With friends like these.

   So clever, whatever, I'm done with these endeavors
    Alone I'll walk the winding way (here I stay)
    It's over, no longer, I feel it growing stronger
    I live to die another day, until I fade away

    Why give up? Why give in?
    It's not enough, it never is
    So I will go on until the end
    We've become desolate
    It's not enough, it never is
    But I will go on until the end

I suppose I need to get on with it now. Four of us know what happened, the rest would like the lights put on now. An existentialist, nihilistic turn of the tides today and a very uncomfortable post. I'm sure I'll leave something out.

It's long overdue. I'm always the last one to move. Turtle-girl. Jacob's morelasses lassy. Stuck in her fears. Spurred into action only through panic and pain. It makes me laugh because it sounds ridiculous but that's exactly what it is. What it was.

Lochlan and Benjamin will no longer be a part of our lives. We're done. It's over. I'm cutting ties and breaking hearts all over this country this week. You would be surprised at the lengths to which I am going to go to save this marriage.

Beginning with ending relationships that aren't healthy. There's two factors I've never given much thought to in my relationships and I finally see this. It's as clear as day. Jacob's been beating his head against a rock for years trying to make me see and I'd almost see it and then drop it like it burned.

The first thing is that I'm so used to not trusting people that I automatically come to not expect it. That allows a permissiveness. There's no accountability. I expect you've already failed or will fail me and so I let you off the hook without consequences. Doormat.

The second is that I refuse to make decisions. That has to stop. I'll move heaven and earth with my mighty little hands before I 'll choose. I'll sit forever on everything and never make the choices before me. I'll defer to you, to anyone. I'm so used to not being consulted after years of having choices made for me I am incapable of doing it anymore and it's coming back slowly. Oh so slowly. I only picked Jacob at long last because I would have died if he had left my life for good.

If I don't have to make choices I'll never have to be responsible for the outcomes. I'm never accountable. I'm delicate and above reproach. I was Cole's porcelain doll and I liked it that way. And then I was that to everyone. Hey, the more the merrier. No one's here for my mind or my heart. They like the doll and I like the attention. I don't care if it's negative. It could be the worst kind of negative and it would never be as bad as Cole and so I perpetuated the most unhealthy, destructive, sickly permissive friendships you'll ever imagine in your head. Letting them run my life and giving them access to touch. No respect for my body or my self. Loch. Such a long history with Loch.

Jacob came along and was a little weird on all of it. But he brought something else. Respect for me. A refusal to decide for me, instead forcing me to choose for myself, even if it took forever.

Of course everyone was still off listening to whatever Cole told them. He was the ultimate spinmaster. He was like an icon to my friends. They followed his word as law and so even in death they listened to him. And oh did he ever have a plan.

Sometime between Cole's attack on me and his suicide attempt he wrote letters to Jacob, Loch, Ben and I promising this plan for my future. Or so we think. When my letters were destroyed Ben and Loch decided to keep this secret against Jacob's will.

Cole wanted to mobilize our friends to take his place.

As a...group.

Cole offered them a polyfidelitous, polyandrous fantasy. With me.

Fucked-up, freaky, depressed, medicated, suicidal, deaf little Bridget.

Way to aim high, guys.

Cole was always obsessed with the subjects of open marriages, polygamy, polyamory, and the aspects of cheating versus nurturing multiple deep relationships. Maybe he knew Jacob and I better than we know ourselves, each other even. Maybe we are puppets. After all, my indiscretions with Loch set it into motion and my previous indiscretions (holy whore) with Jacob probably fueled Cole's fire. The road was now paved with permission, to move in and close ranks. To fight each other off while they promised me I'd be okay.

Ben told me the only reason he left now was because he felt left out, like he would never have a chance. Like he would always be last and so he was the first to cave in, especially since he feared someone or all of us would wind up hurt. Ben cracked first at the thought of leaving my life for the next four months.

Cole never trusted anyone one hundred percent but he did always want me to feel taken care of, financially, physically, emotionally. To solve that issue, ensure my comfort and satisfy his twisted bent for sexual deviancy, he wanted to form a collective, a group arrangement whereby I would be cared for and loved and kept safe and supported and everyone would get something for their efforts, for their cooperation.

A piece of Bridget.

I was to sleep with all of them regularly and exclusively, and Jacob and I would share parenting of the kids besides. No one would be above the other in relation to me and they would be faithful to me. I would be exclusive property of not one, but three men, who would all be accountable in their actions to each other. Something he knew would destroy Jacob if it didn't destroy me first.

They were taking their time, he asked them to take it slowly. He knew I would adjust to change so slowly. He knew I would warm to it. Eventually.

He knew me so well. Did he ever know me at all? I knew him and I wasn't surprised by his invention, what surprised me was Loch and Ben running with the ball like they have. Hungrily so.

I went from party favor to timeshare. And I never even knew. I'm embarrassed, ashamed and confused. I'm disappointed in Cole. I'm disappointed in all of them for never telling me.

Cole asked Loch and Ben to quietly infiltrate (destroy) my relationship with Jacob so that I would see him as only part of a larger image, instead of as the whole picture. Hence the offers, the admissions and the awful conversations, the situations and the encounters. How many times did I write here that both of them were so weird now? Jacob was told that he was only part of my life and that he'd never be everything so not to fight it.

They were never looking to ease my grief or give me a better life, they wanted their share.

And Jacob became possessive and angry, waging a one-man battle, sleeping with one eye open, aware of the betrayal lurking behind the scenes but unable to tell me. Watching me flit from man to man like a wounded butterfly, watching me fuck up.

He couldn't tell me and they wouldn't tell me. They would have denied it, leaving me to question Jacob. The damage was being done, don't you see? As much as I relished his unusual, breathless devotion, his actions would have eroded the trust we've tried to build. And I trust that all of his romance and all of his words were because he loved me and not because he wanted to win. Because he has already won.

So God knows what was in my letters. Frankly I no longer care.

I was too fragile to be trusted and too blind to believe. And he was forced to live in agony because if I didn't figure it out for myself I never would have figured it out at all.

I am too fragile to withstand this but I'm going to do it anyway. It's not a bad thing, just something that was long overdue.

This is weird and cold and so uncomfortable and I was afraid. At the end of the day this is exactly how Cole always wanted me to feel. It's the type of thing he would do. A half-misguided, totally fucked up way to ensure that his little Bridget never wants for anything and the perfect way to keep his closest rival from ever having it all. He was a dangerous man and right now I'm glad he's dead.

All of it fucked up and doomed to fail. And I told this to all three of them and they stared at me expectantly. Like they were still stupidly waiting for me to accept or reject Cole's instructions for my future. Pressure keeping me from having a choice. My own twisted definition of love and how it works working against me for the first time ever. My own sick unspoken curiosities scaring the fuck out of my husband, who doesn't want this. He left the room, unable to breath, to keep from panicking, his fears rendering him incapacitated. I don't often see him like that. I never want to see it again.

I know running through his head right then was a litany of prayers to please please let me stay with him. Possessive and stubborn to a fault. Hopeful to no end. Selfish enough to not even consider how wrong this feels. Or how unacceptable it really is. He knows he couldn't fight this one with religion for backup, knowing Cole fucked me up that much.

That I would consider this because of what's in it FOR ME.

Standing there surrounded by the men I've loved almost my whole life I balled the letters up and threw them to the floor and turned my back on three of those men. Loch and Ben are as gone as Cole. Three strikes you're out, third times the charm.

As always, running a million miles an hour on shock and feeling without a plan.

Only I won't talk to them in my sleep.

Their hands. Why do I remember hands? Loch's hot hands on me, parked in a cornfield when he chose the hottest night of the summer to make me scream and never look back. Ben's icy hands curled around my knees the night we lost a tent in a snowstorm on our first group winter camping trip and we opted to sleep packed like sardines in the one remaining tent for warmth. Jacob's perfect hands, rough and larger than my head. Cole's beautiful soft artistic hands.

Jacob came back into the room, composed and resigned. To wait for the inevitable cue from me. He knows me well and didn't have to wait long. It's my life and no one, especially someone who's dead is going to decide how I'll live it. I looked at Jacob and whispered to him,

Fix it, please, Jake.

He shook his head sadly and waited and I stared at him for the longest time in total silence.

No, Bridget. You have to fix this.

I threw Loch and Ben out and told them not to come back. I said the time has come. I'm not going to stand by and let things happen, or let people close to me who aren't good for me or don't want what's best for me and if they want to think he's controlling, well, then I don't really fucking care anymore but from now on I come first and this sick game is over because Cole is dead and he doesn't run this show anymore. I do. I'm going to, from now on.

They left. I went down. Hard. I have now buried three of the people close to me and I'm running out of arms to run into.

I turned around and the biggest, most loving arms were wide open for me.

He held me all night. My last vestiges of comfort, my last memories of life before Jacob taken to the same place the ones with Cole now rest. Right there, but beyond my grasp. A place I can visit but I don't have to live there anymore.

I asked for and received some seriously illegal sedatives. I think we evaded what could have been much worse and things are so very quiet now. While I slept all traces of Lochlan and Benjamin were obliterated from this house. We explained to the kids that they wouldn't be around any more and we were truthful with them. God, that's what hurts the most because the boys had close relationships with Ruth and Henry, who have now lost three people and they're too young to have to deal with this but onward we go as a family.

It just adds to the load my heart must carry but I can handle this. It is with relief when I wake in the mornings. Not grief. I thought it would be grief but it isn't.

Jacob pulled another moment out of thin air to keep me from catching my breath as long as I live.

I asked him why he didn't just boot them out, cut them off, overrule me or somehow give up Cole's secret a year ago? Even as I also kept Cole's dirty little secrets to protect my friends, why shouldn't Jacob keep Cole's secrets to protect me?

He said that more important to him than us, is me. Simply me. And if I am happy, then he is happy and that is all that matters. That I come first, before his wishes and even before what he sees as good for me or not. That I'm not his to control but yes, he's going to do everything he can to protect me until the end of time. That we've made so many mistakes but we're going to learn together and decide together and be together and it's going to be healthy. For me.

He promised me I'll never be lonesome, I'll never want for anything, and I'll never be used or hurt ever again. And he said that he was even prouder of me now than he was when I jumped out of an airplane on our anniversary, because I'm learning how to step outside of my uncomfortable zone and take leaps of faith. It's just so fucking hard.

