Grip.

Wake up to the sounds of the century
They got a long way to go to gain on me
It's all right

The years are coming down like the dirty leaves
I'm gonna plant my seed in history
It's alright
I love my dream

Hold me in your arms

What a beautiful day. It's sunny and warm, the geese are flying south, honking in their nerdy, awkward way, the dog is freshly bathed and I had a blueberry muffin and some dark roast coffee this morning with plans to venture out later for another caramel macchiato because I really need that early to mid-afternoon boost and I don't know who I'm kidding to think that I don't. Otherwise I'm incredibly antisocial from around four onwards.

The house is clean. Spotlessly so. The kitchen is almost finished. Again. Everything is as organized as I can make it. I watered the garden and traded the fading flower baskets for windchimes and raked some of the leaves and weeded a little. I swept the garage out for the last time this year and I've got two loads of laundry here to fold.

Ben is home. Indefinitely. Lochlan is here. The unsung foreverman. All is well with Daniel and Schuy. The kids are healthy and beautiful and hate school already, if only for the drag of getting up and dressed and out of the house in the morning. I reminded them of snowpants and boots to come and what a drag the unshovelled sidewalks (do you hear me, neighbors?) are going to be soon enough. They felt better.

Sam is helpful. We are working on things. He's working on his things and I'm working on mine but we seem to work well together. Ben is working on his things with Seth and Nolan. Working hard because it's easier to do the work here than it is to do it out there. I might be getting my job back, because I loved getting dressed up and being efficient and making money for doing it. I was good at it. And Caleb, when he isn't blackmailing me or coveting me, is a good boss. If there could be a balance it could work and then everyone is close and I wouldn't need to chase text messages and keep detailed calendars nor would I have so much time to bounce around inside my head finding trouble to follow. Because trouble is in there, trust me. I know it's not a popular decision for me to go back and work for Satan, especially in light of the last two disasters, but here it is understood and that's the important part.

Back to work. Squee! On the upside? New fall dresses. Which is a double challenge because I hate shopping and because my favorite dress store closed up and vanished and in it's place, ironically, is a shop called Tall Girl, where they simply chuckled and shook their heads when I stood in the doorway the other day, about to go in and ask what happened to the other store.

Sigh. I will never be tall but I will be well-rested and well-caffeinated. And well-loved, as always.

Life can be awesome when you're not off hiding from it, fighting it and wishing it would just go away, you know that?

Well, I'm still learning it.

Patience, people.

Feedmonstercakeshebenice.

Bridget, what are you doing?

Sitting here. Thinking.

In the shelf?

I fit.

Right, but wouldn't somewhere else be more comfortable?

Probably.

I bet I can come up with a place.

Go ahead, Lochlan. Where?

At the table.

Seriously?

With me.

You're joking.

Eating cake.

Move out of my way, I'm already there.

Could've been the champagne
The champagne
Could've been the cocaine
The cocaine
Could've been the way you looked at me
That told me we were through

In my next life I'm going to stick with the pole dancing and the passionate, monosyllabic relationships, romanticized into a movie-like state. At least then, life was simple.

I still get to indulge in the lap dances though, it's not like so much is missing. Not sure that that was a life so much as another blip on the radar of the most surreal landscape I've ever crossed in a bid to find that fucking inner peace that will forever elude me. It's not real, it's like religion. People invent things to make themselves feel better.

And blip means brief. Not like I ever made a life out of it. But Cinderella persists sometimes and sometimes she's just plain not who you thought she was. I much prefer the life with the smiles and the butler and the fresh-squeezed orange juice and being permitted to be led out the back entrance thanks to who I'm with. Yeah, I'll take that any day. I'll take having to pick the mirror up with my fingers before I can check my lipgloss when we leave and I'll take not having to check price tags and count totals in my head before I reach the grocery checkout.

There's a price for everything, whether you check it now or later. Don't be naive.

It could've been a bad day
A bad day
Could've been the real way
The real way
Could've been the way you looked at me
That told me we were through

Yesterday I wasn't permitted to do a thing, and today it's business as usual. Yesterday no one wanted to talk to me because every time I opened my mouth this unholy keening sound came out like an alien in a different kind of movie and I just abruptly stopped bothering to try. Today they want to know everything that's going on. I'm tired. I don't want to talk anymore. I don't want to paint. I don't want to walk or run. I don't want to cook. I just want to find a nonjudgmental hug that won't be over before I'm ready and sleep in it. For a few days, maybe.

No amount of money in the world can purchase something like that and I'm dumb enough to have thought I might be able to get it for free.

Animal Farm.

He doesn't like it when I talk about the concrete room.

Instead I got a song and a kiss and I was held and I was asked if I was okay and what was wrong and it was exhaustion and heat and headaches and thinking about The Future and all the usual things that grow from a gently lapping surf into a fucking tsunami in the space of a few hours.

Maybe you should wall up the room. Maybe he's right.

Maybe it's just a thing and you should leave it alone, Ben.

I try to. Just...the look on your face, princess.

But the room is closed, mostly, when Ben is home. I get a reprieve from the ghosts. A break from the fear and someone big and strong to take away the cow I had yesterday. Cows are heavy. They take up lots of space. Way more than one single small princess with her very full head and her boys around her.

Wonder what I have to conjure to get PJ to rematerialize.

Probably a goat.

We like goats.

And zombies.

I'm a zombie today. But it could be worse.

I could be a goat.

Or a cow.

But not a ghost.

Bridget as a living, breathing epiphany.

The dim of the wailing guitars comes to an abrupt halt when I open the door. Today the room seemed to be filled with a haze, like dust, serving to further obscure my view of Cole, who likes to lurk in the shadows and making Jacob positively radiate as his favorite place in the room is the warm one, right in the center where the light pours in from some invisible hole high up in the center of the wall. I always visit early in the morning so that the light is best. When I have ventured down there late in the afternoon or overnight it's very frightening. I get distracted by that. Fear has a way of overtaking even the most prolific need.

He smiled at me, that lazy wide grin with his big chiclet teeth and strong chin. He shook his hair out of his eyes and said I looked beautiful and once again asked me to let them go and to close the room off, with concrete, the same way I built it, ragged nails mixing sand with water until I had a fortress that would keep out the enemy.

I made a mistake. The enemies are fear and death and that's precisely what's in that room.

I nodded sympathetically and said no.

Wait. I'll make you a deal, Jacob.

I'll listen. He says it slowly, as if speaking to a child. Wait, he is speaking to a child.

Come back with me because the charade is over. You're not dead and I will be better if you just come back. I'll close the room, because we won't need it anymore. I smiled, sure that I could charm him with the fragile beauty he grew to love so.

What about Cole, Bridget?

He's dead. He can go somewhere else. See, I have proof that he's really there.

What is the proof?

I was there when it happened.

And you don't believe in my death?

No, I think you got scared and I know you're still alive. You're my Jacob. You wouldn't have done what they told me you did. You didn't believe in that.

A desperate man is capable of so much, princess. Look around you.

It was a warning and I studied his face. The face I have stared at for days on end before because HE wouldn't leave. HE couldn't stand to be away. HE had to be within reach at all times. To keep me alive because I do believe in hasty exits from unimaginable, imaginary pain.

That's why he is still alive and he's out there somewhere in physical form and I keep mixing all my values with shock wondering what the catalyst will be to bring him home and then I hit on it this morning as I skipped down the dark and lonely path and my breath caught in my throat when I realized.

The promise was designed to keep me safe. The promise was created to keep the secrets. The promise was the key to everything. And so I'll have to break it, and when I break it Jacob will come back and he'll be pink and warm and breathing deep and evenly and I can be safe again.

Because he promised. And if he can break promises then so can I.

Sacrilege.

Low?
I'm on empty
Try to erase all the bad times
Free?
I don't seem to be
My soul remains tied to your life
Every breath you breathe deep
I feel you circulating through me

This morning Lochlan and I had a shoving match in front of the stereo.

Because I am fourteen forever with him and because he tends to forget that it's my house.

I wanted to put Godsmack on and all he ever seems to play anymore is Pink Floyd. I have something wrong with my brain, okay? If I don't want to hear something I physically can't listen to it. It frustrates me and I tried to push him out of the way and picking a fight with someone bigger than me is never a great plan (I only come up to his shoulder).

He is not above shoving back, and I sat on the couch hard.

We both looked startled. Like we both woke up suddenly and said what the hell are we doing?

Oh, wait, no, he said that out loud.

I waited. Lochlan usually answers his own questions. He never required a witness for a good honest conversation.

There's too much pressure, he says. How can you live like this? How can he be worth this, Bridgie? Why would you continue to put yourself through all of this. You think he cares? I don't think he understands the weight of this on you. He can't. Can he?

