and learn to play this song, I think to myself. Poisoned by fairy tales? Me? Never. Now I want to believe in them more than ever.

Jesus delinquent.

Today's t-shirt says SALTWATER HEALS EVERYTHING on it and my pajama pants are an all-over moose print. I've got some coffee that is supposedly a 'pioneer blend' and true to form, I have earned it today, breakfasting on fresh homemade bread AND last years final bottle of jam. I'm listening to Nickelback ballads (yes even that one, that's the litmus test for this moment) on repeat, reading the news of the NDP landslide (I voted! For the winner even!) and singing along at the top of my lungs. 

Ben walks into the room and watches me for a moment, rolls his eyes and says How Canadian. 

I shrug. He is jealous. His culture is Disneyland and guns, he once told me. He is Canadian now, by choice.

Today I'm planning to skip church and will get speed-blessed instead, as sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. I listened to the new Missio album twice already, prior to switching over to the 'back and I still love eighty percent of it, and the other twenty percent of songs are only mildly weird. And now after the laundry is done, I drew a few seasonal but also difficult chores that I want to tackle right away. I also have more bread to go in the oven later and yes, I'm pretty sure someone put something in my juice because I feel like I can slay the whole fucking world right now and that feeling is absolutely NOT my default. 

Still on antibiotics though. I really am one of those horrible people you need to shoot with a tranquilizer dart to get them to stop moving. And then they will still crawl.

Good things. Sam, is this what you mean?

Nine years ago this coming Wednesday Schuyler and Daniel got married. It feels like yesterday but also like a thousand years ago in a way. They are the constants in a life of endless upheaval, a safe haven in a chronic storm. They love their privacy but also maintain a modified open-door policy for the lost lambs around them (mostly me). They are Godfearing men, free-spirited and beautiful and I love them both in a way I can't even articulate these days. Schuyler retired finally and they are having the time of their lives. Daniel is so content, so happy to have Schuyler around more and so far Schuyler hasn't tried to work past returning a couple of phone calls for some creative brainstorming, both of which he pulled Lochlan in on.

It's amazing. 

So this morning we got invited to their big anniversary party to be held next Saturday night, Halloween, to be exact. Which is great because we have no other plans and the night is open, as we don't go out anymore, don't entertain anyone off the point save for Ruth's boyfriend and Henry's two best friends who are also safe and not a covid risk so this is a full Point Perdition soiree and I'm excited. 

The theme is To The Nines, (a pun on their years married which is CLEVER) which means tuxes and gowns. I don't know which of the boys will wear gowns but I'm hoping all of them because that would be fun, I think, I get tired of being the only one who has to hike up her entire outfit to manage stairs, truck siderails and just life in general. I got caught in a fridge door once getting more champagne and had to call for help and it's still a favourite joke around here so damn right I want them all to wear what I wear. 

But also with heels because why not up the difficulty across the board?

(Don't worry, I don't think they make stilettos in Ben's shoe size (fourteen) or he would probably already wear them.) 

And so this week the house next door (Andrew and Christian are co-hosting the party as they live in half of the house) have asked for assistance in decorating. Specifically in carving all two hundred of the little basketball-sized pumpkins that were dropped off this morning next door in the driveway for the party because they have a decorating plan in mind. 

 And I volunteered! I hate carving pumpkins with a passion but I love the roasted seeds, I love the fact that I don't have to host a party this big and I love love LOVE the fact that suddenly I am looking forward to Halloween instead of dreading it. The wish remains. We want things to be right.

And for them, it's all that and more.

Counting the words I never said to you.

Distant memories
Form constellations of despair
Guiding through the state of disrepair
Illuminate
All the hurts that have accrued
Unlock the cage, holding back the truth

Oh, wonderful. Pallbearer puts out a new album (their fourth) this morning and I can absolutely tread water in my misery with it. It's stunningly beautiful, slow and mega-heavy with gorgeous, sophisticated lyrics and memorable albeit slightly softened hooks. It's not overproduced but it's no sophomore effort either, in fact, it's exactly what I needed, and the singing is all clean so I can join in if I like. 