I know I haven't written what you want to read.

I'm thinking.

I'm thinking I'm never going to have a normal relationship with a man, ever. Everything is so fucked up, but mostly it's me. I'm fucked up. And I don't think Cole made me this way sometimes, you know that?

Asleep at the wheel.

I can't even tell you about it. Not today. Perhaps tomorrow. But I do have some lightbulbs coming on over here, just when everyone was ready to toss me aside for sitting in the dark all the time. Because the dark loves me so.

    Just when you think that you're all right
    I'm calling out from the inside
    I never hurt anyone
    I never listen at all

They were never good for me, really, I counted them as family. I tried to protect their friendship with Cole and I never let them see what kind of man he was because they were friends first, before I was part of the equation. And they promised me when I left him at last that I would be safe, that they would never let anything like that happen to me ever again. They stepped in admirably as big brothers, close friends, incestuous landmarks I have run around for years.

But they fought Jake every step of the way, suddenly concerned with my every move, with his temper, with my emotional state, with my mental state. With how I lived and who I loved, who I spent time with, decisions I had to make. I could tell them anything and they'd move heaven and earth to ensure my comfort and sometimes decisions were made on my behalf. For a time, I was spoiled rotten.

And I was the very last person to find out what was really going on.

They didn't have my best interests at heart and things weren't nearly as cut and dried as they told me it was. Behind my back they were plotting to wreck everything I fought for and they made Jacob crazy and no wonder he's been on edge so goddamned long and no wonder things have been so, so difficult.

In any event, it's done now. Because I have to get better, we have to move on and we can't do it this way.

They set out to ruin it all and I can't forgive this. I'll forgive so much your head might spin with the permissiveness with which I exist but it's over.

All of my relationships were born in a toxic hell, save for one.

And you know something?

It's not all that healthy either.

But at least we can give it a chance now.

Jacob can breathe now that he has everything. Protection orders, memories with deadlines, no more wars to wage except with my brain (which doesn't put up much of a fight, having been tranquilized into entropy) and a promise from me that I'll be here. Forever. It's like Christmas.

But what would I know? I just woke up two hours ago. After sleeping for twenty.

And it's a brand new day. Only it's really quiet and I really hope I'm making the right decisions here.

Meant for greater things.

I forgot to tell you something.

The strangest thing happened in my dream last night that I was sure was real and it might very well be.

I puffed my cheeks out full and held my breath. I squeezed my eyes closed and forced my hands into tight fists and I concentrated. I concentrated so hard I think I broke something in my soul.

And then in a blinding flash of white nuclear light and total silence and the absence of all earthly forms, something extraordinary happened.

A tiny white feather popped out of the skin on my right shoulder.

It hurt like hell but it was there. Because this morning when I woke up Jacob's hand was there. And he was stroking it and praying softly, wide awake for no reason at all.

Control of nothing.

Then touch my tears with your lips
Touch my world with your fingertips
    And we can have forever
    And we can love forever
    Forever is our today

Reality resumes when Jacob pulls me in against his chest and wraps his arms around my head, rocking back and forth because the simplest of unconscious comforts reveal themselves when everything else gets stripped away. It's why a mother hums and rubs her child's back in times of crisis, why men pace in emergencies and why people offer mere hugs when your world has been ripped away.

He resorts to praying aloud. Beautifully, endlessly. He never wanted this for me. He tried to stop it the whole time and I wasn't ever aware.

This opens up wounds that I haven't had time to get used to the rawness of yet, let alone heal. Bad memories that I thought I had cast out were waiting for me and come flooding in, ready to drown anything in their path. I should have known Cole could still have this kind of power over people and control from hell. Why wouldn't he?

It's a Hitchcockian zoom in all the way back to square one but in my water-filled soundless cage I reached out and told Jake it doesn't matter because he is here and I am so grateful and could he please do something because I can't breathe. The panic makes it hard to breathe because I know waiting behind the panic for a turn is more sadness and oh God I can't take anymore.

Jacob. Help me.

I may have to take a few days away from writing. I'm not in charge anymore so I don't know for sure. Who am I kidding? I've never been in charge.

I can't breathe. Why can't I breathe?

Every time I try to write my eyes fill up and I can't do it.

I've gotten good at taking pills and writing distracted and playing the music so loud I miss the lyrics again because it's distorted. I've gotten good at blocking out harmless conversations and grief that goes on far too long and anything remotely uncomfortable. I'll never be good at being alone or dealing with bullshit or making do.

Send me an email. I could use some love. Yes, you.

Sweetness.

A bright spot in the day for this actress. Ruth and Henry are delighted that the boys are going to be here later. Especially at the same time. This was in between Henry telling me all through lunch that he would eat it only if I would let him have two "think noodles" afterward. He meant fig newtons. He can have whatever his little heart desires, he's maybe the only guy I trust anymore. There's a fun cross to bear for a six year old.

Resignation.

Ben and Loch are coming out this weekend for a family meeting. So far it appears that only Ben, Loch and Jacob were recipients of this letter. Surprise. No one else will admit to having one and Ben said that the letter itself spells that out clearly.

I did say bad things happen in threes, right?

Jacob refuses to say a word about it for now.

But now I think I know why Ben left and why Loch has been the way he has and why Jacob is on such a mission to win this imaginary fight.

Because it wasn't imaginary after all.

Oh fuck, scrap that. He just called again and said they'll be here in time for dinner. Tonight.

Well you bunch of.

I want to call you every name in the book.

I want to throw things and break stuff and scream.

But not until I have a few more facts than a drunken Ben can provide before lunch. Poor Ben, he was doing so well. Was that a lie too? My God, you're the ones who are fucked up.

I want to know who got them and who decided to keep it from me and don't say you don't know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Cole's goddamned fucking LETTERS.

I think I hate all of you right now. Forever and ever. Prove me wrong, please. I'm begging you to tell me this wasn't orchestrated the way I know it was. Prove that you didn't just fuck up my life even more.

Unexpected.

I'm wearing the t-shirt Christian brought over for me. It didn't fit him and he would be the smallest of the guys so the next logical wearer is me. It's huge and it says Fabbing Fuckulous on it. Jacob laughed and asked if I was planning to wear it in public and I said yes, but only to church and PTA meetings. Of course I was kidding but the look he shot me was worth it.

Ben has not called back. Instead I lunged at the phone at 9 pm and it wasn't what I expected at all.

It was Sophie.

She'll be the only one relatively unscathed by the mess made because she wasn't even engaged when it happened. And it was a fluke that Jacob wound up at the conference, there was a last-minute opening that he was able to grab as a favor repaid. They haven't had contact since, no, I'm not worried that it's going to happen again, from what I know and have seen, while he admires her togetherness as much as he abhors my chaos, she doesn't move him nearly an iota as much. He fell for me hard, he is all mine in a way that has surprised, and continues to surprise everyone.

She called to apologize to me and to wish us a happy belated anniversary and to ask me if I had anything I wanted or needed to say to her. That she didn't want me to hate her. That she was surprised by how not into it Jacob turned out to be and how grief-stricken he was and how she assumed he had admitted his mistakes long ago.

This is how civilized adults mend fences. We're all in our thirties. We should all know better. We keep trying to do better, and that's all we can do.

God, am I this magnanimous?

Not on your fucking life.

She apologized and asked me not to forgive or let her off the hook but just to know she wouldn't hurt me again. Or Jacob. She also had told her fiance before they were engaged. I wasn't kidding when I say she is pulled together and so not that type of person.

I'll never be that self-assured or that pulled together. She is the tight chignon, the business formal and I am the wispy mess, the day at the fair hair, undone and unkempt.

Soft and wild. Sweet and certifiable.

Everyone rushing in to assure their absolution from me is astounding. Since when did the world ever revolve around me? Apparently it always has, and my happiness has come to command a king's ransom. One that was paid for when I asked for it. I took Jacob's heart back because it belongs to me and it stays with me, from here on out.

She said she probably won't call for a long while, maybe at Christmas to wish us well, or not, but that I should know, if I don't or if there's any doubt, just how much Jacob truly loves me, that the time she has spent with him whether before their marriage or after, was filled with my presence and his preoccupation with me. With his obsession for me that supersedes everything he does.

But here's a little deviation from the way everyone expects Bridget to react to all the reassurance that Bridget's the one he wants and he'd never do it again. Maybe it's cold, maybe it's a result of diluting my emotions and anticipated reactions from all the drugs, which were increased recently, did you catch the shift? Maybe I wasn't born yesterday and maybe I never saw this coming, I thought I had him wrapped but I was sure I did before he married Sophie so maybe she takes up just as much of him as I do and maybe, like me, there's more than enough room for more than one soulmate. Maybe we're lucid and acting and feeling but we're not stupid in never putting all our eggs in the one basket because you never know when it'll get kicked over and you'll have a mess left to deal with. Alone. Human beans weren't meant to be alone.

We weren't meant to be so fragile either.

Was I meant to be so cold?

I think I know exactly how Jacob feels in that when he thinks about me going to Loch he feels an uncontrollable sadness, and a panic and a rage that threatens to eat him alive. So it's better not to think about it all. We talked it out privately, we've dealt with it in therapy, it's done. Sophie calling now just seeks to undo me again and I'm not going there. I'm no longer naive and I don't care that *I* haven't fully dealt with it, preferring instead to take my knocks for my own betrayals and not touching Jacob's.

I can't. I'll die if I think about it and so I don't. Why in the hell do you think I happily agreed to upping my drugs to the highest dosage ever yet? Because I will put it off forever. It's how I deal with things. I just keep on going and pick up the pieces of my heart along the way and pretend everything is fine.

I told her I wished she hadn't called. That it wasn't fair of her to use me so that she could move on and feel better and soothe her own guilt. I think that's what surprises everyone now, how much rage can fester inside of such a tiny package unchecked for much longer than most people can carry that load.

I can. Indefinitely. And that can't be healthy. And I refuse to talk about to the right people. Because I simply feel like holding all the cards right now and making them nervous and maybe the stupid fragile girl is less stupid and even more stupid than we all previously thought.

Because I really have no idea what I'm doing here. What's sad is how comfortable this feeling is.

What's even more sad is how unfeeling this feeling is.

Swords drawn.