I waited some more. Maybe he was finished and I could play my songs.

Nope.

Ten minutes go by and he's still talking but I stopped listening because his fears don't have room in my head anymore. His selfishness is a thorn in my side and I wrap my arms around myself and rub absently at the sore spot on a daily basis. It won't heal. It hurts when I stretch. It aches when I'm cold.

You don't hear me anyway. He drops it like a challenge, lead weight on my bare knees, grinding my stilettos into the turkish rug on the living room floor and I'm pinned by his verbal expectations suddenly, brutally. That face that I've known my whole life contracted in vexation. He rarely looks any other way anymore. Lochlan is settling into a frame of mind as life goes on that really surprises me.

And we're supposed to leave for church soon. Penance on Sunday mornings prior to leaving is to play Mistakes and Changes and then I have something to sooth my brainwaves while I listen to Sam's words and give Ruth the Eye of Doom when she starts whispering really loud to Lochlan about something random.

I hear you, I finally said. I hear every word you've ever said. I smooth the front of my dress absently and the tears begin, and the fluttering hands, because teenagers are so mature, and the salt from them dissolves the weight he dropped on my lap and I'm suddenly light and graceless once more. I check my watch and the mother of pearl dial tells me we're running out of time to do this shit first thing on a Sunday morning when all of our friends are waiting for us.

No, I don't feel a thing
Life is going by me
And still I say, oh god
I'm making the same mistakes

He reaches out with one hand to try and hold on to me, suddenly overcome with the regret I wish he would have unloaded twenty-four years ago so I don't have to live within it now and I walk right out of his embrace.

Come on, Lochlan, we're going to be late.

Lochlan's back. Next time he has strict instructions to bring the sun with him.

Eight dollars and sixty cents, plus tip.

That's how much I permitted myself to indulge, apparently.

I seem to be incapable of spoiling myself. The plan was, after a long week celebrating Ruth's birthday, the hastened death of summer proper and the whole chaos of back-to-school, that I would treat myself to an afternoon of shopping and lunch and all kinds of solitary expression. I cleared the boys out of my hair (the few still in town, I mean) and struck groceries and laundry and dog walking off my list before lunch. After they returned to school, I hopped in my car and took off.

And came home empty-handed.

I was standing in Sephora holding an Urban Decay lip gloss and decided rather suddenly that I didn't want to pay $22 for it. So I went around to the next aisle and found the Sephora line and decided I didn't want to pay $14 for that. Went to the home store and found one valance that I liked for the kitchen but didn't love it enough to buy it. Ditto the new bath mat or the juice glasses that were lovely, vintagey-looking. I am down to three of the small glasses in the cupboard, so it's time, I just hit the wall of self-sacrifice that prohibits me from spending a dime. I've been poor. So very poor. The post-traumatic stress of that must run deeper than I ever seem to realize.

Maybe I need therapy.

Are you done laughing?

I decided I would get a new coat, then. Fuck this miserly nonsense! No one had what I was looking for and I found out my favorite dress store closed down. You would think they would have called me. I think I was their best customer.

I resorted to texting the boys to see if they wanted or needed things. They were all busy.

Huh.

Not really very good at this, am I?

I supposed I could have gotten a coffee and milled about for a while, checking out clothes and new perfumes. But I had just gone to lunch before my shopping trip, something I did manage to pull off without guilt or trauma, and I wasn't in the mood for anything else, really. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll spend $4 for a single cup of coffee and enjoy the hell out of it. I can justify food, just not stuff, I guess. I'm not very sentimental about things, but you know that already. You've been with me for a while here, as I go through the ups and downs.

I'm going to chaulk a weird, tired week up to absences, change and the goddamned night train. If you've ever heard it you'll know exactly what I mean. The lack of sleep clouds absolutely everything.

Oh. That's it!

Sleep. I would buy sleep. Too bad no one has any in my size.

Unitarian taskmasters and really old heavy metal.

I tried to give you consolation
When your old man had let you down.
Like a fool, I fell in love with you,
Turned my whole world upside down.

Break time. I'm in the midst of eating a bowl of fresh chunks of pineapple and melon and am halfway through the first water thermos of the day. I'm horrifying the workers here at the church playing secular power ballads at top volume. They keep looking to Sam for salvation and they aren't getting any. I had no idea he would know all the words to Layla and to Lost in the Ozone, even.

Gives Lemmy a run for his money, I tell you.

He recruited me after a miserable phone call brought him to my kitchen just after midnight, fresh off a round of exhausting hospice and in no mood for me. He took off his jacket and hung it in the hallway and proceeded to make us some toast (toast, Sam) while he regaled me with all the things I could be doing instead of wallowing and being difficult.

I wasn't difficult. He was just sad that he had to deal with someone who could talk back. It's okay, I told him that to his face and he laughed briefly and told me I was sad. I nodded.

I am sad, sometimes. We wound up sitting on the floor against the kitchen cupboards eating antipasto on crackers until almost four am and then he walked me upstairs, checked the kids and said that I had to sleep because he would be back in two hours to wake me up so I could work for him today.

Nice.

I'm not much good here. Lucky for me there's a huge new coffeemaker here. I plan to drink all of it in between the waterboarding. I plan to get a lot of hugs too. And the next time Ben, PJ, Andrew and Lochlan all plan their departures for the same day? I...well, I don't know what I'll do.

I guess I'll hang out here.

With God and his best bud, Sam. Who can exist on absolutely no sleep. Perhaps he's the vampire in the room and it isn't me. After all, he's turning out to be an incredibly proficient Motorhead fan, there must be all sorts of other surprises under that thick skin of his.

Figment of my own imagination.

I'm not me today. I don't know how I am but I always feel just a little bit lost when the children go back to school. I had planned to take the day easy, to spoil myself just a little bit. A manicure, maybe some shopping. Coffee or lunch out. But I couldn't do it because I figured I was alone for the first time in a couple of months I should probably get some things done, so I did those things, and I accomplished as much in one day as I was averaging per week so I feel pretty good and I may just give myself a manicure now with an hour to spare and then I'll be all set.

For those who wanted a coffee update I am holding steady at 16 ounces a day, twelve on weekends. The narcolepsy isn't so bad and the quality of my sleep seems to be improving. Our bed is six inches higher now. I may need a ladder to get in soon. I cannot reach down and pet the dog on the floor and if you remember the minimalist me of high school and university I always eschewed beds proper for a mattress on the floor. Even Cole and I had our mattress set on the floor. Now it's almost at waist level. I feel like I sleep in Gulliver's bed. Fee-fi-fo-fum.

New to the equation that is life is eighty ounces of water a day. Yes, I said eighty. Ounces. I am mad, aren't I? It's easier to pull off than I thought and the benefits are immediately obvious. Dumb health issues seem to be evaporating (Or maybe I have drowned them) and I am almost good with not having to pee every fifteen minutes. I'm up to twenty-five minutes. Haha. This will make everything better and has the added bonus of killing my appetite ten times over. Possibly into the future, even.

The children like their classes and mates, that was a worry I can put to rest now. Check.

Dog is down to five walks a day and doing great. For a while there I beat a steady path out the back door and down into my perennial garden where he would pee and then thirty minutes later we would do it all again. He's just like me except possibly I look much cuter on the end of a leash.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Lighten up.

Ben goes back after dinner tonight. With those empty promises in hand and more distractions and pressure than ever and he's fine with all of it. I'm hoping it doesn't take another milestone to get him home again because he is terrible with giving me his schedule, when I have everyone elses', collected as they scrawl with a half-empty black papermate pen into the dayplanner we use, writing with the dusty bumper of the van as a hard surface while I stand on the gravel on the shoulder of the highway and they always take my face in their hands and kiss me on the lips and tell me they will call often and miss me tons and they'll be back in exactly x-number of days and my hair is blowing all around my face and the dust is oppressive. I've got the dayplanner clutched against my chest as I wave until I can't see the van anymore. Dust mixed with tears makes a mess and I always come home and stick my face in a basin full of icy-cold water and promise myself I will mack on the ones who are here until they go and by then someone else will be home again.

I always hope it's Ben, but it never is. He goes the furthest, and stays the longest and it's the hardest.

Waiting for Indian Summer.

And I will find you although I wonder
If I will climb through this rock I'm under

I'm turning the page for something new
I'm finding my way through life in bloom

These hairpins are digging in to my neck.

I opted for a low chignon today, fastening my sterling hairpins just so, and forgetting I should give them a little twist to keep them in now that my hair is shorter than it used to be, now just dusting against my collarbone again instead of almost to the waist which is when these pins really come in handy. I can pick locks with these ones as well. Well, I could if I needed to, I mean. I really should have worn the pins with the poppies instead.