It's perfect for standing just under the eave of the roof by the patio doors while the rain pours down just out of reach, headphone cord snaking down the hall behind me. A hazard if you come too close. A tether, if you stop to consider. 

I should be planning a fiftieth birthday party. I should be getting ready for Halloween. I should be happier right now and not weighed down by this terrible past. I should be a lot of things I am not. 

And I should not be a lot of the things that I am. 

I should learn some voodoo, some kind of resurrection science or afterlife technology, some way to conjure him home in a more tangible form. I want to see him wet from the rain. I want to see him age. I want to see him bond with the others in a way he never truly did and I want him to see the children, not children anymore but beautiful adults, one who looks exactly like Lochlan with her slight graceful form, angular features, fierce personality and long wavy red hair, and one who looks like him, but also me, somehow, with his ridiculously tall and lanky form, his beautiful blonde hair that won't behave no matter what and his focused, gentle demeanor. 

I want to shove Henry over to him and yell at Jake that he was yours after all and you checked out and guess what? We raised him without you and it turns out we didn't need you after all. We wanted you, though. I wanted you. I've decided that this is the final birthday of yours that I'm going to mark. You're going to stop growing old right here. I will fight my way through the next two weeks like a prize and then I'm done. Finally. Because I can't wish for you. You're not coming back, there is no point to any of this anymore.

You built a gazebo where I put him and then act surprised when he's there.

Loch is on the beach. The fisherman-knit aran sweater has been taken off the shelf and put on over his flannel shirt and waffle-weave long-sleeved t-shirt. His hair is tied back loosely, errant pieces too short or too stubborn to be coralled by a leather cord make for a halo of red around his face in the wind. His jeans are dark blue and wet up to the knees with saltwater and he is threatening to swim if I don't tell him exactly what's on my mind. 

Only it's too cold to swim and he is doing this to prove a point. The point is that I am so desensitized, inappropriate and jaded that it takes these big dramatic moments to get me to move on something. That I am all or nothing now. That I used to be content with the smallest of gestures and now I want it all.

No, you're wro-

Am I though? He scoops up water with both hands and sprays me. 

Stop it.

Tell me I'm wrong again. He's ready to soak me, too. Only I am holding our phones, my keys that were in the pocket of my dress from earlier and the lantern that was left the other night that we forgot. It needs more fuel so I'll bring it up, at least and then it's ready for the next twilight trip. 

I drop everything to the sand and put my hands on my hips. You're....WRONG.

I close my eyes waiting for the impending soaking. It takes four seconds and I am drenched and frozen, gasping for air as he continues to scoop water at me as fast as he can. The one fun thing about Lochlan is that he never ever bluffs, and I will never fail to call him on one. So I'll have to program a new keyfob and we'll have to rinse our phones in distilled water and hope for the best. The lantern can take it, much like the girl. 

He wades back in to me almost in slow motion and takes me into his arms, soaked or not. How am I wrong?

This. This is everything. 

Following a Big Gesture, you mean. 

Nope. You didn't need to do that, Locket.

Wish you'd told me that before I wrecked my phone. 

I feel like we should just buy them in bulk. 

So why did you say he was there? 

Because he is there. 

Don't scare me, Bridget. 

You said if I don't tell you it's worse. 

I'm sorry I said that, right now at least. How long has he been there, again?

Eleven years. 

Jesus, Peanut.

I'm FINE (Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional).

It covers the back of his hand, ink mixed with blood against alabaster flesh

 The day is done, and the darkness falls from the wings of night

I love it. It's from The Day is Done, one of the Longfellow poems I can easily recite from memory and most of the boys can too. Caleb had it tattooed this morning. He has a bunch of hand tattoos but this is a full back of his right hand, all the way across in three lines, a neat block of gothic script that suits him to a tee. 

I can't take my eyes off it. It's a nice cheer-me-up on a day that sees me in my Cinnamoroll pajamas, fever still chugging along, kidney infection raging on full blast this morning, after yesterday went downhill rather quickly all of the sudden because that's how I operate. I go go go and wonder if more sleep is all I need only to find out my body wants to betray me like my mind already has. Everything is just jumping ship altogether and I can't say I blame any of it, these days.