I'm currently NOT falling in love with one of the Eagar brothers. Cursed Outdoor Life Channel. To spite you I won't even say which one. Probably the one who looks like Jake. This is why I don't watch TV. I'm all like Oooooh, cuuuuuute. I saw ten minutes of Heroes and Milo Ventimiglia and his gorgeous hair were lodged in my dreams for a month afterward.

Incorrigible girl.

Speaking of heroes, Jacob went back to see Mark early this morning for a bit of repair on one of his wings. Comes home with Protector in a gorgeous script above the now-fixed wings, clearly visible if he's only in a T-shirt. I'm floored and little bit cautious. He believes it goes well with my fragile tattoo. I have my reservations. However, he can pull it off in the way that only a 6'4", 200 lb guy can.

It smacks of another show of force, maybe. Another claim to ownership, a permanent statement, not as much for me as for everyone else. I think that's what I don't like. He doesn't need it.

Then he headed off to work, half days this week, department meetings and organizing his new office (shoebox, don't know where he's going to put his long legs when he sits down) and he's so excited, even though classes don't begin for a little over two more weeks.

He was cautious in leaving and has called five times. I don't see how he's going to get anything accomplished at this rate. He worries about me. I'm doing okay today, we went shopping. We're going shopping tomorrow too. I'm a little worried about me being alone too.

I'm a little more worried about the four times Ben called and didn't leave a message for me when he's been gone a whole twenty-four hours and usually he doesn't call for the first whole month or so.

The rest of this week is going to be as long as the previous hundred or so. I can tell.

It really is a nice tattoo. I'm going to ask Jacob if I can post a picture of it later. Maybe he can have it engraved on his imaginary shield to match, since no one's ever going to see it underneath this fortress he's built around us now. Proverbial or not, the armor's on, the flag is raised, I can't wait to see what sort of upset all these phone calls are going to cause.

I'm sure it goes both ways. Wait until the guys see that tattoo.

Fresh preacher karaoke.

Our kitchen is too busy these days for Jacob's favorite solitary pastime, there are four pairs of hands now committing effort to make meals and clean up. He has moved his one-man band to the backyard patio and sings and strums in the evenings, dedicated in a different way from the manner he follows singing through his days.

Last night I barely got one step over the threshold with his tea before I was moved to tears. It's been a while since he could do that with just a song (click the link to play, it will begin automatically and it's worth it to hear.).

    Rain rain go away,
    Come again another day,
    All the world is waiting for the sun.

    Is it you I want,
    Or just the notion
    Of a heart to wrap around so I can find my way around

    Safe to say from here,
    You're getting closer now,
    We are never sad because we are not allowed to be

    Rain rain go away,
    Come again another day,
    All the world is waiting for the sun.

   

Turn toward the ocean.*

(My apologies for brief drunken journalling. Pathetic is an easy, easy role for Bridget to slip into.)

We went to the beach Saturday. White sand and freshwater north of us on a pretty lake and that's where Jacob takes me when I want to see a lot of water. Like a fish or a mermaid in danger of perishing if she dries out. It's one of the places we run to now, having found it on an exploration drive one morning while we were staying at the cabin we used to borrow.

Jacob gave the kids some swimming lessons and then we ate lunch from the picnic basket and I turned onto my stomach to read and sunbath for ten minutes or so and the kids proceeded to bury Jacob in the sand. They squealed and howled with laughter as he kept pretending to sneeze and half come out of the pile they had made on him.

I turned onto my back and put the book down and closed my eyes for a minute.

There it was.

My imperfect perfect.

That was it. A belly full of potato chips and a cucumber sandwich, sand in my pop and a borrowed copy of The Husband to read. Pink toenails courtesy of Ruth and a flash of blue bikini as she ran past with a bucketful of water to throw on Jake, who is bronzed perfectly with a hint of pink, muscles etched like a Greek statue in his brown board shorts. The only time his beard looks uncomfortable or out of place is here but he keeps it because he knows I like it. Henry was busy beside me digging a Big Hole, he told me, and asked if there were any cookies left. Or maybe watermelon.

I heard Jake's cellphone ring and I picked it up and it was nothing more than a wrong number. A nice change on the weekend.

I sat up and decided a quick swim was in order and before I could step in the water Jacob ran over and scooped me up and ran straight out and dumped me in the surf. I felt warm skin and then ice cold water and I screamed into a laugh and he laughed too and pulled me back close to him.

A wet kiss and a huge smile.

Perfect.

We came home a bit early to seek shelter from the sun and make some supper and the kids were asleep before 8. Then Jacob made us an electric lemonade. The alcohol hit me rather quickly thanks to drinking it so fast and the large doses of drugs. My head spun and I flipped out. I figured he'd be mad. I didn't know what I thought. He made the damned drink for me.

I went outside to clear my head and stumbled into a chair. I drank water and tried to wait it out but I was upset and tired and not able to deal with it. After a few harsh words I decided I'd just go to bed, having ruined such a nice day. Jacob blamed himself and followed me, trying to get me to stop. I missed the top step and fell forward and he caught me and we collapsed in the upstairs hall in a clumsy embrace.

Where I realized I wasn't the only one who had too much sun and too much alcohol.

His hands were so rough. He flipped me over onto my stomach and pulled off my underwear and slid his hands down around my hips and I fought with him and wound up with my head pressed to the boards while he did what he wanted to do anyway. I didn't get into it until the bitter end and he gathered me up off the floor and managed to pull the quilt off the bed and we collapsed onto the sheets in a sober embrace, ruined and forgiven and exhausted, sunburned and spent. He fell asleep mid-apology, knowing I didn't fault him for his brief abrasiveness. He fell asleep with me locked in his arms the way he should and I didn't fault him for his possessiveness either.

Because I don't. I don't fault him for anything anymore.

Sunday morning began awfully early for the sunrise service in the park but Jacob was on a roll. I was right, he did miss sermonizing, but he says not enough to return except occasionally. I expect when he is older and retires from teaching he'll make a most spectacular return. Of course, thinking ahead he could also quickly turn his back on all kinds of conventional careers and become an adventure travel guide in China. Nothing would surprise me with Jake. Nothing. I've come to expect the unexpected.

We went out for breakfast and then returned to church for the late-morning smaller summer crowd and then the day was ours again and we headed out for our family climbing workshop. The kids had a blast this time, being a lot more familiar with their gear and the people.

I collected $120 in cash for my weight gain and endured all kinds of jokes about cake and running and taking money from friends. Ben made his exit until our neighborhood is snow-dusted and winter has us in an icy grip once again. PJ did indeed stay for supper and Jacob and I have spent a lot of time talking about boundaries and feelings and control and overrides and difficulties and pulling rank on each other and partnerships too.

He never would have let Caleb in the house save for him feeling as if I would think he was trying to control me and oh, what a lovely mess we have to sort out in therapy today. Being married to Jacob is like living with a control freak who makes a huge effort to not appear to be a control freak. He admits this freely.

It's one of the least of our worries but we persevere. We work on everything.

*(The title is nothing more than a charming set of directions I read this morning, in perusing the real estate listings. We're selling the cottage but not some of the land. I'll write more about it when I can do it in a less-homicidal fashion.)

Im not drunk and not even scared, not anymote. Becasye Jacob loves me

Ones and onlies.

Let's have a Saturday morning barometer and go from there, it's been requested, as have a few other points I need to clear out, talk about, whatever.

Here.

It's so awesome having the house full of kids again. I know, I know, two shouldn't make such a huge difference but it goes from empty to full and noisy in a heartbeat. My heartbeat. They keep talking about Caleb and sports cars and how he showed them pictures of daddy and told them stories about when Daddy was little like they are and wow, I'm right back to nodding and smiling and pretending it's fine and I want to scream that he's not a good person. In any event, they were given a lovely lesson on passwords and familiar strangers and we're working with them so they know it's not okay for him to show up and take off with them.

It kills me to realize his goal is achieved and I'm scared. He knows where they go to school.

I can't think about it anymore. Hopefully the imaginary safety net we've drawn around them will hold. I can't think he would ever harm them, but hey, let's count how many surprises I have had with people I thought were safe?

No, on second thought, let's not. Let's move on, instead.

The dreaded weight check is in. I'll be collecting my cash winnings all week. Never place a weight bet with a princess who counts cake among her favorite things. I'm at 111. Highest ever. Jacob has pointed out that my cheeks have filled in and my abdomen is rounded a little. Lovely. But don't laugh at me, Jacob has tipped 200. Which he's so not happy about.

Ben's stopping by later to say his official goodbyes. He's on the road officially as of Wednesday and has a lot to do. He'll be back shortly before Christmas but in the meantime he wants to see me again before he goes and I'm willing, I know it's strange. I can't explain. He's broken up with his girlfriend and moved out of their apartment. His stuff goes into storage here and at John's place and then he's going to start over when he comes back. Not sure if it was good timing or better planning but Ben is Ben and what the hell can I do with him?

PJ's stopping by too with some climbing gear he borrowed from Jake. Watch it coincide perfectly with a mealtime. We're climbing this weekend and I'm expecting to find it much less scary than I did last time thanks to that skydiving surprise in between. I'm looking forward to it, which never happens. Even though in the summer. Jacob. climbs. shirtless. and. wow.

And I live with the guy.

Church tomorrow is Jacob's turn in covering Sam's brief holidays while he can get them. I'm excited. I love watching Jacob preach, I know, I'm a broken record. This is a test to wait for him to say he missed it and watch him lean back toward toward the left a little. Wait for it.

Now, we're off to the beach.

Perfect imperfect.

Envy gets the best of me this morning as I read through the blog updates that greet me each day over coffee after Jacob goes off to putter around and I dive alone into the remainder of the coffee pot to float for a bit.

Everyone's lives are so....perfect. They go about their perfect days with their perfect lives. They can hear every leaf rustle and take time to breathe and play and read and go to the movies and laugh and travel.

Never did I wish for such an existence like I did this morning. Never did I want so fitfully for that mediocrity as I do right now. This morning I'm in tears reading of happy bumps in the roads of the people I have become so attached to and I wonder why the planet spun to chaotic when I had my turn to pull the lever.

Drama. I could throw it all away. As much as I refused to cause even the smallest ripple before, it seems as if the past two years have been nothing but and I'm ready to throw up. Caleb was maybe the last straw. I can't take any more.