Next time I plan to cut my hair to my chin, hold me down so I can't get to the hairdresser. It's been over a year, I still have regrets.

This is the final day the children are home before they begin school. We're having hurricane-like weather with bright skies, wind coming from every direction and episodes of torrential rains. It's kind of sad that their last day wasn't nice enough to go for a long walk and play outside in the sun but it just didn't seem to be that kind of summer, with only a handful of days with which to soak up the warmth and squint our eyes tight against the blazing sun.

Oddly, fall is still my favorite season. An endless autumn would be the perfect match for your Bridget but it always has to rot, degenerating into winter without so much as a backward glance. Turning cold, just like I do.

I have paid for the tree-banding and the school supplies. We've packed their gym gear and snacks. We've brought down the hanging baskets and brought out the mitten basket. The gardens seem to be in final bloom and some plants have already gone into dormancy. The garden tools have been cleaned and put away and most of the heavy fall cleaning has been done now, thanks to a magnificent effort yesterday to rearrange the entire ground floor of the house to make it more liveable and people-friendly and get rid of several large items that no one had sentimental attachment to, namely, Bridget. It took hours, but it's finished and with it I have a fresh outlook going into the next season.

It's inevitable. Fall comes, then winter comes. The children begin grades 5 and 3 in spite of the fact that I'm going to miss them dearly. My days are my own again to keep up with chores, errands, work and the care of fragile miss b. In the rare moments when there's no one around I'll have the dog to talk to. We'll walk out by the tracks again like I used to do with Butterfield and I'll let my head off leash, marinating in the isolation of train whistle while the dog trots along with a stick in his mouth like a prize. The house will always be clean, I'll have less guilt because the kids will be too tired to be bored for another ten months and more worry because they are just big enough to walk together but alone to and from the schoolyard, something that has me checking for them down the sidewalk for several heartstopping moments twice a day as I wait for them to come home for lunch and then home again in the afternoon.

I'm getting used to it. This will be the fourth year for us, and it's been beneficial in the way that homeschooling never would been to introduce them to the actual abrupt and exciting roller coaster that life is. I haven't gotten used to it yet. It always takes a few weeks of change for change to sink in for me. It takes a few precious days of not doing much of anything to get to know myself again and how I function with everyone away and busy.

It'll be okay.

That's what everyone keeps telling me. I hope they're right.

The external fall preparations are complete, excepting anything that will be affected by Indian Summer which had better serve to redeem the entire year all by itself. Now it's time for the internal preparations. Somehow not everything gets done. I do what I can though. I work hard at it. I have my hair put up so it's off my neck when things heat up and I'm ready for just about anything.

Waylander and the devil.

A restoration, absolution dinner invitation was made and accepted. A simple yes thrown out because Ben was home and the devil was anxious to look over his pawns, inspect them for wear or damage and re-roast them in flames of regret before sending them off to endure a little more of the world outside of hell.

When we arrived we were let in by one of the staff, ostensibly helping out with final preparations or perhaps working on a Friday night because people do that nowadays, especially when their employers have just flown in and decided to have a late engagement and needed some things done on a timely basis. She told us Mr. C was still preparing and would we like a drink? Ben said he would look after it and after enquiring as to my well-being she asked if we needed anything else and I told her to go home, to have a lovely weekend. I'm not sure if she wondered if I could actually do that in Caleb's absence but she looked somewhat relieved and happy to escape a bit early. We can carry our own plates in from the kitchen. I do it three times a day at home.

I walked down into the living room and straight out to the balcony where a table was set for three. Black roses in the centre made me stop and catch my breath. Black. It's so rare to see them in real life, I always stop and admire them when I do. It doesn't matter if they are real or manufactured, they're just beautiful. All rose colors are beautiful but black ones just resonate that much louder to me.

I exclaimed rather sweetly, excited to see them and bent forward to stick my face into the closest bloom.

This is how you say hello?

Caleb was standing in the doorway. He shot a cuff and checked his watch. The new Breitling that someday I will pry off his wrist and wear forever even though it's very large and will provide me with all the gravity I will ever need. If I'm not mistaken I'll guess my initials are already carved into the back with the rest of his family as his good luck charm. BRC. Because he still refuses to indulge in any subsequent last names I take on.

You're early.

By moments, only. Traffic was light for a Friday night.

Punctuality is one of your charms, princess. Where is your pet?

He's getting us a drink from your kitchen. You would have passed him to get here.

Touche.

The roses are beautiful.

I'd like you to take them with you when you leave in the morning.

Ben appeared just then, holding two tumblers of ice and cranberry juice. Caleb thanked him for accepting the invitation on such short notice and asked about work and Ben talked a little of some reorganization they had gone through lately and some pre-predictions for numbers based on a Christmas release (an industry kiss of death, no less) and one Benjamin doesn't really care about at this point. He told Caleb that he has concrete plans to switch gears in the near future and things will be vastly different a year from now. I listened and worked to keep my expression neutral while Caleb watched me fail. I didn't know any of this. We had talked about things before, at length and I had asked Ben not to give up a damned thing. That he needs it.

I think they both sensed that I was become vaguely agitated by all the business- and future-talk and quickly brought the subject back to me. Where it belongs. Compliments on my hair, my skin tone of all things, still the alabaster pearl-white after an attempt to turn myself pink at the beach resulted in the massive loss of the color from my flesh within a week. They both seem to like me pale. I was annoyed so I asked Caleb if he had spoken to PJ and he said that he would leave PJ alone because here I was and it was the verbal confirmation I was seeking that no matter what happened this evening, he wasn't going to fuck with PJ's heart even though he succeeded in proving that he can fuck with anyone at any time, if he so chooses.

If I do not cooperate.

Oh, but I am. I'm sitting here on this beautiful balcony, framed in black roses and cool and lovely in the little black slip dress with the embroidery he requested and the shoes that have tiny highest heels that catch in the pattern on the iron balcony floor and so I walk on my toes a little. I twisted my hair into a low knot but let a wealth of tendrils down because that's how he likes it and I'm hoping against hope that tonight he doesn't poison my food because that's not in the rules.

Do you think I give him a hard time? Have you met Satan?

Oh, but Satan has made a history out of underestimating Ben and I together and that is what saves this to grace from certain unrecoverable debt. And that is what leaves me squarely in the crosshairs between Satan and my boys. PJ can protect himself. He shouldn't have to.

I don't put anything past Caleb, and yet I struggle with doubt when he tries to please me. I wore my best charm and I thanked him for his thoughtfulness and then as if on freaking cue, the servers I didn't see arrive advanced with our first course.

The pattern goes like this, without deviation: I eat, and listen well, because I hear so poorly, and take very small bites and even smaller sips and express appropriate interest for the topics at hand. The men talk. They eat with their hands. They ask me for my thoughts. And they watch me. I'm not sure if it's still the fascination in kind or merely because inevitably one's eyes will be drawn to the brightest subject nearby but they seem to take turns losing their focus in gazing at me. I feel like a human buffet or a delicate and rare artifact to be admired and touched (if you dare). I feel like meat sometimes and sometimes I feel like I must be the most special person alive.

I don't remember what we had for dinner. I do remember everything afterward, including leaving the half-begun raspberry truffle cake for a move to the balcony railing where Caleb pointed out the latest construction on the museum and several constellations I couldn't recognize if I tried. He and Ben remarked on the first geese migrations we saw earlier in the day. Pleasance to a fault. Charm to a bitter, inevitable end.

Caleb murmured to one of the servers that it would be fine if they would clear the table and take their leave and we retired to the living room with coffee and some pastries that remained untouched. As usual it would have been too much.

With Caleb everything is too much.

We talked about the children and their upcoming schedules for school, swimming and friends. We talked about Cole, for a time, and about my plans for writing over the fall. We didn't speak again of Ben's decisions for his night job nor did we touch on the expectations Caleb held for his return on leaving my boys alone. We never do. We don't have to say the words, they are simply there. He exploits me and I don't like it. I may like him but I hold a monstrously fearful disdain for the appetites he brings to our encounters. He thinks he is spending Cole's legacy but I still believe Cole would have been horrified.

Ben is never horrified, Ben has seen it all. Ben does it all. And if I can put some beauty on the horror that is Ben's life and extract some of his own worst cravings in the process to give him some peace of mind then I'll do what I can and live long enough to be able to block out the rest before I fall asleep at night. In a way it's a succinct and total distraction from missing Cole and needing Jake. In a way it's a fitting end to a game I have played too long, winning round after round knowing that soon the piper would come over the hill or around the bend and I would be the one paying him. In a way it's a need that I would never speak of out loud that I found a way to fill, with just a little thrill and sickness mixed in to make it something that doesn't occur very often.