The tiredness is not only the not sleeping, the perimenopause, the mental exhaustion that never quits, it was far more sinister. Lochlan called the doctor who made yet another house call and now I'm on these giant bumblebee antibiotics that have finally slowed me down and I'm going back to bed here before eleven in the morning. PJ has the conn. 

Hey, Bridge, want to go car-shopping with me? Caleb's heading out to get his new vehicle which should be fun. With his hand wrapped up like that he looks like he's been in a bar fight. Besides, he's not shopping, he's just trading his in on a new one, and so it's just a quick drop and go. 

No, PJ can keep you company, as I said. I'm going back up to sleep. I'm not feeling good. 

Can I bring you home lunch?

Is it Vietnamese?

If that's what you'd like. 

Then yes. Duh. 

Ha. That's what I thought you'd say.

You're the one place I call home.

 He slept sitting up. 

I asked for help before breakfast and what I got was a rare and wonderful change in that he didn't find someone to babysit my brain, someone to hide all the weapons and keep me from running outside to jump off the cliff and shock myself in the sea until I felt something better than this. He made me sit on the couch in the bathroom until he was ready, hair combed back behind his ears while wet only to spring up into crazy curls no matter what the minute it's dry. I only wish I was as resilient as Lochlan's curls. Nothing could flatten me ever. I would just jump back up and keep going. 

But I got flattened. He shook out a pill and then he shook out another and he laughed bitterly but it didn't reach his eyes, which remained a green concern in a face fighting to keep a neutral expression, because if he worries then I worry and I'm not able to add any more load to the current right now. 

What should we do today? He's asking questions as he holds a glass of water in one hand and my chin in the other. Drink. I can't answer. I want to hold on to today so I don't get flung right off or trampled underneath it. That's what I want. 

(And the kids aren't like this. They miss Jake like he's a close uncle they haven't seen in a while. It has faded for them though, mercifully. They are more sad for me. And I try so hard with them but sometimes I can't get it together and somehow they understand, the 'somehow' being useful, intensive therapy to make sure he didn't fuck them up to but by virtue of proximity to me, he did.)

He continued to ask me questions all day, and I was noncommittal and sometimes silent. Sometimes I had an opinion. Once I tried to wrench myself away but for that I was clotheslined by his arm that shot out so fast I didn't have time to take a second step but there must have been force behind the first. 

Bridget. Stay here. Stay put. He said it gently, outside of his usual penchant to bark things at me out of his own fear that creeps in when things get bad. He is so pragmatic, so necessary in an emergency but it's also the one time you won't find him, as he can't stand by helplessly and watch. If he can't lead he sure as hell isn't going to follow. That's one thing about Lochlan you might not know and people usually find that out the hard way. 

Let's find a new distraction. We painted a picture together. We went for a long walk along the beach, finding treasures and tiny sea stars. We napped. We made some pancakes together for lunch and then he cleaned up while I sat on the corner of the island and watched, because he just wasn't comfortable with me any further away. We did indeed watch a couple of really bad horror movies we found on Netflix and then we went up to our room. Lochlan poured himself a whiskey and settled in, pillows behind his back, jeans still crisp, flannel shirt still soft, always with the white t-shirt underneath. Still with his knife clipped in his pocket, brown hair tie around his wrist in case he has to get down to business. He told me to come and snuggle in with him and I put my head down against his chest, face in on the glorious winter flannel, his arm around my back. He took my sweater and tied it around me and his one leg, which was something else you didn't know. He would do that to childproof me when I was ten. To make sure he didn't sleep too deeply and fail to see if I got up or left. He was in charge and he wasn't going to screw it up and even though he did, we did, we ruined everything, we're not going to give up this incredible second chance to get it right, ghosts or no ghosts.

It was a comfort and I didn't wake up until this morning, still tied into the sweater, still with the lights on, him still dressed and still propped against the pillows. My head is an empty paper bag blowing down the road, my memories absent. My limbs are jello and yet my soul feels rejuvenated somehow, as if his presence alone was all I needed. Just an intense amount of time together like when I was little and I hung off every word he said, content to believe that he was right, that he knew everything, that all I had to do was listen to him and everything would be okay. 

After testing that theory I can tell you he's been right all along.