I had tea with Joel last night. The professionals among us tend to crowd back in a little more to make sure I stay where I am. And honestly the barometer is changing little. I seem able to roll with the punches and bounce back more easily now. I haven't woken up screaming in a while, Jacob can leave the house now without wondering what he'll come back to. I seem to be able to wind around the lows instead of falling into them. The medication has leveled out, we've worked with it and monitored it and I take it every single day and it seems like a better life than whoever that dark girl was who moped her way through this life before.

The drama queen.

Now it's a magnet.

Fuck me.

Joel says I gave up control of my life and that's why this is allowed to continue. He says the last time I exerted any sort of control was when I left Cole and then I promptly threw it into Jacob's lap and Jacob refuses to wield it.

He's right to an extent.

No one's manning the fort here.

I should have told Caleb he couldn't come into my home. That I didn't appreciate the bait and switch, that based on what happened in Toronto and here even, I should have been notified that he was around.

I should have let gently go of my friends before they let go of me.

I should have paid closer attention to Jacob's weaknesses and difficulties. He hides things well for a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. He'll insist everything is great right up until the moment he falls apart. He hates that about himself and therefore even as the closest person in the world to him it's all I can do to drop everything and try to hang on when he goes down.

We'd like the every day quiet happiness but it doesn't seem to be playing out.

Do we thrive on catastrophe? Have I become the reluctant energy vampire? Oh Christ, cast me off now, because that sucks.

I barely get two paragraphs into a happy little post about our dog and life loudly demands that I write the good stuff. Only it isn't good stuff and I wish it would stop. Maybe this is my price for my choices. Instead of normal girl friends or couple friends I wind up with a dozen big brothers who want to get into my pants. Instead of finding my equals, I find soulmates in controlling (yeah, even Jake) men with hair-trigger fists and injustices to be righted.

I somehow find painful sex and vicious arguments and drop dead romance all at once. Or maybe that was vicious sex, painful romance and drop dead arguments. I'm no longer sure.

My bad habits are going to be my downfall. I've begun to bite my nails again. I twist my hair until it breaks. I dig my fingers into Jacob's hand until he shakes me off and swears at me and then pulls me in close by my neck and kisses my temples.

I never relax. There's no such thing as taking the tea out in the backyard and spending the evening doing nothing. I'm wound up. Hopped up and messed up. And everyone has the cure. From losing the more toxic friends and setting limits to more drugs, different drugs, street drugs if I'd like (I wouldn't like). A drink, no drinking, smoke a cigarette, don't start smoking, sleep less and go do something, sleep more and rest your pretty head. Take a trip, no more changes. Don't run, find an escape.

I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do anymore.

The worst thing is that all of it is tied into Jacob. When I left my implied-perfect little life for him everything went straight to hell. Brewing for a long time, this storm, and he didn't cause it. He kept me alive and there's no way to spell that out for anyone sufficiently.

Cole was slowly killing me. My death was planned. I wasn't sure if he would kill me before I would kill me but I was slated to die. I was miserable and frightened and Jacob knew and he tried everything and finally the threat of him moving on, of permanently giving up on me was enough and now fixing the mess I made by staying so goddamned long puts an unreasonable blame on him for a mess he never caused. A mess he would dearly love to fix and tries so hard it's inhuman that he cracks less frequently than he does. This grief has a stranglehold on both of us in completely different ways.

Last night, today, he's full of remorse. Usually punching someone in the head is quickly forgiven and instantly resolved. These are physical guys, they do this alot, but today Jacob is ashamed of his instincts and his urges to hurt another human being to the point of requiring medical intervention. He never goes that far. Neither one of us ever for a moment thought he'd be capable of that. Which is stupid. He's capable of whatever he wants.

Today he's fed up with his own temper and poor decision-making skills. It doesn't matter how many times he's told he did what he had to do. It was too late to unallow Caleb into the house. Jacob had no choice but he still did something he doesn't condone and he curses his superhuman strength. He still sees nothing but me in an emergency.

Save the Bridget, save the world.

Groundhog day.

It never changes. I think it's always Friday, and something has always just happened or is about to.

He just came through the kitchen to get some juice and asked me how I was doing and if I'd like to come sit outside for a spell in the gathering light, for a breather. For a prayer and a little soft hand holding and some reassurance that I'm not going to go crazy because he's holding onto me so tight nothing bad will ever get me, though they try.

I'm going. I won't relax, but I'm going.

Maybe tomorrow will be perfect. This is what faith is to me now. Taking each day and hoping to make it better.

Bridget and the big bad wolf.

Ruth and Henry arrived safely yesterday late in the afternoon, tired and grumpy and full of stories and logical arguments on why they could now stay up until 10 pm, drink full bottles of lemonade (One for each, mommy!) and wear their shoes in the house.

Cole's parents were always the most permissive people I have ever met. So permissive that instead of grandma flying back with them and spending a day or two here as we planned, they were easily talked into a different plan.

One I knew nothing about until I saw my brother in law walk through the gate with my children.

Jacob had a colorful response to that sight.

Oh ye got to be kiddin' the fuck right outter us.

From the top of the escalator Caleb shot me a smug warning look over Ruth's head that basically said Control the giant. Your children are watching us.
Jacob had other plans and went right to the gate and grabbed the kids up in a hug and quietly told Caleb to turn around and go back into whatever hole he crawled out of. Caleb smiled in his cocky way and loudly pointed out that Ruth and Henry wanted him to stay for dinner tonight as a last supper since they had all had so much fun back home at the beach.

He enjoys twisting Jacob's screws. That or he has a deathwish.

Caleb isn't dumb, though sitting at my dinner table protected by children's ideals since that was the only thing keeping Jacob from hammering him into the ground headfirst I was beginning to have my doubts.

He was smart enough to keep the focus on the kids and then Jacob took them up to get them into bed, they were so exhausted from a long travel day. I couldn't leave Caleb alone with Jake and Jake didn't want to leave me alone with Caleb but I was the lesser evil and so he went up, reluctantly.

The kids are doing really well, Bridge. I'm impressed. They're just about seasoned travelers now.

Thanks. Next time you want to spend time with them check with me first, please.

The folks had a good handle on it and I love to spend time with family. They're my blood, they're all I have left of my brother.

Me too, so please don't put them in the middle.

In the middle of what? It was harmless fun and I brought them back to save mom the trip.

You're messing with my head, Caleb.

Your little head is already profoundly messed up, Bridget.

Leave, please.

I think we should talk.

About what?

About you removing the drug mentions from your diary and writing an apology to me there. I don't do drugs.

There were drugs all over your apartment.

Really? Prove it. Prove they were mine, even.

I don't have to prove it. I saw them and we got the hell out.

Take it down.

Fine. But it doesn't make you any less of an asshole.

(I edited while he stood over me. He knows people. He is people.)

Remember what I told you about one-sided stories?

Are you going to threaten to sue me again?

What if I hadn't brought them home, Bridge? What if I had taken the kids somewhere else?
He reached out and stroked my cheek.

I looked up into his eyes, at his beautiful face, so much like Cole's. I wasn't going to just sit there and be told that I would now live in fear again. Something in my brain snapped. I went at him with plans to scratch his eyes blind and Caleb caught me and bent my arms back until I cried for him to let go when my elbow gave out. He didn't let go. I was on the floor and he wouldn't let go.

Jacob made him let go.

Jacob put Caleb in the hospital.

Caleb, who rarely had the time of day for me unless I could travel with him and spent little time with us when Cole was alive who suddenly seems to have such high stakes in this family since Cole's death and I can't understand it. I curse every encounter I've ever had with him, at this point.

And I wonder when I look at the children, exactly which awful traits they inherited from their father's side and which ones they're going to get from me.

It got chalked up today as a 'resolved' domestic dispute. Jacob was warned that his idea of self defense was harsh but warranted, as he perceived a threat to me. Caleb will be or has been instructed to stay away from all of us and I from him. Because I know better. Somehow I keep thinking he has to be a part of their lives, but he doesn't. He isn't and he won't be anymore. The bridge is now burned. Destruction of it comes in the form of an order of protection.

Again.

I'm okay today really. Mood stabilizers are lovely things. Empathetic police officers are lovely too. Understanding grandparents are even better.

Libel (OH hi Caleb.)

Under threat of legal action, I've been forced to edit a couple of entries here. Long story which will probably end violently if I'm lucky.

I've also been asked to write a public apology and I'm only thinking about it, since under the circumstances I highly doubt I'm the one who's causing the most trouble right now.

Proving them right.

(In one post I'm going to expose Ben for the whole internet to see. The cross-dressing, bagpipe-playing, serial destroyer of his own perfectly good relationships Ben. Who still retains his cool, since he's going on tour now and all that. Oh, at the same time I'll expose myself as the dysfunctional needy damsel in distress I freely admit to being.)

Ben's off to fulfill his dreams for a few months. Some of you are aware that his day job is not his real job, it just pays for his wishes. I won't say any more than that to protect his privacy. He'll be back before Christmas.

You moving in?

Nope, Bridge, just returning some stuff I've hung on to for a bit.

Oh, I see.

Inside the box were random golf clubs that I didn't know belonged to us, some books, a few CDs and Cole's bagpipes. There were also a bunch of pictures of me and one of Jacob's bulletins that had our marriage announcement printed in it. A sweater I thought I lost at the fair.

Ben, none of this stuff has to come back. You can keep it.

No, Bridge, it has to go. These are your things.

You can have them.

I don't want them. Oh, geez, Bridge. Maybe I need to get your stuff out so I can get you out.

Of your head?

Of my life.

Wow. Way to make a girl feel good.

That's just it, Bridget. We've sponged off your generosity far too long and we have too big a say in your choices. The only way to let go of our ownership over you is to let go of you.

Oh. PJ got to you?

Nope.

Oh, please don't say Jacob is doing this.

No, it isn't Jake and it isn't PJ. We've all talked and we're not good for you anymore. I was never good for you anyway. You're doing so well and we just want to see that continue without any of the bullshit.

You're my friend, Benjamin.

Hey, I'll always be your friend. I'll just be around less. Going to be gone most of the fall anyway.

What about the kids?

They're going to be in school all day, Bridget. I'll still see them when I'm back. You still have to invite me for the occasional dinner. I just can't be here all the time and be around. You guys need some space so you can have a real chance.

So Jacob starts his job in a bit and you leave and everyone else disappears and I'm left alone?

(sweet panic follows)

(big hug follows)

Don't guilt me.

Don't abandon me, Benny.