In a way, my life is bespoke, designed and tailored to fit me and only me and those who can't stand to be apart from me. I don't deign to discuss it with those who wouldn't understand. Those who won't expand their minds to understand that everything is not as it appears and it won't conform to your ideals nor fail to insult your own good graces.

I brought my roses home. I earned them with good behavior. It was still dark outside and not even far into the next day as Satan predicted it would be. Because sleeping in his presence? That's something even I won't do.

And I will do almost anything.

Almost.

Don't assume.

Fine, assume away. I don't care.

Lists.

I like grapefruit or orange juice with handfuls of ice cubes. I like old VWs and new Bugattis. I have a traveler's heart but the head of a tree stump and will hardly move unless you light me on fire. I like handbags. Big bags mainly so I can carry lots of things. Like a pear and a good book and my library card and the one for Mountain equipment, too and sometimes a sweater, but only if it's cool. Every pocket also contains a bobby pin, sometimes two, and you'll find two or three more in my hair if you look hard enough.

I don't like shoes but I have a few pairs that stand out. Shoes with skulls or angels and cowboy boots in unconventional colors.

I like the inside of my brain and have never said out loud that I was bored. Ever. I can go anywhere inside my head, with no fear of the unknown. If it's unknown I can simply reimagine it to be perfect. I love wooden hair brushes and men in white button-down shirts and I like cotton candy. I love the thrill rides at the fair but only at sundown and I will never jump out of plane again because I figure I have already beaten the odds by surviving the first jump. I like pasta al dente and trying new foods and surprise get-togethers. I love growing ivy in my north-facing kitchen window and I love bath bombs from Lush, the sex bomb the most. I've been in love with Brigitte Bardot since I first laid eyes on her and Naomi Watts too. I get crushes on some unlikely fellows as well but the list is too long and you would proclaim I am bored and move on to someone else's words. Let's just say some of them might surprise you and others will downright scare you. I don't care what they've done, be good now. I don't judge people except based on how they treat me.

I love music. Not all music. I'm not prone to fits of ecstasy over country music, pop, or slow chamber orchestras, but if it's loud and qualifies as any kind of metal I am there with bells on. I can bang my head in the car at stoplights or dance under my seatbelt and make people smile. I'll wave because I don't care. I wish I could get real fruit juice in my slurpee and I wish bubble tea came without bubbles. I like pocky sticks and red strings and drawings of the hand of fatima because I think the hand means stop! You will have good luck from here on out. I'm superstitious and I carry a rabbit's foot everywhere I go. A St.Christopher's medal and an evil eye too. A keychain that says Princess. That's me.

I like farms, I like the smell, the work and the taste of vegetables fresh from the garden. I like old telephones and having to walk to the post office and the bed that everyone falls into the middle of and the wood-burning kitchen stove. I like the animals though they are always bigger than me and I liked the noise from the sawmill nearby because it meant everything was right with the world. I liked daylight there. Crickets make me terribly sad so let's focus on sunflowers which do not.

I can boil the perfect four-minute egg. The yolk is soft and moist and a rich yellow. I can also bake a banana bread that won't last twenty-four hours and I have had five difference cellphones in the past three years because if it lights up and fits in my hand I'm happier than if you give me diamonds.

I could live out of a backpack. The simpler things in life drawn me in. Hanging laundry to dry. Cooking raw. Drawing. Reading a book by candlelight. Music played around the living room or the dining room table. Smiling. If you see me out you would think I'm a fool because I wear a smile and I ask people how they are, because I used to be a scowling-troll and now I don't see the point in not Making Contact. I don't waste a lot of precious time on self-help or on risking my life when I feel like, here at halfway through, a quiet existence forgotten in a city of hundreds of thousands of people is possibly where I belong but I will always be somewhere else, someone else, inside my head.

Dumb domestic things that make me happy.

Household tip #3475853477, but not from me, for I just figured this one out today.

Fold a matching fitted and flat sheet together, place pillowcase on top, store inside the second pillowcase. Three sets per bed if you're listing toward extravagant, otherwise two sets per child, one on the bed. I would go the hardcore minimalist route and just wash and return the same sheets to the bed and only have one set per, but every now and then the puke fairy will visit and remind me that I need extra sheets.

Now my cedar chest is organized and I don't have to unfurl fifteen sheets before I find the ones that fit a big bed versus a twin.

Okay so you all do it already and I'm slow. I realize this.

Extras? Dropsheets, baby. I am the messiest painter alive.

Because every freak show has one.

I'm the voice inside of you, that says there's nothing you can't do.
If you could open up your eyes and lay your heart out on the line.
I'm the voice inside your head, that brings your mind back from the dead.
I hope that I have served you right, even if only for one night.

After twelve days away, Ben arrived home just as I was beginning the final head count in preparations to begin dinner. Ruth may enjoy the company of adults more than children, but that didn't mean she didn't choose homemade macaroni and cheese as her birthday dinner of choice. Or that I didn't cry into the roux, since I've never made a roux before and when you're cooking from scratch for twenty-six people, you really need to concentrate and I almost fled the kitchen when Ben walked into it, unannounced. Backpack. Messy hair. Flight clothes. Beard. Cigarettes. That grin. A huge gift bag for Ruth even though we had already shopped for her presents weeks ago.

I know, I said beard.

Couldn't take my eyes off him all evening. He looks so strange with it. Like a wild man. Undomesticated. Feral. I love it. Seriously. He grows a beard so very rarely. It was a sound distraction from the whole twelve days of spare to no communication with not a single inkling that he would arrive in time for the big day yesterday. I wanted to yell at him or shove him out the back door and slam it shut or give him the silent treatment.

I didn't.

I waited until the evening was complete, the children were in bed and every last dish was washed and I pointed out his communication skills sucked big time. I know he's not used to being accountable to anyone but you give up those kinds of attitudes when you get married and furthermore, when you have stepchildren with hearts and minds far more fragile than yours are. Just because children are resilient doesn't mean you can blow them off indefinitely. (And just because things change doesn't mean people change, Bridget.)

I'm not religious or fanatical, but I'm a motherfucking miracle
You knock me down and I get up again.
So hit the lights out and let the show begin.

After breakfast this morning he took off. To get a haircut and a shave. And when he comes home I know he'll look like Ben. He'll feel like Ben. And surely enough, he'll act like Ben.

Lochlan pointed out we were both doing what we do best. Ben disappears in an effort to force concern in everyone so that he can have that reassurance that we care about him even when he's away, and Bridget becomes the martyr, figuring that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket and that no one must care at all. Ben's ego strokes take all of the energy from my efforts at independence and unrequited happiness and that's something we are working on. Very hard.

In between kissing.

Sorry but DAMN. That beard is so awesome but gone by now, I'm sure. Very late last night he kissed me in the shower, and I said that kissing a wet beard is probably one of my favorite things on earth. He smiled and said it probably felt just like when he kisses one very specific part of me. I promise I did throw the shampoo at him, and I connected squarely on the chin. Problem is the beard deflected the contact and we deemed beards to be facial force-fields that protect their wearers from harm.

Maybe he should have left it alone.

And maybe I should grow a beard.

Beautiful Girl.

Today is Ruth's tenth birthday.

There is swimming to be enjoyed and books to be considered at the library, balloons to admire and then explode, cake to consume by the spoonload and presents, which I may need a forklift for, there are so many. There are also guests coming for dinner. Twenty-three of them, as a matter of fact. My child didn't want a birthday party with her peers. She just wanted all the people she loves around the same table treating her like a princess.

Sounds like someone else we know, doesn't it?

Well, that's not quite accurate. See, Ruth is her own person. She's got self-esteem and confidence and presence. She knows what she likes, she knows the difference between right and wrong, and she'll say what's on her mind with very little prompting. She's a really, really amazing girl. I can't say little any more, can I? She'd be annoyed by that, because she's not in the single digits anymore, mom.

Oh, I know, sweetheart. I just can't believe it. It happened so fast.

Alternative egos.

Last night was our newly-minted Thai Tuesday, which was demoted quickly from a weekly plan to the first Tuesday of every month instead. And will probably end more quickly then that because..well, we'll be spending all of our Tuesday nights at the rec centre from now until Christmas. Thai Wednesday doesn't have the same ring to it, but the children must continue their swimming lessons while Bridget does her best to stay out of the deep end.

Bridget's not a great swimmer, and Lochlan has stories up the wazoo about how he would have to swim beside me as I struggled out to the diving platform at the lake. Or how he would always just instruct me to stay in the shoulder-deep water at the beach and not go over my head, while he proceeded to swim to the Bay of Biscay, or so it seemed.

My deep end in this case is proverbial so no one has to worry so much about the actual water part.

Over pad thai and chopsticks last evening we all discussed the ominous silence from hell (in code because the kids kept up a running commentary on seventy other topics of note at the same time. We're a talented bunch, what can I say?) Satan's failure at swift and devastating punishment for being stood up Saturday night has been noticed. I'm sure he's just plotting something wonderful for me to be exacted at a later date. But more likely he's gone after Ben.

How do I know if I haven't spoken with him?

Exactly for that reason. I haven't spoken with him. Or Ben, for that matter. Dead silence from both sides means it's probably too late. Maybe all of it's too late. Maybe Ben's spies reported too much, as I haven't let go of Lochlan's hand in forever because I'm afraid if I do I'll get forgotten or thrown off the face of the earth when it spins. The collective argument is that Ben has to look after himself and I have to look after myself, instead of waiting, worrying and watching over everyone else. I thought I had been selfish long enough but they've been quick to point out I'm not selfish enough.

Oh.

I'm quietly panicking over here in my corner of the world, with these innuendos and mixed messages and boy-buffets and hurt feelings and killer wagons and silent phones. Ruth's birthday is tomorrow, for heaven's sake. Why hasn't he called? Will he ever call? Does holding Lochlan's hand endlessly or sleeping in the oppressive heat that he creates spell the end of something Ben already asked me to end when he left because he thinks these separations are far too much for me to manage? I said not a chance and he asked me to use what I had available to feel better then, while he's gone, because that's the deal I got when the ghosts came to stay, and we can fight about it later if he ever comes home. So I use Lochlan. Just like he uses me. I don't feel better. I'm sure he does but he's also all I have right now, isn't he?

I don't understand any of this.

I looked at Lochlan and asked him what I should do. He kissed my forehead and squeezed my hand.

Stay here, Bridgie. And don't go where the water will be over your head.

Fact: Paint it Black is the only Stones song I enjoy.

In the kitchen all that remains is to touch up the ceiling a little, scrape and paint all the trim a durable, easy to scrub white and then sand the walls down around the stove and extend the back splash from the sink all the way over around the stove to the door. I think that will work.

I love this color. It's a warm yellow-orange. Exactly the color of pumpkin guts! it sounds terrible but it looks terrific, I promise. And everything is washed up already because there's only one full wall in the whole room, the rest is broken up by cupboards, windows, sinks, doors, heating grates, etc. So we can paint the whole room three times over and still have two-thirds of a gallon left, or whatever measurement this can is, I can't tell, it's completely covered with paint.

I like having the new paint be a warm, bright color. I'm so predisposed to dark colors and cool unfriendly greens and blues that this is a complete anomaly.

Rest assured, I haven't lost my mind completely. I'm still going to make all the outside doors, heating grates and outside and basement steps black. The main and back staircases are varnished wood, I'll never touch those as long as I'm here. But black is okay, because it's the color of charred pumpkin guts.

Equally cool.

Leaning over you here, cold and catatonic
I catch a brief reflection of what you could and might have been
It's your right and your ability
To become my perfect enemy

Wake up and face me, don’t play dead cause maybe
Someday I’ll walk away and say you disappoint me
Maybe you’re better off this way

I had breakfast with an old friend this morning. Remember Claus? He had all kinds of thoughts on Bridget nineteen months post-flight, on Ben in absentia, on Lochlan, on the children and on the upcoming winter.

All kinds.

I am still processing.

Instead I'll tell you that long after breakfast, I counted sixteen lily pads in the creek, the sixteenth one curled so that Henry was convinced it was actually a frog. Four blooms on the planter by the back patio and one lone raspberry intended to defy the coming frost. The strawberry plant seems to be finished, much to the dog's chagrin, and the grass seed is coming along nicely on the spots where we played dodge ball and ruined the lawn in the space of a single afternoon.

I picked up some hockey tape for someone. I can't remember who, I'll leave it on the table by the front door and someone will thank me for it eventually.

I made plans inside my head to go to the concrete room less, and hang on words said by boys less and put up with less, making my own plans, doing a little more of what I would like to do and maybe even worrying and waiting a little less.

Like right now. I had thirty minutes to spare so I brought out a forbidden cup of coffee and my laptop and I had planned to enjoy some solitude and fresh air in the backyard but it's been quickly quashed by my neighbor who has decided to mow his lawn with an enthusiastically loud lawnmower. I already smiled and waved and he grinned and probably mowed half of my front lawn, I can tell because it's taking him twice as long as usual.

I will reciprocate in the winter when the snow falls and I shovel the sidewalk in front of five houses because winters begin in exhilaration and end in despair for me as the novelty (HA.) of the snow wanes. By February I will have passed the shovel-torch (now there's an invention waiting to happen) to PJ or Chris and not care in the least if anyone can make it down the sidewalk but in the meantime we do neighborly things because it makes the world a little more comfortable for everyone and it helps bring me out of my shell.

Yes, the kevlar one.

Thank heavens I'm a turtle and not a frog.

I've kissed frogs though. Just in case. As per my suspicions, they don't always turn into princes. And that's okay too. Sometimes princesses are just turtles in dresses.

And no, I have not been drinking. Skateboard Jesus told me I looked as if I needed a drink. He was right, as usual, but I think I'll stick with coffee. I want to process today, not bury it.

Maybe I can slip today under a lily pad when no one's looking. I can tape it there with this handy tape.

Yeah, I think that's exactly what I should do.

Staring down the last full week of summer.

(Oh, regrets, would you just go hide in the closet and I'll pull you out in the spring again with the raincoats and squirtguns? Thank you. I'm not going to itemize, I'm too busy doing other personal inventory. Not going to itemize that either. Lord, we would be here all day, wouldn't we?)

Oddly I have found some sort of resigned positivity, namely because when I just step in and do it or step in and refuse, things seem better. So there you have it. It's a gorgeous day at the farm, starting out cold but now sunny and crisp and clear. Not a cloud in the sky. I woke up in the warmest arms on the planet, since surrogate husbands seem to be in ample supply these days while real ones are not. Out here I sleep in t-shirts and long johns so it was more like having a living blanket than anything else. Down the hall the delicious smell of woodsmoke and fresh coffee filled up my nose and my ears were gifted the quiet crackle of a fire in the fireplace.

I think I could move here, save for the fact that Nolan doesn't have music on much unless his sons are around or I spin the dial on the radio on the table from talk to rock. That and the fact that it's a difficult drive in the winter make me hesitate. Plus it's isolated. I'm so thoroughly spoiled, having all the boys close by but far enough to send home when they argue with each other. Besides, when I do move, and it will be sooner rather than later, I'm going to head further than this climate reaches, because after surviving seven winters here and staring down an eighth, I think I've had just about enough.

And I will miss the farm. We'll be back here soon, I hope. Long weekends are made for this place, I think.

I've got a semi-busy, semi-quiet week ahead, however. Finish painting the kitchen (yes, again). Celebrate Ruth's birthday (she will be ten years old. Two years until Junior high, mom! OH MY GOD STOP GROWING, CHILD.). Take the kids to the pool and the library and grocery shopping, again. Coddle PJ, because after an argument he turns in the sweetest man alive and I always enjoy him seventeen times as much as usual, when he's a metronomic pain in the ass. Ignore calls/texts/boxes from Caleb. Make the list of hockey gear required because the boys will miss things otherwise and hockey starts soon even though we seem to be down a goalie.

(Positive, remember, Bridge?)

Look for a new breadmaker because I'm sick of running out, sick of paying six bucks a loaf and sick of bread that tastes like cardboard, I'll go back to making my own.

Oh, and I need to make a CD of Metallica's setlist so I will be ready for the show this fall. I always do before a big concert, helps build momentum! Even though momentum comes from my platform skull shoes. I've already decided I'll be wearing those when I catch James' eye. Shameless, I know. Leave me be, that's one of those twenty-year crushes, transferred from Cliff Burton when he died.

Maybe it's me.

Speaking of crushes, and on a vacuous note besides, we tuned into a repeat of Saturday Night Live last night, the one with John McCain, who was campaigning for something or other, I don't know, I don't pay attention to politics, but the musical guest was some guy with a fledgling beard named David Cook. While he was a little light musically I thought he was adorable. I looked up his music this morning and as usual I am the last to find about new artists. He's everywhere, this guy.

So I think I'll just crawl back into my blue-velvet and muscle-lined world and stay there. And when I paint my kitchen I'll listen to Lamb of God. They open for Metallica, you know.

Oh, that's right. You already knew.

That's okay. I know other things. Things you'll find out a long ways from now, so we're even, I think. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. We are heading home.