I'm not abandoning you, Bridget. Jake isn't Cole. He doesn't like having everyone around all the time. And you, you need downtime, and quiet time and time to get used to being with him. Watching you two together is excruciating. I mean you waited so long to be together and now that you are, you should be happier together but instead you're both wound up and miserable and stuck in some sort of frozen state in which you can't accept that it's okay for you to be together. You guys need time, Bridget. Time to get to know each other. Without all of us sabotaging you.

I know.

Good.

So can't we do it without the dramatic farewells and creepily mature conversations?

Yeah. I could put this box down and throw you in the kiddie pool.

Hearing aids, Ben.

Oh yeah. Dammit. Okay, how about another hug? A friend hug, nothing weird.

Please, Ben, everything is weird with you.

Bring it, princess.

You got it, Tucker.

My God, this is hard. I was all cool about it until you turned those Bambi eyes on me.

Who are you doing this for again?

For all of us, Bridge. Maybe leaving is the only way I can really leave you and the giant alone. The guy deserves a real chance and he isn't getting it this way. That's something we call can agree on. If I had my way I'd throw you over my shoulder and run off, caveman style. But seriously, you and Jake, man, it's sweet and it needs a chance to play out. Take it and be happy. He's good for you. He'll be good to you. Or we'll kill him. There will be no more Coles in your life.

You'll kill him? Good luck with that.

Okay, maybe we could all attempt to knock him down.

Then what?

Run away while he's getting back up?

Right.

Love you, Bridget. Go be happy. I'm sorry I ever tried to mess with you.

Trying my best, here. Love you too. Fucking idiot. Go find a girl to fuck.

Oh trust me. I'm working on it.

It's about time, Ben. Find one that sticks. Not in a gross way though.

Shut up already, Bridget.

K.
Didn't I tell you? They're all going to make their excuses now and cast me off. It'll probably be the best thing they ever do.

Jacob's response?

Ah! The old agony bags, I thought they were long gone. Maybe I should learn to play.

Sweet mother of God.

Kids are back this afternoon. I'm bouncing off the walls.

He's savvy enough no to figure out the RSS feeds.

Esoteric, insane. Ignore, please.

An easy answer and she didn't even have to spell out a question for it to come flooding in via a giant blonde man walking purposefully from one end of one floor of the house to the other end of a different floor of the house where he found his tiny wife, still typing like a madwoman and having a hard time figuring out why she can't latch on to the simplest of facts anymore. Because she forced him to watch as she was broken by someone else, someone she couldn't even let go of until she was forced to choose. And maybe as much as she is grateful for that she knows that she also blames him for that.

The weaker she became, the more power she held in her helplessness. Everyone loves her fragility. It brings out who they are and it protects who she used to be.

The similarity is love, passion for you, Bridget, and the difference is that you traded the sadism for affection. Because now you finally know that there's a difference.

Resemblances past and battles won with silence.

(A comparison I never made and never wanted to, and a memory I'd like to keep, even if I shouldn't. It's a piece of my soul and everyone wants it, so here. Jacob wants me to deal with this because I steadfastly refuse to and it's holding him up. I'll apologize for the three-way conversation in advance.)

    If I had to
    I would put myself right beside you
    So let me ask
    Would you like that?
    Would you like that?
Looking around at my friends, they're all intimate in some way, they're all alike, I can predict what they will say, what they'll pick to eat or do, how they'll feel. They found each other through similar interests-music, death defying sports, Cole, me. Sought out because these guys love to be in close vicinity to Bridget's sweet smile and long blonde hair, especially if she'll feed you. Food to your belly and thoughts for your soul.

I love men who are athletic, artistic, emotional, affectionate, muscular, musically inclined and medievally minded. Which I'm not explaining today.

So it stands as slight surprise that Cole and Jacob were alot alike, despite the fact that they were polar opposites.

Possibly.

Cole had dark brown hair, dark brown beard, usually a goatee, dark blue eyes, he always wore black t-shirts and black or blue jeans. The dark ringer for Trey Anastasio.

Jacob has white blonde hair, a blonde beard, eyes so light blue they're just about white, he lives in white shirts and paler jeans or cords, dimples and a drop-dead beautifully amused smile that makes him look just like a young Redford.

Attitude-wise they were both tensely laid-back, mellow but quick to anger, kind but cutting.

And that's where it stops. They liked different foods, different drinks, Jacob likes alcohol once in a blue moon but it ruins him, Cole could drink anything regularly and it never phased him. They spoke the same language. They both played guitar, only Cole very rarely sang, while Jacob never stops singing. Loud. He has no shame. Cole was too shy for that.

They both loved people around but Jacob likes to stick to the phone once he's home for the day or night.

I said they spoke the same language. I wasn't kidding. The night I left him, Cole came home to find Jacob blocking his path into the kitchen, where I was sitting in terror of his arrival. Shaking so hard in fear that Jacob was disgusted. He expected a war, at that point.

What's up, Preacher Boy?

She's mine, Brother.

Take her and go, then. Have fun, baby girl.

No, Cole, she's not coming back to you.
Cole stared at Jake without saying anything, the cockiness leaving his eyes, flowing out visibly as it dawned on him that Jake was right. From that point on he ignored Jacob's presence.

Bridge, baby, what have you done?

He wrenched Jacob's arm out of the way and kneeled in front of where I sat at the table.

We're done. We're finished, Cole.

What have you done?

Do you have a place you can stay?

He put his hands up to his face, I flinched and Jacob tensed up but Cole simply rocked back on his heels and then laughed, sadly.

The kids...

Jacob cut him off.

We'll sort out the details later, tonight she wants you out. Fair?

It isn't fair, Bridget.

No, it isn't.

You reap what you sow, Cole.
Don't you say that to me, Preacher. You've been trying to steal my wife since you met her.

I love her.

SO DO I!

You hurt her.

What did you say to him, Bridget?

Nothing. I said nothing.

SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO SAY ANYTHING. My God, do you think we're blind?

I never-

Exactly. Just go, we'll talk tomorrow.

I'm not talking to you. You're a fucking thief.

Cole.

What, baby? Anything.

Go. Please.

He stared at me for what felt like hours and then he stood up slowly and turned, heading upstairs. I heard him go into each child's room, knowing he would kiss them as they slept, oblivious to the change about to happen in their lives and then he threw some clothes into a bag and came back down. He stood in the doorway for a moment, staring at me. I would have run to him right then but Jacob was holding my hand. He looked at our hands and turned and left. Slamming the door behind him and then the car door and then I waited for the sound of screeching tires but it never came.

I turned around and asked Jacob to leave. He was incredulous but accommodating.

You can't be here right now.

I know. But if he comes back-

We both know he won't come back tonight.

Bridget, I don't want to leave you alo-

Please just go, Jacob.
The difference between them is Jacob never listens to me either. (Thinkfastdearreader) He didn't go. He decided he should stay and tried to overrule me, instantly overstepping boundaries and claiming ownership and I moved those boundaries closer still and threw him out anyway and he went home after a kiss. After a long kiss I already wrote about here.

I still maintain he probably slept on the front lawn or in the tree house so that he would be close by but he says he walked down to the church for a bit and then went home and slept fitfully.

Someone asked me the other day if I would do it all again knowing what I know now. I would but there would have been a lot of things I would have done differently too. I just don't really know what they are yet.

Delusions of grandeur.

If you ever thought things were perfect, that the universe smooths itself out and everything is suddenly right again and I was under a lucky star, you'd be mistaken.

I'm just trying to keep up with things, with what I want to talk about or what I plan to deal with first, or how I've been steered. It's all right here, there's too many words, it won't make any sense if I rush.

Our anniversary was capped with a trip to the planetarium and then a lovely late romantic dinner at the devastatingly exclusive revolving restaurant that spins slowly above the city lights. It was the completion of my sky gift. It ended a week we began on the floor in the back porch painting the moon and stars on our mural with glow in the dark paint so that the kids will be surprised when they come home on Wednesday.

And then we went to bed to celebrate some more and I pushed him too far and he walked away and hit something and I slid a little farther away down into a hole. He came back full of apologies but he never bothered to stop whispering so I could hear him from that hole.

It's okay. I'll get out of it someday. I don't know when. I can't see where his limits end and mine begin. He says I have none. I have them, he just doesn't understand the difference between a good hurt and a bad one, but I think he is ashamed of me anyway.

He's burning pages before I can write on them now, tearing them out. Such a hurry, always.

Hush, Bridget. Not like that.

But I want it this way.

No...no, you don't.

Dog day afternoon.

I'm going to let hell freeze over today and talk about the dog.

His name is Butterfield.

Butter, for short.

I know. How predictable.

Butterfield is a golden retriever that we've had for some nine months now and I hardly ever mention him because this isn't a dog journal.

There was some talk that he had been purchased by an older gentleman to be trained for use as a hearing/service dog for his deaf grandson but apparently the dog wasn't very trainable. They released him to the shelter here and he came into our lives on a fluke a few days before Christmas. Or I should say, a few hundred dollars right before Christmas. Jacob was in the right time at the right place, because who needs a renegade hearing dog more than Bridget?

His name was Butter before Jacob could get the naming question off his tongue. We are in love. He's blonde, like everyone else, slightly shaggy, like everyone else, and completely goofy, like everyone else.

He ate all of my shoes, the entire corner of the bench in the back porch and a large assortment of drywall and hardwood in the first three months he was with us. He'll eat anything, but his favorite things are carrots, wasabi peas, Jacob's ankles and the top of Henry's head.

He whines if we're all upstairs at the same time. He won't come upstairs. The few times we've bathed him Jacob had to carry him up.

He takes us for three walks a day. Mostly to the ice cream parlour or the river. No, mostly for ice cream. He's eaten through four leashes. I have to use a chain leash now and he looks like a biker-dog.

When we go away PJ comes and looks after Butter, letting him ride shotgun in the front seat of the truck and buying him giant rawhide bones. Butter loves PJ in an unnatural way but mostly he loves nighttime when we let him out before we go up to bed and then he comes in and settles on his pretty plaid dog bed and looks at his nightlight to make sure it's on and then he goes to sleep before we are out of the porch.

He barks at everyone like a psychopath who comes unannounced to the door or to the gate. Everyone except for blondes. He goes ape-dog barking at Christian (very dark redhead) and doesn't even look up when Loch arrives (red but closer blonde this time of year).

He's always at our heels and under our feet. He's in our thoughts when we're away for the afternoon and you could melt in his big brown puppy eyes. I could do without the drooling, chewing and shedding, but I've been told we have another year or so of that.