And for the record? Right now Caleb is actually the least of my worries so I don't care if I'm crossing him or not. Thanks for the concern though. We are here safe and sound.

Just like it's cold before it's warm
You'll get back here again
And I'll wait I'll wait I'll wait I'll wait
I'll wait I'll wait I'll wait I'll wait
I'll wait I'll wait till you fall from grace
It's the calm before the storm
It's there then it's gone

It's so early my brain isn't awake yet. Lochlan, PJ and I are taking the kids up to Nolan's farm for the weekend. It will be a good chance for them to play in the creek, ride the horses and enjoy a few cookouts, complete with marshmallows. We might even sleep outside under the stars if the nighttime temperatures hold.

We'll play games and make gnome houses out of sticks and talk and get tons of fresh non-city air. We'll muck stalls and cook for Nolan and sleep.

I'm not going to see Caleb tonight, in other words. I'm just not going to let him do this anymore. I haven't figured out how, exactly, but I'm working on it. We're working on it.

Beholden.

I wish I could fly.

Henry says this regularly and it's about as chilling as you would imagine. A child's unintentional dream interrupted by the weight of reality. That weight crushes my heart on a daily basis. Henry puts on his costume cape and will run around the house making airplane sounds for the rest of the afternoon.

Caleb thinks life would be easier for me if I would just consent to send them off to boarding school. Even a Waldorf school, he professes, as if I'm considering his suggestion. I'm not, for the record, and I won't. In the event that I can't make their decisions for them, PJ is in charge, and PJ isn't any more likely to ship them off than anyone else. I think Caleb would like a clear line of sight, frankly. He's growing tired of lurking in the shrubbery again.

Case in point, and for the future, a point that might change PJ's powers under the law, sadly enough:

Between arguing over whether or not Caleb even has a say over where the kids go to school, he let it slip that he was responsible for PJ's latest hook-up.

Remember that scene in The Devil's Advocate where Al Pacino is telling Keanu Reeves he can have anything his heart desires?

I imagine it went exactly like that. And PJ's had a rough go with online dating services and friends of friends and I bet he just said what the hell and jumped for the brass ring that the devil was holding. See, that's what Caleb does. He gives you whatever you want and then some.

Then he takes ownership of your soul.

By using PJ's vulnerabilities now he proves that he still has power I can only dream of, and he gets a new inroad into my life altogether. This is not cool.

It's cool with PJ at present. Who has been telling everyone within earshot that he's going to marry this girl. Yes, the one he met four days ago but only told me about on Wednesday night because he didn't know what to say, so he left out all the parts about meeting her through Satan. I'm sure he wouldn't have told me at all but he didn't have a choice. I had to drag it out of him one word at a time. I asked if I could meet her, and he refused.

His reason?

You've ruined too many potential relationships, princess. Let's just wait a little bit.

What the fuck, PJ.

He's the one who has ruined them by comparing everyone to me. I had nothing to do with it. Hell, I'm certainly no prize, so I highly doubt they weren't good enough for him. He wanted a clone. For a very long time.

But now his soul doesn't belong to him anymore and all the rules have changed.

I asked Caleb to call off the hooker or whatever she is. He told me I was brilliant but no. I told him if he messed with PJ's heart he should just go dig his own grave because I'm not going to let him ruin anything anymore. He asked if I would prefer that he shift his focus back to Ben. Then he said he thought Ben was happy to be out of focus while he medicates his pain away again. Then he smoothly changed the subject and reminded me he has recommendations on several schools that would be perfect for the kids. See what he does?

You've got them both, don't you?

The children? You don't know where they are?

No, PJ and Ben. You're pulling strings again, aren't you?

Bridget, I don't know how you see me, but I'm not as evil as you seem to want to label me.

Then stop.

Alright.

Just like that?

Of course not. Remember our arrangement? For my silence and Henry's emotional wellbeing?

Yes. I don't need your silence anymore, remember?

We'll just shift the terms slightly. Protect your friends. Your children..our children...were never in harm's way. They're children, after all.

I don't understand.

Sure you do. So don't make any plans for the weekend. And I'll be sure that PJ is let down easy. Wear the black dress. Don't cry until I've made you cry. I'll have the car pick you up.

I'll tell everyone.

Go ahead. They can't save you or they would have by now.

What about Ben?

Ben will reach a point where he is too far gone to care anymore. You should know him well enough by now. Remember, he's thrilled to share you. It eases his guilt in being away so much.

I think you underestimate Benjamin. And me, for that matter.

Is that so?

Stay away from them.

Done. Your wish is my command, princess.

Argh.

Bring some words with you. Good conversation is the perfect foreplay.

I still hate you.

No, you don't. See you tomorrow, princess.

Wanderlust.

wanderlust
: a very strong or irresistible impulse to travel [syn:
wanderlust, itchy feet]

That's what's going on. I'm trying to run away before winter comes back. The whole thing feels unsatisfying. I feel caged in and useless and boring. Frustrated.

Quantify it, Bridge.

But that's just it. I can't. Travel the world and define yourself. I don't even know where to begin. Start over. I'm too tired. Jolt yourself out of the rut. How do you do that? I'm still the human dishwasher, still making breakfast. Still brushing the dog. Be grateful. Oh, but I am.

I have never taken a single thing in my life for granted. So don't you dare tell me I'm not fortunate for the life I have.

See what I mean? I have no answers. I slip so easy. Work is tough. The market got tight all of the sudden and no one wants the words and so I stop asking. Which is precisely what I shouldn't do. I stop looking after myself and begin to tread the misery waters. Waiting. Watching. Wondering.

What is the meaning of life?

You've got to be fucking kidding.

This is not my life. My life is flat on my back on the beach. Hot sand and a rough towel. Drops of saltwater drying on my pink-brown skin. Hair curled into ringlets from the swim. Squinty eyes with the sunglasses as a hairband. My super-white teeth exposed in the widest smile you've ever seen. The best book I have ever read, a bottle of Pop Shoppe pop in Lime Rickey and a bag of salt & vinegar chips. No distractions, no interruptions. Just the roar of the relentless ocean breeze in my ears and the sun baking me silly. Life will somehow punctuate those times because it always does, but that will be my grounding point.

I don't have a grounding point at present. Somewhere over the past few years, I went a little crazy, you see and now I'm trying to figure out the easiest way back but I was never very good with directions. I don't hear so well either so when you told me I probably never even realized it.

That's okay. The point is waiting for me. There will always be a beach towel I can grab and a good book to read and someday I'll get there and be calm because there won't be a before the beach history or an after the beach future. It will just become an endless moment. Time will stop, you see. When I tell it to.

I have a feeling it's going to be when I die.

It's quiet tonight. I am sunburned and overtired and just a little bit hungry and trying not to gloss over the wrong things, trying to keep the focus on the right things, trying to get that feeling back of summer in my favorite jeans, shirt tails tied up just right, hair uncut for several years running blowing all over my face. Hot-sticky summer pouring in through the windows of the truck, radio on playing good music that I can't catch because the roar of the highway is too loud.

All I see are cornfields and I turn to Lochlan with his sunbleached curls and sunburned face.

Are we there yet?

He laughs and says nothing.

I asked him again tonight, and again he laughed and said nothing. It didn't have the same effect that it used to. I'm not sure if that's because of me, because of him, or because of time.

Probably a combination of all three.

Ben and the fit of the doubt.

I found him easily. Always in the same place late on Saturday evenings. Going over his notes for the service the next day. Tired eyes full of mischief. Hair curling and sticking out straight, in his eyes, over his ears. Rumpled white shirt rolled to the elbows. Board shorts. Bare feet, always. Jacob had the biggest feet. It was like tripping over loaves of bread left on the floor by mistake.

He was sitting in the big overstuffed parlour chair in the den, a single lamp lit beside him. Papers stacked high on the table, the floor, his lap. He had a book open and he was writing on a piece of paper balanced on the page, lifting it every few words to read something underneath.

Hey, princess. I need five more minutes and I think I'm good to go.

He smiled absently and went back to writing and I nodded, a habit I hate, especially when you know the person won't see it because they aren't looking, and I went to gaze out the wall of windows into the backyard, still resplendent with tiny white lights and wind chimes making the garden look like a fantasy world for fairies and small princesses alike.

Movement behind me. I turned to watch as Jacob packed up his papers and put everything in messy piles on the desk. He shook the hair out of his eyes and smiled and crossed the room to wrap his arms around me. He planted a huge kiss on my forehead.

How are you doing, princess?

Good. I miss Ben though.

He frowned.

Ben has issues you shouldn't have to see.

I'm not a child, Jake.

No but if he cared about you he would spare you the ugliest truths, Bridget.