What I do like most about Butter? He likes to run, but he can't talk. Which is more than I can say for my other blonde running mate. Especially on days like today when Jacob is in fine verbal form and has all kinds of words he needs to get out.

What I like even better than the lack of words is Butter's ability to drink from his bowl in the kitchen and drool water all over the floor so when Jacob goes to grab the ringing phone he wipes out on the tiles.

Oh, I never laughed so hard as I did to hear this huge crash this morning and come in to find Jacob sprawled out all over the floor. He's okay, no worries. He only hurt his pride. And he still loves the dog like you wouldn't believe. If I had drooled water all over the floor, causing Jacob to fall I would have been outside for the rest of the day. Possibly on a leash.

But no, Butter is in there now lying on the couch with his head on Jacob's shoulder. Must be nice.

What today is.

    When love beckons to you, follow him
    though his ways are hard and steep.
    And when his wings enfold you, yield to him
    though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
    And when he speaks to you, believe in him.

Last year on this day it poured down rain. Every time the thunder rumbled I had to ask Carolyn what the words were that I was supposed to repeat after her to say my vows. I was nervous and terrified and so so happy.

A year later, let's evaluate.

Yes.

I still maintain I did the right thing. I think the numerous detours, roadblocks, potholes and cataclysmic accidents were all tests and we survived to drive another sunset drive down the highway toward the big orange ball surrounded by a lavender hue that makes me restless and drives me blind.

He blows my mind.

I'm happy I married Jacob. I'm blessed to have him. I love him. I wish we had found a way to lead a quieter first married year. Some of it we caused, some we didn't. We lost the one and only baby we'll ever try to have together. We destroyed our trust in each other and tested each other's faith. We cast off our respect for each other like dirty clothing. We've thrown ourselves to the wolves to see if we would emerge in pieces or surprisingly unscathed. We've made improvements. We've made changes in the way we think, and the way we act. In the way we treat each other.

We've grown patience and now tend it like a beautiful garden.

He still loves his little fucked up deaf girl.

If you want, you can share in the toast Jacob made over the champagneless mimosas that he brought upstairs this morning. Possibly the most unromantic he has ever been. And that's okay too.

Damned if you aren't everything I ever wanted and whole bunch of stuff I didn't expect. Here's to the rest of our lives, princess. Fuck, I hope the future is calmer than the past, and even better than the present.

Happy very first anniversary to my beloved Jacob. We almost never made it to this day but I'm so grateful that we did. Happy that we did. Relieved that we did.

Now on to year two.

High deafinition.

Yesterday was a religious experience. Sorry, honey. There's no way to adequately describe this. True to form I'll give it a shot.

Jake is certifiable and possibly prouder right now this morning than he might have been a year ago last night after having gotten the acceptance of his marriage proposal. He accomplished something he has wanted to do ever since he taught me how to turn the sky into my ocean.

He gave it to me, in two hands, with ease.

Something we can't seem to pull off with the saltwater.

And I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane yesterday afternoon. Albeit strapped to the front of my now incredibly friendly instructor, who, after consulting with the other instructors and ground crew decided that I would tandem jump. I'm guessing this is normal for the first time? For that I was incredibly grateful. Up until that moment I felt...well, ugh, handicapped, unprepared.

No, I'll be honest. Up until that moment I felt like I was planning my own death. More on that in a minute.

Before we got on the plane Jacob came over to me and took my head in both his hands and pressed his nose to mine and told me when we jumped I was to open my eyes, and take in every cloud, every shade of blue, every quilt pattern of farm fields on the ground. I was to record every heartbeat and every ounce of good fear and exhilaration and bliss and to remember every nanosecond of how it felt. That he was going to give me the sky and I was about to really feel full of life in a way I never had before. That it would change me forever.

He kissed me as if it was one that had to last a lifetime. Which kind of freaked me out. Truth be told I was a bit sarcastic with him.

Quit with the dramatics, Jake, you're making me nervous.

Oh, but if I had any inkling of how right he was, I might have been easier on him. But he wasn't nervous, he's done this a dozen times before, he was nervous for me, for I have never had any ambition to fly past being on the roof of my house or jumping into his arms when he's been out for a while. Not since the circus, anyway.

We went up. I couldn't hear anyone to talk much in the plane. I held Jacob's hand in a death grip. We rose thousands of feet in the air and then I was strapped to someone I met yesterday morning. How...awkward but he seemed pretty capable.

And then I watched my husband blow me a kiss and step out of the plane.

Four more people went after Jacob and finally it was my turn. It took forever to come.

(This was the way it would be, then. Surrounded by strangers with qualifications, unable to communicate my wishes, in an alien setting, this would be how it happens. Without Jacob.)

And then I died.

When I dared to open my eyes in heaven the world had turned silent, overly bright and surprisingly cold. I was confronted with a birds' eye view that I never wanted but he gave it to me and I knew he would keep me safe so I embraced it. I missed nothing. I saw everything there was to see. I felt my heart racing the wind back to the ground. I felt my soul scream something that I couldn't hear and I was flooded with a joy I've never felt before. When we were close enough to the ground to pick out features I zeroed in on Jacob and watched as his face turned from concern to utter victory. When my toes touched the ground he left the earth again, jumping into the air and pumping his fist. I heard him yell something. He came running over and I was quickly unstrapped from the tandem master and Jacob took my helmet off and then swung me around like a rag doll.

I couldn't even speak but he knew I was happy by the huge stupid windblown grin on my face.

He touched my face. Ow. Windburn. Sunblasted. A kiss I couldn't feel because every molecule inside was burning up.

But there was no fear. None. Zero.

I didn't think you'd do it.

I love you, Jacob. (Icantthinkanymorethiswassoincrediblybeautiful)

I didn't know I had a choice but now I'm glad I didn't know or I may never have gone up.

I never would have felt so alive.

Watching the movie they took of me (complete with Jacob's victory leap in the foreground!) it took far less time from beginning to end for my jump than I actually had up there. I haven't quite figured that out yet. Very very freaking neat.

What did he yell when I landed?

That's my girl!

Hmmm. I sat down to write and Jacob just told me to go get dressed. He has plans for me, he says. Something about the third day of August and his love of planning elaborate romantic surprises makes me vaguely nervous.

I sat down to write to you that I heard via the boy-grapevine that Loch and Kiera have come to some agreements and arrangements and he won't go down in flames as the biggest asshole that ever lived. It's good news all the way around and no, I won't be having any contact with him any time soon.

So, I'm off, wish me luck and if you know what Jacob is up to, I'll deal with you later.

Best comment of the entire week (which isn't even over yet).

Mmmm, come here and let me hold you for a while, Princess. You smell like lilacs.

Just dessert.

    I choose to live and to lie
    Kill and give and to die
    Learn and love and to do
    What it takes to step through

Last night Jacob asked me to do a lapdance for him. His fingers over his lips, he half covered his dimples in his shy smile, his eyes spilling over with mischief. He turned a little unsure on me and kissed me thoroughly before whispering that it had been a while since I gave him a 'dance.'

Geez, it has. Like two months.

He went into the den. He put Forty Six & 2 on the stereo. I ran upstairs and put on a cute camisole and matching boyshorts and came back down, stopping to visit the fridge on my way.

Then I climbed into his lap and handed him a can of whipped cream. The smile on his face spread like a wildfire. He has such a sweet tooth. And we had skipped dessert.

We woke up sticky, gritty and exhausted this morning after what probably amounted to three hours sleep. Jacob kissed my gummy, dirty cheeks and suggested that tonight we try the freezies.

What a wicked idea.

It will help cool the marks he left on my shoulders. He doesn't know his own strength, especially in the throes of a sugar rush of the best kind.

On boys and sharing.

Jacob surprised me last evening. I stopped working on deciphering Prince Caspian on the piano and came into the kitchen to help with dinner. He was almost finished in his preparations, packing the picnic basket and pulling out a bottle of wine. I looked at him curiously and he smiled and asked me if I wanted to go have a picnic in the park since the heat finally broke.

What a great idea. Dinner is usually pretty low-key or in a diner somewhere, sometimes it's a drive-by iced tea in front of the fridge since the kids aren't here.

He smiled and took the basket and my hand and we were off.

When we arrived and parked the truck, Jacob again took my hand again and then asked me to show him Cole's bench. I walked him there and when he saw the marker he said a quiet hello to Cole and then sat down and asked him if he wouldn't mind if we spent our dinner hour here. And then he passed me a glass and smiled a gentle smile that said he was doing this for me and nothing but.

We ate, we talked about things, about the kids and the upcoming autumn and when the heck we're supposed to get back to the cottage for some good memories and we talked about friends and what that means and what my plans are after my latest work is complete. We talked about how much Jake is looking forward to his new job and how we're going to deal with the new routine and Jacob being gone during the days. Normal conversations. Like normal people have. Like we used to have before everything became life or death struggles, before Bridget lost her mind and stopped pretending she was fine.

We talked about everything and Cole's memory sat beneath us like an unanswered echo across a canyon. We didn't acknowledge him again until sunset, when we were ready to leave. When we stood up, Jacob pulled a stray hairpin from my braid and reached down, pushing it straight down into the ground at my feet, beside the bench. He said that he'd promised to love me and take care of me forever and he was going to do just that, but he could stand to give a little bit to Cole to keep.

If you knew Jacob, he has a thing for my hairpins, this wasn't an idle gesture.

In other words, he's decided to share. To let me talk about Cole again. God, sometimes I need to talk about Cole. To let me feel things, good or bad. To get through this instead of shoving it away, hiding it, pretending it isn't real.

Jacob can do that because Cole can't hurt me any more and because Jacob just figured that out. The threats are gone. This gesture was more to show me that he (Jacob) won't hurt me anymore either. I am the bond that they will share forever, and the kids are our legacy of three and these two men who can evoke the same feelings but be the complete opposites of one another, well, sometimes...

Sometimes they both leave me speechless.

Loneliest girl in the world.

Ben brought me a new CD (Actually it's an EP) that I fell in love with so instantly I haven't crashed back to earth yet. And some advice from a friend who has bounced back and forth between good friend and bitter enemy so many times I might give him a new nickname. He's long grown out of being called Tucker Max, I guess.

Sitting on the hammock while he sat on the floor throwing Jacob's guitar out of tune and being very mature and unBenlike I realized that he's changed. That he's learned from his mistakes and that he's a grownup boy now, with proper limits and a firm distinction between right and wrong, that our friendship meant more to him than a potential one-off. Unless he's biding his gentle time and hiding things well, but I would know. This new and improved Ben had a lot of very intelligent and introspective things to say to me and I listened.

Full circles have been drawn. Ones that get erased when they are complete because there's nowhere for us to go. And Ben is right as he draws a disparaging picture of himself and of the rest of the boys. We're outgrowing each other, these friendships are no longer sound and no longer holding up the way they did when we needed to lean on each other so heavily that what was once a godsend is now a curse of history. There's too much water under their Bridget now and she can't support their weight.

He is right. This almost never happens. But it still makes me so horribly sad, because instead of Jacob asking me to choose and instead of me doing what I know is right and letting them go, instead they're going to let go of me, one at a time. I know it. I can feel it and I know it's the right thing to do.

The last time I'll write about that weekend.

    Then I defy you stars.

Most of the moments we share don't involve arguments anymore. We've surpassed the bitterness and talked this to death. We've made concessions and bared our souls. He called me Medusa and I promptly knocked him right off his high horse, exposing his hypocrisy in his claim of wanting me, and only me. Jacob, in his actions, confesses his role on earth as mortal at last. A regular human man merely wrapped in angel wings for his disguise. I knew it all along and I'm relieved.

That brought a whole 'nother round of swearing because once again, I failed to see the point. I read too much into it. There's no emotional connection. He doesn't need or want her the way he needs me. What's missing there is the obsession, the single-minded consummation of his heart and his thoughts. With me. His heart was not in his betrayal.

And I will make this one single allowance for the brief loss of his mind. Tremendous pressure in an upsidedown world and even the most Godly and perfect of angels sometimes falls from grace. The issues with wanting, and losing our baby sent him into a tailspin I failed to recognize, so busy with my own neverending grief I didn't see that he was sharing it and I had shut him out. This I know, without a doubt. He never dealt with it sufficiently and it came back to bite him in the ass and then, in his shame, he hid all of it from me. Because we had larger, more suicidal issues to deal with, to be blunt. Those issues appear to be resolving, and so it brings in space to deal with everything else.

I still trust him.

He makes this allowance for me because I showed him that deep inside I still have some rage left and he's so happy to see that I haven't given up or given in, that I could get away with just about anything, but I won't.

He still trusts me.

A year ago, or even five, it would have been a different outcome. But after death and violence and a thousand soul-destroying/building conversations, at the end of the day, infidelity is not going to be our deal breaker.

Not this time. Again, sure. Are we back in counseling? Unfortunately yes. We've got some other things to deal with anyway. The nice overpriced professional series, not the coffee shop/favor series. Maybe you get what you pay for. We have to give things a chance. Maybe we're being tested with so many false starts and epic human tragedies because we're meant for greater things. I always believed Jacob was. Me? I'm not so sure, but I'm in this for the long haul. We chose to make a family out of this mess and we haven't quite figured it all out yet but we will.

I try to maintain how human we are, not as an excuse to fall but as a reminder that people are impulsive and driven by so much more than logic. I've never shied away from talking about Jacob's dry temper and legendary patience tempered with perfection. I've never glossed over the fistfights and dramas and wars over me that he has waged. I've certainly never made any effort to disguise the frailty of my heart or mind here anytime since Cole's death.

What would be the point?

Sunday we let it all go, at last.

Yesterday we resolved to enjoy the remainder of our kid-free vacation and upcoming anniversary to the fullest. Our first wedding anniversary is on Sunday and Ruth and Henry return on Monday. That gives us six days to work our way back to lovestruck, a little older and wiser than before. It gives us time to relax beside each other, secure in the newfound comforts of his imperfections and my remaining stabilities. We tested our bond and it held and yet we were both sufficiently freaked out to not ever test it like that again. It's a risk we've come to decide we're simply not willing to take ever again.

Now we go back to starry eyes and declarations without a single shred of credibility and it's fine, because this time no one else is allowed to weigh in. We'll do it our way instead of the way everyone else thinks we should do it. And maybe this time we'll get it right. Such a long and colorful history of stabbing each other in the back exquisitely, I could write for a million years and never tell it all. Eventually we'll get it right.

After all, we've never gotten closer to heaven than we are right now, and this was by far the easiest time we have had with honesty and patience for each other's faults. That, in itself, is outstanding.

That is what keeps hope burning bright. That's what keeps Bridget and Jacob going. That stupid light at the end of the longest tunnel I think I've ever traveled.

Bryte ideas.

Here's a passive-aggressive train of thought.

I wish, as I sit here and try to slog through changes (professionally and figuratively) I wish....

I wish Jon Foreman would cover some Nick Drake songs. Like Road.

That would be awesome.

I don't know what this is.

We drove and drove and drove until we hit water I couldn't find the end of. You stopped and turned off the truck and then turned your upper body to lean against your door and you looked at me and I stared straight ahead, amused and a little pissed off that you cut off the one song I need on repeat these days and you told me it wasn't a very good song anyway. We both know you were lying just like you lie about all kinds of little insignificant things that might make you appear too relaxed and too permissive. Or too beautiful for words. People were never supposed to be so flawless or there would be too much claustrophobia.

You scowled at the tears that followed, such an immature response to the sudden unwelcome silence. Instead of sympathy you offered adventure and instead of wallowing I chose risk and I followed you into the water in my dress that I couldn't hold on to and the cotton drank the lake until I was soaked to my waist and you laughed and told me to take it off, that no one would care but I cared and instead I decided I would take it off later in the truck.

We walked until the parts in our hair were pink and painful and our freckles stood out (but only in the summer) and our eyes were blind to the shadows and blasted with rays that seek to melt us down into basic liquid human forms, with condiments of beauty and pain, served in matching tiny bowls, flavor how you like it. We tasted all of them, never finding one that pleased.

You kissed the salt from my lips and the tears from my cheeks and you swore ugly words right in my face and let me see the hate in your blue eyes for what I am and then maybe you lied some more.

    A man with broken wings

I hold no blame against you like a lover for your honesty and no sadness for the truth of what this means. I am aware that you have asked for the thought as it arrives into my head but then it escapes from my mouth before my brain can capture it and keep it safe to avoid scarring you.

There is no competition here, my angel. Nothing to fear except for my runaway heart and it's your boomerang that you've lovingly shaped while I wasn't ever looking or even aware. While I daydreamed in my deafness, while I slept. You prayed and fought for the ownership of a loaded gun and you don't even know how to work it but you're learning and with few mistakes and a little bit of fear and blood you have discovered, to your delight, to your dismay, that you are still alive.

While I slept, you promised yourself you would learn.

With determination you drove all night and most of the next day to find a place where the water met the horizon and then you watched me unravel like a ribbon and fall apart. When it happened you were so surprised at the bang for your buck, the magnitude of what lies inside of the smallest packages, of what rage and fear and terror and pain looks like bottled inside of something so beautiful. Is it more or less real than holding it all in? Would it be better served hurriedly and distracted to lessen the strength of it, diluted with noise and mindless, endless tasks that help no one?

I only said he would have loved that song and it was too much for you and so you took out all of your remaining frustrations and poured them over me like a cold shower and I let you, I let you see how frail I really am.

We talked until we ran out of words. And then we walked until our legs could carry us no further before you turned and took my face in your hands and you told me we'd do it anyway. We'd keep walking beside each other, even though you said it was harder to be together than it ever was to be apart. Hard in a different way and I know what you mean, I really do.

We drove home in the blue-black night, the silence pushing into the truck and crowding us out, my still-wet dress plastered to me, making me smaller and more pathetic while you followed the yellow line south until we saw familiar markers and you never looked at me while I hit repeat fifty times on the stereo but I watched you as you mouthed the words to the song in the dark because you didn't think I was ever paying attention.

I am. And I know you love that song because it's about me.

    And the bed that we're sharing
    Is the home that I want to bring you
    Want to feel you
    I don't want to hear you

The most fitting word-tattoo I sport. Phoning it in today. Have a good one.

    frag∑ile (frjl, -l)
    adj.
    1. Easily broken, damaged, or destroyed; frail.
    2. Lacking physical or emotional strength; delicate.
    3. Lacking substance; tenuous or flimsy: a fragile claim to fame.
    [French, from Old French, from Latin fragilis, from frangere, frag-, to break; see bhreg- in Indo-European roots.]
    fragile∑ly adv.
    fra∑gili∑ty (fr-jl-t), fragile∑ness n.
    Synonyms: fragile, breakable, frangible, delicate, brittle
    These adjectives mean easily broken or damaged. Fragile applies to objects that are not made of strong or sturdy material and that require great care when handled: fragile porcelain plates.
    Breakable and frangible mean capable of being broken but do not necessarily imply inherent weakness: breakable toys; frangible artifacts.
    Delicate refers to what is so soft, tender, or fine as to be susceptible to injury: delicate fruit.
    Brittle refers to inelasticity that makes something especially likely to fracture or snap when it is subjected to pressure: brittle bones. See Also Synonyms at weak.

Warm and sleepy Saturdays.

He's singing again. Progress.

I woke up to Iron & Wine this morning, coffee on a tray on the bed and a big handsome blonde man with a short fuzzy beard and a smile in his eyes singing to me while he played his guitar. I knew him from my sleepy fog by the ring he wore. It matched mine.

    Some days her shape in the doorway
    Will speak to me
    A bird's wing up on the window
    Sometimes I'll hear when she's sleeping
    Her fever dream
    A language on her face

Fragile miss and second (third, fourth) chances.

Jacob has returned to his wonderful ways of keeping close, of being right here within reach because that's where I like him best. There's nothing more we can say or do. We've said everything we could say and thought everything we can think and done what we can to offer help or shoulders or ears (my bionic ones especially) and all that's left is to pray and wait for the dust to settle.

I've never been the kind of person who was good at letting things go or with having the kind of faith needed to wait out someone else's meltdown or step away from a situation that wasn't good for me purely because of feelings for the person involved. Jacob is good at that, he's good at waiting. He says Loch will come around, that this was his version of running, it just seems more deplorable but he isn't the first man to get cold feet when confronted with fatherhood.

It seems like the beginning of the end, the group who used to spend summer evenings discussing movies and cooking new recipes on the barbecue and playing with my kids or going on extreme camping trips is no more. Did we grow up and grow apart? Was the stress of the past two years too much to bear?