What purpose would that serve? Honestly? I'd rather see flaws and all. It's liberating and touching. He doesn't care if he's vulnerable in front of me.

It's an albatross, a burden you shouldn't have to bear.

He's my friend, I can help him.

He's your friend, he shouldn't subject you to his demons.

That's a selfish thing for you to say. We're supposed to help the ones we love.

We'll help him. I want him to stay away from you, that's all.

I'm closer to him than anyone.

And he took advantage of that.

It's a cry for help, Jake.

It's a crime, Bridget.

So throw the book at him and then you can feel righteous in the face of misery. Isn't that what you want? To be better than everyone?

All people should strive to be better.

He was sure that was the end of the conversation, but I wasn't going to let it go and he never forgot it. It changed everything.

Closer, then.

What, Bridget?

You want to make sure that you're closer, Jake.

He sat there with the question on the tip of his tongue, one he couldn't ask because he was afraid the answer might turn out to be one he didn't want to hear. I didn't say anymore and I should have. I really should have said something.

I went down this evening and stood in front of my dead Jacob with my offering of the dead dragonfly and he looked pained, worn and drawn. He tried to shield the weariness from his eyes for me. I would only be there for a moment.

Oh, Bridget. I can't bring things back to life.

Sure you can. God has given you the gift of presence in my life, it must be a package deal. Resurrect this and then you and Cole can bring each other back to life for me. Then you can promise me no one ever dies ever again.

Time on earth is measured, princess. You can't change that.

Bullshit. You chose your departure when you flew.

Flew? Is that how you describe it? Beautiful.

Don't change the subject.

Fine. A question for you. If you had known we would only have eighteen months together would you still have spent them with me?

That isn't fair, Jake, and you know it.

Why don't you feel safe that he's here to stay, Bridget?

No one has ever given me a reason to.

Ben has.

How do you figure?

He wears his heart on the outside for you. He gives you everything. His frustration, his jealousy. His rage. His happiness. His misery. His bliss. There's no mistaking how he feels.

Why couldn't you do that?

I wanted to feel righteous, just like you guessed after I banned him from the house. I was petty and jealous and I wanted to be everything. Instead I was nothing.

You weren't. You were everything.

No. But I knew he could be. That's why I picked him.

Pick is a strong word. You asked me to consider him and it was a surprise after so much adversity between the two of you.

I was selfish in life. I didn't want to be selfish in death.

So bring back the bug. Make him fly. Make him hover. Prove to me that you're real.

He smiled, so gently. Just like that night from his chair while he was distracted, hurried.

It doesn't matter if I'm real. What matters is that you keep me in a place where you can work through the feelings you hold. That's very important. I never had that capacity, Bridget. It's one of the very things that keeps you so resilient.

I'm not resilient.

Take a deep breath.

I did and I waited for him to say more and he didn't.

Now what?

Go love, princess.

You didn't help me.

You helped yourself.

How?

You figured out that Ben isn't in this for any reason other than because he loves you. Instead of trying to be perfect or pious or logical or better, he simply presents himself to you, full of flaws and mistakes and offers to be with you. That's something the rest of us couldn't manage. We couldn't let you see the weaknesses because we were afraid. Ben comes to you with the fear up front like a name tag. He doesn't try to prevent you from spending time with anyone or lay down rules, he just keeps going with the same dogged faith that since he gave you absolutely everything he has, that it will be enough, even as you turn to the others for comfort in his absence. And upon his return you'll be handed back. He trusts everyone he loves.

And you didn't have the same kind of faith.

I'm not half the man he is.

No one is, Jake.

You're right, princess.

And I'm safe.

Yeah, you are. At last.

Oh good, because I really need to let go of this dragonfly now.

He laughed and then he was gone, and I was standing alone in that room with the bare lightbulb swinging gently. I took another deep breath and I vanished too.

Antagony.

Isn't that what the antagonist creates?

Lochlan laughed and then he said he would come back and I should tell the internet at large, to cause much horrification and antagony. We all make up words. It's a hobby. We need each other. Not a hobby. You wouldn't understand, so don't even try.

It was Ben's idea. I thought the pizza delivered without a word spoken would rescue the night. He figures Lochlan can do it better and with less cholesterol. Generous to a fault. If only he would extend that much courtesy to himself.

The Net.

Back in 1995 or '96 I saw a movie about a woman who was completely introverted. Her entire life was online. The best and only memorable part of the movie to me (sorry Ms. Bullock) was that she could order pizza. Online. Without having to call.

I thought that was the cat's ass. The only thing greater would be a food replicator. Seriously. And a mere fourteen years later it has come to pass. I jumped online and ordered a pizza. It will be here in forty-five minutes.

This changes everything.

Point me toward a cake delivery joint and I will never leave the house again.

(Things are looking up this afternoon, by the way. Lochlan went home. The rain stopped. Ben called. All very good things.)

Yesterday morning Ben found a huge dragonfly in the garage. Dead and yet perfectly preserved. I screamed to the holy hills and then decided that since it was dead I should save my breath. I'm going to take it down to the angels later and maybe they can resurrect it. Maybe they could resurrect each other while they're at it and save me from myself. I'm sure there's all sorts of talents involved in becoming intermediaries between mortals and God. They probably don't tell me so that I don't ask for things I shouldn't have.

I'll let you know what they say later on.

Back into a pumpkin.

(Don't be alarmed, it's kind of a love-hate thing.)

Sunday evenings have become a rather comical dance. We should be so used to it by now but it's not getting easier. The call came. Mere hours remaining and Ben would be whisked away once more. Back to the states, back to his genius-grind. Back to working on the record so that they can go out on the road, learn to love it, learn to hate it and come home and do it all over again. Groundhog day in career-form, punctuated only by glorious moments on stage when everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs, around five seconds before the lights come on.

Yeah.

It's worth it, he says and he smiles that stupid shit-eating grin of his. The one that makes me smile in spite of whatever dastardly thing he has just done.

I'm not sure which part he meant was worth it, however, because it didn't seem like the part where he encouraged me to take a nap in his arms on the couch in the middle of the day, or the part where we got to the airport and my eyes drowned themselves in spite of my promises to teach them to swim and he turned me into Daniel's arms because he can't deal with it.

He was so calm in the midst of almost fifty thousand people. So calm surrounded by glasses of beer and smoke so thick you could eat it. So calm when we jumped up and down and sang along. So calm when I got nervous at the end, as we made our way back to the row of cars and the crowds were thick and hostile and security grew more lax the further we ventured from the stadium. So calm when we got home and realized we were baked, fried and broiled six ways from sundown.

This is his life, maybe. And maybe in a husband I have bit off more than I can chew, because this is not my life and this many people make me nervous and the levels take away the vocals and then hours of waiting and the staring as they wonder who we are and then a few moments of shallow familiarity and pressing hands and 'insert city here' seem too smooth and far too easy and possibly he is lowering himself to be here only because it's a sure thing when there are no sure things in life. Numbers and playing the game and lobbing percentages across a boardroom table and having someone else pick your clothes when you go on the big television show and the guilt of the wife with her drowned green eyes at home can't really be any fun, can it?

The knowledge that music is as much his escape as it is mine is confirmed hourly in this house, only he makes the escape he wants for himself and I'm mostly forced to find it by proxy. Watching his eyes last night as he watched the people, as he absorbed the energy from this side of a stage was fascinating to me, it's a side of Ben I am gifted a sidelong glance at only a few times a year. It's a side he hides. He isn't like the rest of us. Ben is Ben and you would have to know him to grasp the depth of that stupid, flippant phrase.

I don't think he's all that comfortable on this side, and yet we do what we can with the time we have to make it seem like he is, that he can be, that he will be, someday, maybe. Probably twenty-five years from now, if he manages to sustain the kind of energy that Brian Johnson still possesses. If he ever gets to that degree of famous. Sometimes it worries me. I've seen the inside of his head, he could pull it off, if he wanted to, but it's also the inside of his head that holds him back.

It's a sure thing from my vantage point, because I'm always on this side, and I see things about Ben that can't be deduced from the numbers the label throws around or from the wardrobe stylist who combs his hair.

I'm thinking I should become a rock star too. Then someone would comb my hair.

And I would be the one who gets to always leave.

Only I could never choose that kind of fame. The price is simply too high. Ironic, because it doesn't even come close to the premium on grace and humbleness. Not by a long shot.

He has both, thankfully. Paid for in full.

I've watched you change into a fly
I looked away
You were on fire
I watched a change in you
It's like you never had wings
Now you feel so alive

Sex, drugs and Rock and Roll.

I don't think there's going to be a post today. Bridget's still high, complete with ringing ears. Almost got run over by a limousine carrying the band. All in all, a great night.