I don't know if it is.

I might never know. It's out of my hands, now.

The chances are there. In the interest of grace there's no finite number of opportunities we have given each other, this group of friends, to keep things right. People are human. We mess up, we atone, make amends, eat lots of crow and keep going. We keep holding each other up. We move forward and distance ourselves from the foolish uneducated versions of ourselves who misstepped. We forgive. We love no matter what. We're there. For each other.

We should be a movie, for crying out loud.

In any case, we've opted not to host a dinner tomorrow. Jacob asked me what I wanted to do instead and I rattled off something about watching a horror movie marathon and polishing off the bottle of Stoli I found in his desk drawer. The locked one with the key in the other drawer.

He laughed and said that it wasn't funny, that he was actually laughing because I never learn. I pointed out that I was testing him, and that if I had wanted the Stoli I would have simply taken it. That brought a very big smile and a gentle reminder that we will be okay. That everyone will be okay. When it rains it pours but eventually the sun returns. God, I love this giant hippie.

Shaky, tenuous optimism. Wish me luck, I'm not very good at it.

May as well end this week on the most awfullest note ever.

    Everytime it goes down
    Everytime she comes down
    Everytime we fall down
    She dances all over me
The end of November. 126 days from now.

That's when Loch and Kiera's baby is due.

Loch said nothing about the baby. Nothing. He hasn't gone to a single appointment. He never told a soul. Not his family, not his friends, no one knew. Kiera has shouldered this alone. She told him to go fuck himself and decided she would just raise the baby herself, as people sometimes do. That she was better off without him if he acted like that. Caleb (of all people) found out and mentioned it to Ben, who told us all on Wednesday in the blistering heat of a sun's day that smashed records and hearts, the heat that brought that nights' epic rainstorm. Because Loch needs help.

Out of all the people who would do something so awful as to break up with someone half a breath after they tell you they're having your child, Loch would have been the last person I would have expected to pull a stunt like that.

No matter what you think of him, this isn't behavior he would normally exhibit. He's not that kind of guy. I knew he was in crisis and I'm angry that he didn't talk to someone. Anyone. It didn't have to be me. Instead he flips out and changes everything in his life and comes looking for me as if we could somehow turn back the clock. He's nostalgic and sweet suddenly, defeated. I played right into his hands. This is not Loch. I'm so disappointed in him.

He won't answer his phone. He knows I know and all I want to do is scream at him to suck it up and support his child and the mother of his child. For Christs' sake, do something.

What's so ironic is that Loch wanted what Jacob has and now the only thing Jacob still wants that I can never give him is the one thing that Loch just threw away.

Today is not a good day.

I could have spent all night looking at the stars and the moon but they weren't there and instead the rain lashed against my face and soaked my dress and the thunder roared inside my skull and Jacob found me sitting on the steps wishing I could be invisible. He took me inside and got me into a hot shower and then a dry towel and then into bed and I couldn't sleep but I could still hear the roaring in my ears and see the flashing outside our windows as the storm ravaged the city.

I am small. Small and insignificant.

Speaker of the house

(Edit: Two glaring facts I notice after finishing this entry. Loch is having definitely having a midlife crisis and Jacob has unhealthily refused to acknowledge my willing participation in recent events. No good will come of either.)

I hate speakerphone. I hate people fighting over me. I hate that I put all of us in this position. I hate that I can swallow my pride and most of my dignity and own my mistakes without making things worse, the way Loch is making things worse.

Lochlan, who has lost his ever-loving mind. Loch who used to be a pretty firm voice of authority with nary a hint of spontaneous foolishness has opted to play the fool. Sore losses, my Lochlan. No, not mine, scratch that. I've already had a few comeuppances for my cheeky comments after the fact. Maybe I'm faring no better. I'm learning to make boundaries. Slowly.

In any event, Loch (chief tech support guy in our circle now that Cole is dead) hears/reads of my computer woes and calls, to be helpful or to meddle, whichever. Computer issues are quickly resolved and then he asks to speak to Jacob.

Jacob was using both hands and one knee to hold Henry's airplane together as he glued it. He's fixing it as a surprise while Henry's away. He is not amused but asks me to put Loch on speakerphone. I press the button and they exchange some stilted greetings. Then right off the bat Loch has the audacity to make some crack about stealing me from Jacob. Jacob laughed with that Oh my fuck incredulous laugh he has, newly sarcastic to a fault and asked how Loch was going to pull that off.

Loch had an unreal edge to his voice and he started in with a litany of how Jacob inserted himself into my life and never let up with pressure on me and it drove Cole to an early grave and Jacob has everything so why would he want to break up a family?

I was beginning to wonder if Loch was drunk or had a selective memory to forget how Cole treated me or possibly he just has a newfound deathwish.

Jacob's voice caught as he yelled at Loch,

She's the only thing I ever wanted in my whole life, Lochlan, and I will love her forever, no matter what she does. If she chooses to spend the rest of her life with me, which she has, then I can want for nothing more.
Loch hung up on him.

I burst into tears. It was a half-shameful, half-grateful feeling that overcame my exhaustion.

Jacob propped up the wing and came over and put his arms around me.

It's really too bad you can't bottle what you have, princess. You'd be rich.

I am rich, Jacob.

Oh, now you sound like me.

I wonder why.

I'm not spending any more time back and forthing it with Loch, though.

I don't blame you.

Could you...can you just...

Just what?

Could you just shut it off now, please?

I would say this marks the beginning of the countdown to the moment Jacob asks me to choose between my friends and my marriage. I hope he doesn't do that.

Kiss count for the top of Bridget's head now: 247.

 I was staring at the sunset and it got too bright and I started seeing black spots so Jacob passed me his giant seventies sunglasses to put on while he was taking pictures.

Monday morning he asked if there was a specific reason I wasn't wearing my hearing aids on our drive the night before. I said I had worn them, what was he talking about?

He showed me a picture, taken surreptitiously as I watched the clouds roll out and I was busted.

I took them out because it made it easier to ignore the hurt in his voice as we talked. It made it easier not to listen. Sometimes it just makes it easier to hide. He understood, thankfully.

The good news is the top of my head is still his favorite body part of mine.

You were going to say something else, weren't you?

Snort.

Loch and load poems.

Sometimes even Loch doesn't know quite when to give up. I never cast him aside, I should never have been with him. We don't get along well enough to be more than friends. We never did, we never will. I used him and he used me. He practically raised me and then some things happened and he bequeathed me to Cole and-

Justify, justify, Bridge. Knock it off.

Here, I'll give you his latest. Previous poems are here if you can find them. Enjoy it or say What in the fuck? like Jake did.

One night the mermaid came to me
with tears upon her face
looking for a safe and sound
and warm and happy place

Her angel had rejected her
a temporary feat
her eyes were sad her limbs were weak
her heart had ceased to beat

The mermaid found her former flame
a love burned strong and true
he opened up his arms so wide
she knew what she must do

She went to into his circle thus
and kissed him sweetly so
she knew that she would hurt the angel
but upward she must go

For even angels make mistakes
as most of us will say
and sometimes feelings you hope might die
never go away

For the flame still loved his mermaid
as he held her in his arms
He swore that he would keep her safe
and never do her harm

But she swam away so quick and light
back toward her love
her wayward angel, so cavalier
waiting up above

He gets it all, the mermaid's love
the spoils, that coveted prize
the looks of adoration and reverence
pouring from her eyes

the former flame gets nothing
just her rare and precious skin
but nothing of that adoration
from the mermaid's heart within

The flame is but a burning light
a spark or just an ember
burning for the mermaid's love
from new years to december

He wishes he could cast the angel
back to heaven for good
and be with his beautiful mermaid girl
the way he always should

If she would just give him a chance
then surely she would see
that sometimes loves from days gone by
are the ones that are meant to be

Disarming.

    She's the world at my feet
    The sun that gives heat
    Take a rest and hold her near
    Or she'll float away from here
Friday afternoon I relinquished the kids to Cole's parents for their annual summer vacation. For the past three summers Ruth and Henry have spent two weeks on the farm in Nova Scotia, being hooligans, swimming, shellseeking, turning golden pink and being adored. Cole's parents are heartbroken, just heartbroken over life and how it happens and they now pour the hopes they had for their sons into my children.

And the kids love the hayrides and the orchard-tree climbing and the beekeeping and the ocean being right there. It's a heavenly spot. They will return right after our first wedding anniversary, reluctantly. It's a hard place to leave.

I won't talk about how I feel about them being gone for so long, it's difficult and I've said it before about how it feels as if my arms are missing or torn off. My kids are my life. I just don't write about them.

While they're gone Jacob and I appear to have some time that is filled with....no obligations. He doesn't start his new job for three more weeks, our friends have scattered to all corners for their own vacations and reunions and getaways.

According to the list we made of what we want to do it's going to be a vacation at home consisting of large helpings of Thai take-out, bad horror movies and sex, with a little sleeping in and a lot of running. And talking. Which is perfect, really.

That's not to say we're not still struggling with the betrayals we've leveled against each other like the barrels of a gun. If you thought we had escaped unscathed, you'd be wrong. But we'll get through it. We've resolved not to allow baggage to weigh us down and a simpler existence of respect and love and appreciation means we function as two halves of a whole, burdened by little save for the sheer magnitude of our need for one another.

We'll be fine.

Meltdown

My posting may be sporadic for a few days. We're having a heatwave and my poor little brain is just fried. Add in my laptop crashing continuously, the poor ancient thing, and you have a recipe for...well....absence.

Oh and my tech support guy? I don't really want to call him and ask for favors right now. Since I kind of slept with him a week ago and all that. No, calling him would be bad.

Or I could go all arty on you..

This morning I could savor my coffee while I write a litany of how many times I have broken down or fallen apart in the past two days and how many times I have been put back together. I could tell you how hard the past week has been or how we did indeed manage to mostly get through the shock of casting each other aside for momentary comforts. I could tell you how easy simple can be. I could tell you it's going to be a close and quiet weekend. I might write of how I feel the low biting at my toes as I stand on the edge of my entire existence and I don't even hear the wind rustling in the trees or howling across the landscape threatening to topple me from my perch and I could remind you to drink your water and stay cool because it's going to be a very warm day.

But I won't, because you know all this.

Kiss count for the top of Bridget's head: 73.