PS. The drugs were not mine. The people in front of us seemed to have an endless supply, God bless them.

PSS. AC/DC? Awesome. Best show ever. Seriously.

But I can't think or hear so tomorrow. A post or something.

Straight-faced.

I never smoked no cigarettes
I never drank much booze
But I'm only a man, don't you understand
And a man can sometimes lose
You gave me something I never had
Pulled me down with you
Pulled me up, think I'm in love
Hope you can pull me through

I didn't think Ben was going to make it home for the show but he's here and he's managed to empty his head significantly enough to remain in the present instead of being absent while standing right in front of me. He goes from people anticipating his every move and fetching whatever he needs/wants to having to get up at six in the morning, walk the puppy and then make breakfast to deliver to his lovely wife as she slumbers early on a Saturday morning.

And I love it.

I actually seem physically incapable of sleeping in and am the early morning dog walker. If I walk the dog first then the dog is happy and I can go back out running. It was nice not to get up. I lay there and listened and drifted and enjoyed.

So I'm not running. And Ben went downstairs and then came back up with his own coffee and breakfast, because he couldn't find the trays to bring it all up at once. He even dipped my strawberries in sugar because he said they were very sour compared to the bananas.

I think he likes this.

I like this. I like him being home and around and I like walking through rooms and finding him somewhere I didn't expect. I like that I can send him a text message and he'll answer in person or appear in the doorway instead of via the telltale vibration of the phone to respond.

I wish I could keep him here. I would build him a room (oh, wait, I did) and he would have everything he needs and we'd never have to say goodbye and I would never have that horrible empty feeling of missing him. I would put paper up against the glass to block out the world, a chair under the doorknob, maybe. We could change our names. No one would ever bother us again.

He does love his office. He's up there right now answering emails and reading things and whatever else rock stars do when confronted with strange phenomena like 'desks' and 'file cabinets'.

I'm kidding. He's had desk jobs before. He actually has a whole other life outside of amplifiers and microphones and tour dates. It just isn't nearly as much fun.

Well, the part about bringing your wife breakfast in bed is fun. When she pays you back like I did, it is. Only I got out of bed and followed him to his office to exact my appreciation, chair under the doorknob, just like I said. The desk has a purpose now in Ben's mind, let me tell you.

Actually, I don't think I will tell you. I think you can figure it out for yourselves.

Up in arms.

Summer might have passed us by. I have no use for the corn on the cob, honey, strawberries and things to barbecue because it's been raining and about seven to fifteen degrees endlessly. Give me a break, summer. How in the hell am I supposed to shore up for a long cold prairie winter if you give me nothing to recharge on?

On a good front, the weather for tomorrow night's outdoor AC/DC show looks to be sunny and 22 degrees. We have parking figured out and we have our tickets printed so it should be smooth. I'm not a fan of crowds and this will be something in the neighborhood of 42000 people. Should be interesting. Wish me luck, I will have a deathgrip on both children and my eyes on the stage.

I also heard a massive rumor that KISS will show up and play, but again it remains to be seen.

What else? We ran today. My toes are worlds better. A neighbor eyed the needle marks on my arm yesterday and I didn't tell her it was from blood tests to check my thyroid, etc. because I'm wicked like that. I bruise hideously. When I get the results I will be interested to see what's failing first. This whole middle-age full physical/workup/baseline health crap is for the birds, you know.

I ate the last bran muffin. Which is okay, we're getting groceries today and stopping at the library. Daniel has eaten everything. He and Henry are both growing, I think, as Henry went for his favorite jeans this morning and couldn't get them fastened anymore. We already call him Moose. Biggest eight year old I've ever seen. The good news is he's growing into several pairs of pants and if we run short I'll go get more.

PJ has a cold. I'm sure that's of interest. He's a noisy sufferer, too. I'm glad I don't live with him, sometimes. He sounds horrific on the phone. Imagine the snoring.

Oh and I suppose I should point out TUCKER'S HOME!!!!

Haha.

See ya.

Daniel.

I have two brothers-in-law. There is the evil one, who is technically not even my brother-in-law anymore.

And then there is Daniel.

Daniel is Ben's little brother. We say little because he's only around six feet tall. I don't know the exact number, he never stops moving long enough for me to check. He is thirty-eight, has brown eyes and caramel-colored hair that he wears long. Not hippie-long but hipster-long, so that he pretty much fits into any crowd. He's as angular as his big brother is but more muscled and less wiry, still rail-thin, still with the smile that appears to make his whole face widen and light up.

He is fun, personified. He's always up for anything. He'll do anything, listen to any band, watch any movie (including Mamma Mia! with Ruth yesterday in which he sang all the songs out loud and she was thrilled that he knew them) and eat everything. He'll spend hours wandering around the house. He can fall asleep on a roller coaster and he'll buy a t-shirt and wear it every third day for the next ten years. Never ever ever take him into the bulk food section at a grocery store because he'll try one of everything and then try and count up what he ate to pay for, leading to long lines at the checkout and an inevitable warning to buy first, sample later.

He's only ever eaten one lip gloss, and that was because he wanted to know what the fuss was about. He said it tasted like sticky, manufactured fruit gel. Which is exactly what lip gloss is.

He plays guitar but only two songs. He much prefers to admire Ben's playing.

He does odd jobs and mostly hangs out in the marketing department at advertising agencies who hire him for his quirky ideas that quickly become overshadowed by his lack of attention to detail. Which is interesting, I think, because his BlackBerry is well-organized and he's never failed to be punctual or memorable when it comes to us, just when it pertains to actual employment.

Daniel is delicate and we spoil him. You think they spoil me? You should see everyone look after Danny.

Especially Schuyler.

It's very sweet to watch them together. So sweet it makes you ache for simple things like love and sunsets and crackling fires. Schuyler will take off his fleece jacket and put it on Daniel. He'll always ask him if he's hungry. Daniel, in return, reaches for Schuyler's hand to hold pretty much any time they are in close proximity. They've had their issues and they can fight almost as well as Bridget and...anybody, but at the same time it's a deep, lasting love that I feel fortunate to bear witness to. Schuyler taught Daniel to cook. Patiently, thoroughly because both Ben and Daniel were convinced through most of their twenties and early thirties that "food" meant getting a case of beer and calling for a pizza to be delivered. Or having Bridget feed them.

Bridget does feed them. Fancy that.

Daniel is also the biggest male affection whore I have ever met.

Unapologetically so. Importantly so.

Thank God. And it's all for me. Schuyler, move over. Okay, thanks. That's better.

Daniel is awesome. The minute he walks into the house he hugs the children and then he is all mine to mack on for as long as I like. His arms are perpetually stuffed with Bridget. There is no tension. He doesn't like girls so there's no jealousy either. There is only arms that are sort of like Ben's but not quite and the classic kangaroo care that I have sought out from Daniel when all else has failed me in the world since Jake left it and Ben couldn't pull himself together to take care of it. He'll wrap us both in a blanket and just hold me, whether it's for hours or days, if need be. He just holds tight and rocks sometimes and sometimes he just sits.

And he loves his brother. So much it's hard to quantify. He idolizes Ben. He lives vicariously through Ben's adventures and he looks forward to the times when the two of them can just hang out. Get some food and just spend time when Ben is in town, because it's much more rare and precious than now it used to be when they were growing up. He listens to Ben's music and like the rest of us, has his speed dial programmed predictably: A for voicemail, B for Benjamin.

You all thought B would be for Bridget. Nope. (I'm usually filed under P for princess. Sad, I know).

Ben has a bigger place in our world than he might believe. I don't think half the time he has a sweet clue exactly how important he is to his little brother. Daniel doesn't believe in all that much. And maybe as a collective we have become jaded through the years. Death changes people and people who have no business being in charge wind up that way. And so Ben became Daniel's everything, while Daniel has always been Ben's everything. Like boys, they just don't say it until something happens.

I thought last year before Christmas when Schuyler rolled their car and walked away without a scratch while Daniel wound up with broken facial bones and the mother of all full-body bruising that Benjamin was gone for good. He lost it. Coming that close to losing the last immediate member of his family sent him into a sort of despair that left Daniel incredibly touched, because Ben could be cold sometimes. But Ben isn't cold anymore and they seem to appreciate each other more the older they get. Ben rebounded quickly and enlisted everyone to help look after Daniel until he was repaired enough to...uh...look for another job.

God love him. I gave him a hundred dollars for gas this morning and I daresay he'll show up with fast food for lunch, because, well...

That's what Ben would do. (And has done. Seriously!)

Daniel's going to stay here for the whole next week too. I will take the hit to my pantry (and my purse) in exchange for his endless hugs. He says I am his Sugar Mama.

Huh. He's Bridget in male form, isn't he?